Why We So Often Get Others Wrong

We think we observe others. In reality, we interpret them — through our fears, our expectations, our history. This quiet mechanism, which psychologists call mental projection, lies behind so many misunderstandings and so much unnecessary suffering. A simple awareness, yet one capable of changing a great deal.

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Mental projection: understanding why we interpret without realising it

We think we observe others. In reality, we interpret them — through our fears, our expectations, our history. This quiet mechanism, which psychologists call mental projection, lies behind so many misunderstandings and so much unnecessary suffering. A simple awareness, yet one capable of changing a great deal.

"You're projecting!" Anyone who lived through the 1970s or spent time in alternative communities will have heard this expression in the middle of a conversation, sometimes in the middle of an argument. Over time, it became a joke or a way to shut down a debate.

Yet behind this half-forgotten phrase lies a phenomenon we all experience, every day, without even noticing.

A story about glasses

For several years in my youth, I went without glasses. Severely short-sighted, I had developed the habit of squinting to try to make out faces and details. I no longer even noticed I was doing it. It had become an automatic reflex.

The day I finally got a new pair of glasses, several friends greeted me with the same remark: "Funny… we always thought you seemed a bit contemptuous, but with your glasses, you don't look like that at all." I hadn't changed my personality in a few hours.

They were simply discovering that the expression they had read as contempt was that of a short-sighted person trying to see. That story made me think for a long time. How often do we believe we know someone, when all we are really doing is interpreting a posture, a glance, or a facial expression?

Our mind fills in what it doesn't know

Watch the passengers on a subway or the people walking down the street. Many have closed-off faces. We instinctively read them as stern, cold, or unfriendly. Then one of them spots a friend, a child, or someone they love. In a single second, everything changes: the face lights up, the eyes smile, the features soften. The person who seemed unpleasant suddenly appears warm and approachable.

The person hasn't changed. It was our interpretation that was wrong.

That is what mental projection is: the mechanism by which we attribute to others intentions, feelings, or characteristics that actually come from our own way of looking. We believe we are observing reality when in fact we are constantly completing it. A silence becomes a reproach. A brief reply becomes irritation, and that imagined irritation can quickly tip into aggression. A focused expression becomes arrogance.

Our brain hates gaps. The moment information is missing, it spontaneously builds a story that seems coherent. And that story often feels more real to us than the facts themselves.

We also see through ourselves

Two people can meet the exact same individual and walk away with completely different impressions. One will find them warm, the other arrogant. Why?

Because we never look at the world through a perfectly neutral gaze. We look through our history, our fears, our expectations, and our past experiences. Someone who lacks self-confidence will more readily sense judgement. Someone who has often been let down will more readily see distrust. Someone going through a difficult time will more readily notice signs of hostility.

We think we are looking at others, but we are often looking at the image our own mind has built from them.

The same is true with age

When a young person encounters an elderly one, they often unconsciously attribute to them a way of thinking, tastes, or a sensibility they imagine belonging to another era. They think they see someone looking towards the past.

Yet a few minutes of conversation is often enough to discover a very different reality. Behind the wrinkles and white hair there is often someone who still marvels, who laughs, who feels enthusiasm, who falls in love, who doubts and who dreams. Many elderly people say they still feel twenty or thirty years old on the inside. They are often the first to be surprised by the reflection that looks back at them in the mirror.

Here again, we are not simply seeing a person. We are seeing the idea we have formed of old age.

Projection can also be pleasant

Projection is not only negative. It sometimes leads us to idealise someone we barely know. We credit them with exceptional intelligence, great wisdom, or a depth we hoped to find in them. A stranger met while travelling becomes, for the space of an evening, exactly the person we had dreamed of crossing paths with. Then comes the disappointment — not because that person has changed, but because our imagination had taken the place of observation.

Many misunderstandings are born this way. We suffer from an intention that never existed, a judgement that was never made, or a contempt that was nothing more than the involuntary squint of a short-sighted person.

We react less to reality than to the story our mind constructs from a handful of clues.

A habit that makes us happier

There is, however, one question capable of defusing many conflicts: Am I observing a fact, or am I interpreting it? This simple pause does not eliminate projection — we will always go on interpreting the world. But it introduces a form of lucidity: it teaches us to leave room for doubt, for curiosity, and for kindness.

What if this person wasn't being contemptuous? What if they were simply tired, preoccupied, shy… or just short-sighted?

To rehabilitate this old word, mental projection, is to rediscover something obvious: we never see others entirely as they are. We always see them a little through ourselves. That lucidity will not make us perfect. But it may be enough to prevent a conflict, an unnecessary wound, or the rejection of someone who simply wanted to be known.

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