The psychological trap that distorts how you see difficult people

The psychological trap that distorts how you see difficult people View our Twitter (X) feedView our Youtube channelView our Instagram feedView our Substack feedView our Spotify feed The psychological trap that distorts how you see difficult people Once you decide what kind of person someone is, every interaction becomes supporting evidence. Here’s how to interrupt the cycle. BusinessEmotional IntelligencePsychologyProblem SolvingCommunication Skills It’s a Thursday afternoon, and I’m on a video call with an executive I’ll call Marcus, who is explaining to me, with real precision and a few colorful words, what is wrong with a peer of his I’ll call Dev.

Dev was recently quiet in a leadership meeting. Said nothing, nodded along. Then at 11 p.m., Dev sends an email to four people who were in the meeting, laying out every objection he didn’t raise while everyone was in the room.

Marcus has been thinking about this for months. His theory: Dev is building a paper trail because he wants the job Marcus has. Dev is, in Marcus’s phrase, “playing a longer game than the rest of us.” I wrote down that exchange afterward, because I thought it was a great moment, and felt pretty good about myself. _Nice work, Danny._ Then I closed the laptop and drove home stewing about a colleague who takes four days to answer anything I send him and what that says about how seriously he takes my work.

Mine is about a man who takes four days to answer my emails, which I’ve taken as a sign of disrespect, on little to no evidence. Get the fall print issue, shipping in October, to members only. When other people do something, we pin it on their character.

You walk too slowly on a crowded sidewalk, a grave sin, because you are a thoughtless, oblivious nincompoop. When we do the same thing, we explain it with our circumstances. I walk slowly on the sidewalk because I am contemplative, a modern-day sage thinking about how to become better.

It is a privilege to be trapped behind my agonizing pace. To Marcus, Dev sends the late email because Dev is political. Marcus sends the late email because the day got away from him, and he wanted to be thorough.