Universal Ethics
Universal Ethics > Ideas > Judging Motives B

Judging Motives, part B

Continued from part A...

In part A, this advice was given: "To correctly judge the motives of others, you must have a clear mind." A scenario was presented of a family member who was annoyed at another, and made incorrect accusations about the other person's motives. This led to an argument with no correction of the unwanted behavior. It was recommended to avoid rash judgements by deferring assessment of someone's motives until one can think clearly.

Sometimes, whether a false accusation of motives is made or not, the person who is the recipient of the advice may infer that there was a harsh judgement regardless. People on both sides will make inferences. This can result in a tit-for-tat escalation much like the original scenario. To avoid that kind of mistake, here are some additional tips to follow:

1. Recognize the uncertainty in your own judgement.

When one person judges the misbehavior of another, they will classify the cause as either a mistake or as intentional. There is a tendency to misclassify the cause as intentional even when it is not.

People know their own motives, so they don't make that mistake on themselves. They tend to treat their own mistakes leniently. For others they can only infer it, and because they typically assume it was intentional, they tend to be harsher on others than they would wish for themselves in the same situation.

So, one important strategy for happy relations is to "give the other person the benefit of the doubt." Show some tolerance. If you are quite sure that a deterrent to further unwanted behavior is required, reduce it to allow for your potential error and to enable de-escalation.

2. Say how you feel.

It would be very nice if real life was like a video game, where there are handy status indicators for all the players, showing such things as energy, health, special powers, etc.--and to this we would add motivational fulfilment! That would be very handy, because then we would never misjudge what anybody needs or wants. But in real life, we can only infer the motives of others.

People have a habit of hiding their motives. This may arise in schools and workplaces, because people need to get on with studying or working, which must carry on regardless of motivators that are unsatisfied outside of those activities. Moreover, moodiness would interfere with productivity, so people learn to suppress and hide emotion. But this also creates a problem of making it hard to guess what other people want.

It helps to be a bit more open, especially with people who are important in your life, such as your family and friends. For example, suppose that being surrounded by beauty is important to you, yet others in your home don't mind leaving it untidy. In such a case you can tell them quite simply that you feel better when the house is tidy, and ask them to please do their part to keep it that way.

For this to work, it has to be polite and factual. You can say correctly how you feel because you know. You are not accusing them of being a slob, inconsiderate, or nasty. Don't tell them what their motives are, because it's probably not accurate. They know what their motives are better than you. Instead, appeal to their altruistic desires and give them a chance.

3. Show them you care.

One very important principle when dealing with a behavioral problem is separating the person from the behavior. There is a difference between disliking a person and disliking the behavior. If a person knows that you love them, like them, care about them, or at least think that they're OK, they are much more likely to accept advice. That's because they understand that your advice has their best interest at heart.

There is another kind of advice, however, that is critical and judgemental. It's like a child's "tattle tale" behavior, where they like to point out everyone else's flaws as a way of building themselves up.

How is a person to tell the difference?

The most obvious way is by comparing the frequency of "words of encouragement" to criticisms. A commonly recommended guideline is that the encouragement for things well done needs to outnumber the criticisms by a ratio at least 5 to 1. That's a clue to the person that you are empathetic to them in a positive way--to seek for their success.

I mentioned the idea of a video game, where you can see the status of every participant, but this time we'll include their satisfaction level on each motive. Instead of the traditional shoot-and-score game, play this game: help them to push their satisfaction scores as high as they will go. Keep a diary of how you did it, get better at it, and see how your own personal scores go up too.

Return to Judging Motives part A.

Site Search     Return to Universal Ethics home page