Judging personality can be explosive. Like fuel propels a jet, judging someone positively can speed a person toward her goals. A negative judgment, in contrast, can explode a person's plans, leaving behind only shattered hopes and dreams.
Examples of judgments that can propel a person forward include when:
- voters judge a candidate as capable of leading, and elect her to office.
- a career counselor perceives an employee to be conscientious and helps him to find employment.
- an awards committee judges a candidate's character as worthy of a prize, bestows that prize, and helps her attain her goals.
- community members discover that one of their own is from a well-respected family, which raises his status.
Although positive judgments abound, negative judgments like these can take their toll:
- voters judge a candidate's personality as lacking in moral fiber; the description "sticks" and the candidate's political future is over.
- a jury determines that the defendant's nature is to deceive others, lie, and cheat; the jury convicts the man and the judge sends him to jail.
- a psychiatrist assesses a person's mental status and concludes that she is out of touch with reality, psychologically incompetent, and therefore must be institutionalized.
At other times, an individual may react so powerfully to a negative judgment as to destroy him or herself:
- a murderer may kill his victim because (he perceived) the victim had demeaned his personality - insulted him. The murderer's only remaining future is in jail.
- a man in a jealous state seeks evidence of his wife's infidelity, concludes, "My wife is a slut," and kills her. He, too, spends the rest of his life in jail.
- another husband learns that other people believe his wife slept with another man. Some judge the husband as "less of a man" to put up with her. The only way to reclaim his reputation, he may decide, is to harm his wife, still further jeopardizng his own future -- and hers.
Organizations render judgments that steer some people off-course while pushing others further toward their goals:
- when a manager judges someone as lazy and careless, that person's career may be sidetracked or ended.
- When a teacher judges a student as gifted, the student's future in the school and in getting a job may be assured.
Self-judgments affect us too:
- judge yourself as unable to succeed and you may be less likely to even try.
- judge yourself as able to carry out a task and you will be more likely to do well.
There are numerous lesser judgments which we engage in every day: judging who is on time, who to trust with one's house key, who left the lights on. We judge who can be trusted with our investments, or who can borrow our car. We make judgments we hope never to test: which relatives might care for us (or our children) in case disaster strikes and we are unable to do so ourselves.
Judgments of character can provoke an explosion among groups who hold a stake in the assessment and are dismayed by the process. Court-room trials can trigger riots if people believe someone was wrongly convicted. Accusations of slander are leveled against people who criticize those we admire. A potentially-stigmatizing psychiatric diagnosis may be criticized, and outraged commentary may be posted on the web if it appears biased in some ways. When a member of a rich and powerful family is treated as "better than others" members of the public are sure to point it out.
Judgments, like explosives, can detonate in a controllled fashion, or unpredictably.
My hypothesis is that both those who judge personality and those who criticize such judgments often lose sight of the explosive territory they enter. Even professional psychologists are limited in understanding why, for example, when they interpret a client's behavior (a form of judgment) the client so often resists.
By understanding personality judgment in the broad sweep of our cultural history, it will be possible to better come to grips with judgments of ourselves and others, and to better inform ourselves as to when and how it makes sense to judge. Making judgments is never easy. It has never been easy. It has never been done perfectly. Yet it always has been done because it must be done.
This post and those to follow continue what I began in November 2008, illuminating the natural history of judging personality that takes place around us, and has (I have argued) taken place throughout history.
In the coming weeks, I will continue with my examination of judging personality, including the earliest evidence of such practices.
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Welcome back to readers of the "Judging Personality" series of posts...
Click here for more information about the Personality Analyst posts, including schedules, coverage, key terminology, etc..
Click here for previous posts in the series.
Notes: Berg, I. A. & Fox, V. (1947). Factors in homicides committed by 200 males. Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 109-119. 200 males convicted of 1st or 2nd degree murder, murdered their wives for reasons of infidelity or arguments over money; males murdered other males for perceived insults. "A man whose wife is unfaithful...will be judged" Vandello, J. A., & Cohen, D. (2003). Male honor and female fidelity: Implicit cultural scripts that perpetuate domestic violence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 997-1010.
The opening three paragraphs to the post were copyedited lightly 1/08/09.
© Copyright 2009, John D. Mayer
