Seeking to better understand what makes us judge other people, Bored Panda got in touch with Professor of Psychology Dr. David E. Oberleitner, who highlighted that “judgment” does not have an implicit negative connotation. “Humans judge everything in our environment,” he said. “Our brains continuously are looking for patterns, possible threats, and so on—we do this unconsciously with everything as a way to speed up processing and understanding of how we should act or respond in a certain situation.

“Judgement of others is just one aspect of that evaluative system, as quick judgements help us know how to quickly respond to the situation (for example, ‘Is this person like me?’, ‘What might this person act like?’). We unconsciously trade accuracy of judgements for speed of judgements, which can lead to errors socially.”

If you’re wondering if comparing ourselves to others or competing against them plays a role in our tendency to judge people, the answer is yes—yes, it does—and quite a significant one, too.

“We all have an identity that is composed of many aspects of ourselves – things like what we believe we are good at (like a sport, for instance), what social or cultural groups we affiliate with, behaviors—right or wrong—we feel are associated with our perception of who we are (for example, what is the ‘correct’ way a dad or a mom should act). These ‘self-schemas’ are another way we help speed up our processing and unconsciously help us decide how we should think, feel, or behave in a given situation,” Prof. Oberleitner said.

“We compare ourselves to others to help speed up our cognitive processing – if I see someone who looks like me, or is dressed like me, or is a similar age to me, for example, it helps me make quick automatic judgments on how they might act and how I should act toward them.

“Again, this happens unconsciously mostly, and we trade accuracy for speed of processing,” the expert noted. “Social psychology research has found that those who we view as more different than us, we also tend to notice more things about them that we will perceive as negative (or inversely, ignore things we might otherwise negatively judge in those who we perceive as more similar to us).”

“Competition can definitely play a role too,” Prof. Oberleitner continued. “Research has found that when we perceive others as a threat, or we feel we are in competition with them for limited resources, we are more likely to make negative judgments. Those ‘resources’ could be real or imagined, and could be things like food and water or even access to jobs or social praise.

“Competition pushes us to see ways that others are more different than us, and can create more perceptions of in-groups and out-groups. This can then lead to someone making more negative judgments and noticing more negative behaviors in those we feel are outside of our own groups.”

Discussing the role our environment plays in regards to us judging others, Dr. Oberleitner suggested that if we can create the perception that someone is outside of our social group, negative judgments and increased in-group biases are more likely.

“If you can create an environment that makes people feel there are more limited resources available or create perceptions of more threats to their well-being, research supports that negative judgements may increase. The same can be true when we are uncomfortable and in stressful situations—we start to prioritize fast thinking over accurate thinking and may become more judgmental,” he explained.

“We also tend to match the behaviors of those around us,” the expert continued. “If we see an increase in judgement of others by the people around us as more common or appropriate, we are more likely to follow those social norms and behaviors too. Conversely, if you can create a situation that helps connect people and emphasizes shared aspects of our identities, we become less apt to notice negatives in others.”

If you find yourself being needlessly judgmental towards others—and you wish you weren’t—don’t you fret, as there are things you can do to change your ways. “One of the primary ways to become less judgmental is to always remind yourself to think about the situation you are currently in and give yourself a chance to override snap, automatic judgements,” Prof. Oberleitner noted.

“Although our brain emphasizes speed over accuracy in creating our social perceptions, we can overcome that by reminding and training ourselves to think through the situation we are in when making social judgments.

“We may have an immediate judgement when seeing someone or some behavior, but we can try these three techniques to override our more automatic judgments,” the expert suggested. “Firstly, we can look for areas of overlapping identity with the other person. This allows us to empathize with them and reduce automatic judgement.

“Secondly, we can take the time to reflect on situational factors that might influence the behavior we are seeing from another person before making a judgement,” Prof. Oberleitner continued. “And thirdly, we can catch ourselves when we are making a negative judgement about another person and remind ourselves to slow down and consider other ways to perceive the individual.

“The more we practice these three approaches, the more we may be able to overlook small parts of a person we do not appreciate or find we are making negative judgments about.”