“My first comment:)”

“We always create images and perceptions about people and then try to make them prisoners of those images …” Nice :)
And when they behave differently (escape the cages?), we’re disappointed because they didn’t live up to our expectations.

iii, beautiful comment!

“On the flip side when someone we hate, pleasantly surprises us, we move heaven and earth to find the non existent hidden motive.”

[Devdutt] Hmm, so true! But then again, our judgements being accurate doesn’t make us any less judgemental, does it?

Thank you for the first-time comment. Hope to see more of them :)

[Rajesh] Conclusion, delusion, illusion .. just a big confusion :)

[Ramchi] Thanks! Indeed true, we are nothing but a product of our experiences. And it is really hard to keep our experiences (and thus our pre-conceived notions) aside when meeting a new person.

But having said that, one must try to fight it. An air of inevitability in this matter will only make those stereotypes and prejudices stronger and deeper.

but yes, it is a basic human tendency to compartmentalize all incidents and people based on our past experiences and memories. Any person or episode remotely close to the one locked in our memory, gets straighaway stereotyped.

We get lost in our own world that everything we see around us is nothing but our mental projection (courtesy Matrix).

Yeah, reminds me of the ‘snap to grid‘ feature in Adobe Photoshop. You bring an object close enough to a gridline and it moves and snaps into place, rather than letting you place it exactly where you should be placing it. Guess we do that with people too!

Yikes, I managed to geekify this as well! :)

What would you do if your close friend/wife/husband/family behaves differentlly than you presumed/expected. Would you be mad or pleasantly suprised?
So a wife/husband shouldn’t have expectations of each other?
How can one approach a relationship saying “I am not expecting you to make me happy, but if you do good for me”. Sounds crazy right?. This will explain my point 300words back:) that positive presumptions are fine.
so the quote
“We always create images and perceptions about people and then try to make them prisoners of those images … “

even though sounds great is not entirely true.

Can you please provide your comments on this. You are an excellent writer and I really like your thought provoking blogs.Your blogs speaks for your very good intellecatual views.

It definitely is natural to complain about stereo-typing. A lot of mistakes are made that way.

But maybe saying that we should not be stereo-typing just because people are too rigid about it, is like saying people should stop eating because you can end up with food-poisoning (sorry, couldn’t come up with a more impressive analogy).

It is probably necessary to stereo-type people, to start with an initial impression - otherwise what do we have? If we don’t have a first impression about someone, we probably don’t give that person a chance to leave an impression.

What is important, though, is to keep the “grid-locks” (to borrow from Megha’s geekification) on that impression - on that stereo-type - very flexible. Like an amoeba. And while it is okay to be surprised if the impression - as it evolves - ends up being very different from the initial mould that we set for it, it is important to accept it.

What generally happens is that we form these stereo-types, and then when the stereo-type proves inaccurate, we resist acceptance of that fact. We ignore the differences between the actual person and the stereo-type, and we keep ignoring until… until we cannot anymore. And, as you would expect, it’s all downhill from there.

Potentially wise words: Do it, but do it right.

Interesting point of view you present here. I think the fundamental point here is that when a person doesn’t conform to our presumptions, do we modify/enhance our ‘presumptions tool’ or do we instead (as [iii] so perfectly said it above in his comment) “ … move heaven and earth to find the non existent hidden motive.” I guess as long as we are willing to accept someone being different from the norm, and respect them for being that way, then having a set norm in our head is not a completely bad thing.

Assumptions are basic human nature, be it conscious or subconscious. But how much we project these assumptions onto the other person is what makes a difference. I agree with you about analyzing a person we meet and feeling good when our analysis is correct and being gladly surprised when our analysis is wrong. But how often are we ‘gladly surprised’? Invariably, when our analysis goes wrong, we make excuses for it. We continue to project our assumptions on the other person, insisting that the exception to their behavior is driven by some other ulterior motive, all the while smugly believing we are excellent judges of character. I think that, more often than not, THAT is human nature as well.

As for expectations, I think they are a slightly different can of worms from presumptions. Yes, to an extent, they can be related. A presumption about how much the other person will be willing to do for you translates to somewhat of an expectation. But there is one fundamental difference between the two, in my opinion. A presumption is a judgement on someone ELSE’S behavior. An expectation is our OWN desires of the other person’s behavior.

I think assuming but having an open mind to your assumptions being proven wrong (paraphrasing what you said) is wonderful in theory, but not so easy in practice. Not assuming at all (paraphrasing what I said) is also good in theory but just as difficult in practice. Guess it finally comes down to choosing one idealistic view over another.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this. Thanks for making me think!