How to stop looking down on others?

You might be a fairly positive person in life when it comes to your ambitions and achievements. But when it comes to other people – you look down on most of their doings and choices, judge them for mistakes, which you would give yourself a pass for.

Even if you have personal accomplishments, noticeably exceeding the average, being overly judgemental, and looking down on others will most definitely not help to bring tranquility and the high-quality relationships into your life. Trying to feed your self-esteem by focusing on failures and inadequacies of everyone else is not a foundation for a stable, confident mind. Because you begin to depend on others to fail (at least from your perspective), for you to feel successful.

When dealing with excessively judgemental tendencies you are dealing with a habit of looking down on other people and their choices, which needs to be broken and replaced with a new habit: non-judgemental communication. Additionally, you can:

• put yourself in other’s shoes to develop empathy,
• accept yourself (including all of your flaws) to become more accepting of others,
• practice regular meditation and mindfulness to keep a calm mind, the isn’t feeding off of negativity,
• practice journaling you judgemental thoughts and dig into reasons behind them.

Why are we looking down on others?

Throughout history, people’s survival relied on how good could they judge the situations and their peers. People, who were judged also benefited from this. Someone making objectively bad life choices, squandering all their possessions during fruitful months of spring and summer, failing to save food and other necessary resources, could easily die within the harsh European winter, a situation referred to in proverbial children’s poem “The Ant and the Grasshopper”.

The concerned neighbor, aware of dangers of this carelessness, passing judgment on such an irresponsible peer, could talk some sense and help the confused soul to get properly prepared and not make mistakes with potentially deadly consequences.

Being judgemental, however, refers to having a critical and condemnatory view of other people and their choices, achievements, ideas, or simply life situations. Looking down on others implies nitpicking to find faults in people.

Judgementalism is a defense mechanism and brings benefits to its user:

• psychological protection from receiving offense from others: it will not hurt as much if someone criticizes us, or attacks our beliefs, convictions, choices, if we do it preemptively;
• helps to avoid confronting and fixing his own faults by pointing them out (and possibly exaggerating) in others: “at least I’m not as bad as he is!”);
• boosting his self-esteem by giving a sense of superiority over others;

These benefits make looking down on other people a very attractive and accessible way of increasing your feeling of self-worth: just find something to condemn and dislike about others and you’ve found the way to feed your ego.

Much of our confidence is dependent on the certainty of our beliefs, and when someone else does something, that challenges these beliefs, we experience cognitive dissonance – we start doubting ourselves when faced with something contradicting our own beliefs. People don’t like being wrong, so they could react in condescending manner to the “offender”, and start looking down on him from their “high horse”.

Another interesting connection is the tendency for people to identify as a certain group (i.e. cat-owners, dog-owners) and to be condescending to members of the opposing group. This phenomenon is described in detail by clinical psychiatrist Jordan B Peterson:

…
phenomenon known as “minimal group identification,” discovered by the social psychologist Henri Tajfel.209 Tajfel brought his research subjects into his lab and sat them down in front of a screen, onto which he flashed a number of dots. The subjects were asked to estimate their quantity. Then he categorized his subjects as overestimators vs underestimators, as well as accurate vs inaccurate, and put them into groups corresponding to their performance. Then he asked them to divide money among the members of all the groups.
Tajfel found that his subjects displayed a marked preference for their own group members, rejecting an egalitarian distribution strategy and disproportionately rewarding those with whom they now identified
Other researchers have assigned people to different groups using ever more arbitrary strategies, such as flipping a coin. It didn’t matter, even when the subjects were informed of the way the groups were composed. People still favoured the co-members of their personal group
Tajfel’s studies demonstrated two things: first, that people are social; second, that people are antisocial
…
Perhaps people identify with groups at the flip of a coin because they deeply want to organize themselves, protect themselves, and still have some reasonable probability of climbing the dominance hierarchy. Then they favour their own group, because favouring it helps it thrive—and climbing something that is failing is not a useful strategy.

“12 Rules for Life”, Jordan B Peterson

Those, who tend to be intemperate and indelicate in expressing themselves, freely dispersing criticism (even with the best intentions) can involuntarily be labeled as a judgemental person. If people perceive you as someone who looks down on others, maybe your feedback isn’t received with the proper perspective and in an intended way.

What people who look down on others are like: signs that you are judgemental

• Evaluating others negatively from a moral standpoint often.
• Having your own moral system, and it is rigged in your favor.
• An inclination to believe the worst and jumping to negative conclusions toward others. 
• Condemning person, who committed a wrong action, to be completely corrupt.
• A belief that everyone has a hostile plan against you.
• Emphasizing on the flaws of others and failing to see beyond those faults.
• Trouble tolerating uncertainty and ambiguity.
• Being intolerant of people who are expressly different.
• Prevalence of pessimistic thinking.
• Seeing things in polarized extremes (i.e. “good” or “bad”), instead of the full spectrum.
• Rarely appreciating the abilities and skills of other people.
• The tendency to suspect others and a lack of trust.
• Sefl-esteem issues, feeling insecure.
• Having a strong and judgemental inner critic
• Feeling anxious around other people.

When judgments are harmful: why we should not look down upon others?

Being judgemental is not the same as judging objectively, or discerning. Judgementalism implies adding a layer of personal bias, which covers up the reality and facts with your personal opinions about how things should be.

Judgemental people are often quick to categorize everything into the “good” or “bad” polar opposites, similarly to what perfectionists tend to do. In those instant judgments, they forget to think about why things are the way they are. They tend to miss the patterns in other’s lives and are blind to the perspectives of their peers.

Such mentality, combined with tendency for overt condescending criticism, isn’t cultivating friendship and brotherhood, you aren’t going to find partners to collaborate in life to build a brighter future this way. At best you’re cultivating competition. At worst, people see you as cold and cruel. And in some cases that’s perfectly fine, but as the saying goes “no man is an island“, you need strong reciprocal bonds with people who trust you, and where each other is willing to make sacrifices for their friend. Such relationships are a strong foundation for mental health and a stable, fulfilling life.

People who look down on others also tend to equate the achievement of a person to their worth. And this way of valuing someone’s success in life (especially financial and fame) over the virtue of their character is, sadly, a common occurrence in our society. Achievement depends heavily on aptitudes, with which people are born: their athleticism, intelligence, drive, energy, charisma. Those are mostly genetic, and while some of them could be improved, many other traits won’t budge much, despite the hardest efforts, and the people, who were dealt with worse cards, aren’t likely to land among the top players.

Without downplaying the importance of hard work, most of the top achievers were lucky to be born with exceptional abilities, which combined with dedication placed them at the top. Those people are idolized by modern society, seen as idols, and are a subject of obsession for the wide range of general public.

If someone was born with below-average intelligence, why should they be judged for this thing, for which they aren’t responsible? Besides, if they are kinder, more generous, more forgiving, more compassionate than average shouldn’t they be praised? When the things they are responsible for and in control of are done in the most productive way, accessible to them, that is the sign of true virtue and is worth taking as a personal example.

Truth and objectivity should not be a weapon used to wound others. When met with overt condemning criticism, people tend to recoil, withdraw, and avoid opening up to you. And who knows, what knowledge, insights, and emotions could they have shared, if you’ve toned down your judgemental tendencies just slightly. People around you will flourish if you listen to them empathetically.

As Ryan Holiday in his book “Ego is the enemy” puts it so well, the ego is an unhealthy belief in our own importance, it is there, undermining us on the very journey we’ve put everything into pursuing but can be managed and directed. But if you keep feeding your ego by gloating at failures and inadequacies of other’s, your ego will be the one in control

I look down on others and want to stop it. What should I do?

If you have questioned your judgementalism and tendency to look down on other it is a good sign. You are aware of some faults in the way you communicate with others. And you have noticed how those flaws hinder your ability to connect with others. Since you’ve shown the concern, you already are on the path to improvement. Below is the list of tried and true methods, which are guaranteed to tone-down any unwanted involuntary condescending attitude.

1. Non-judgmental communication

Since your tendency to look down on others is basically a habit, you should approach it like an unwanted habit, and get rid of it. Consider replacing it with a habit of non-judgemental communication. Non-judgmental communication involves two components:

• non-judgemental listening;
• non-judgemental speaking.

Non-judgemental listening involves listening to people with empathy, which means putting yourself in the shoes of the speaker:

• try to understand what someone is saying to you, genuinely, with interest, as one of the rules of Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life” states “Assume that the person you’re listening to might know something you don’t”;
• keep your mind and body relaxed, have accepting body-language, it helps to signal genuineness, that you are open to listening;
  • use an appropriate amount of eye contact;
  • smile more often, when appropriate;
  • give the speaker enough personal space, and avoid facing them in a directly opposite way – sometimes it can be subconsciously interpreted as a threat;
  • do not cross your arms or keep closed body position – that may signal confrontation;
• listen actively to your conversation partner, focus on what is being said, don’t let your mind run ahead and offer solutions to incompletely stated problems, be patient and don’t interrupt others;
• restate, what you’ve just heard in a new way, but without condemning biased remarks and twists;

Non-judgemental speaking means taking a softer, more diplomatic approach to communicating your thoughts, ideas, and concerns to others, making sure, that your message is received in an intended way:

• be clear with yourself about your intentions behind when you are about to say something;
• take an extra second to reflect on what you’re planning to say to avoid blurting out something you might regret;
• when in doubt about the intentions of others, ask them questions, and remember to avoid confrontational tone, unless necessary;
• back off, when seeing signs of defensiveness – your message is provoking an undesired response, you’ll need to adopt a more light-hearted tone;
• when giving others advice, share your reasons behind doing it;
• adopt the alternative, non-judgemental vocabulary, to be less confrontational in the situations, which don’t require it (see the examples in the following table).

Instead of saying:	Better say:
That’s ridiculous That’s unreasonable	I hadn’t considered that, how will that work for both of us? I don’t understand how that will work. What makes that a fair solution?
That doesn’t make sense You’re not making sense	I’m not following you… Help me understand… I don’t understand, how will that work?
That’s not workable That will never work	I’m not comfortable with that because… That’s one option, here are my concerns… I’d like to hear your thinking on how this would work
You aren’t doing this right You didn’t do this right	This is different than what I expected Does this way of doing it still meet the requirements?
We’re not going anywhere If only you would stop… We’ll never agree	It seems as though X may be getting in our way I think we can find a solution Let’s look at we have accomplished so far
Why do you want X?	How did you get to X? What makes you want X? What makes X a good solution/choice?
Why did you do that?	What motivated you to do that?
That has nothing to do with this	How does that relate to this?
The fact is… This is how it is:	Correct me if I’m wrong, I understand (state facts as you see them) The way I see it is…
Yes, but…	Yes, and…
Do X You should do X	I need help with X We need to get X done…what suggestions do you have? I’d like you to do X, will that work? Can you do X? Are you willing to do X?
You haven’t done X	I appreciate your willingness to do X… I am unsure why X hasn’t been done, share your thoughts?
You’re wrong	My experience has been… I see this differently… I need to understand…better
I won’t do X	I am not comfortable doing X X makes me nervous (etc.) because…
I want X I must have X	One option I see is X…how does X work for you? One way I see to resolve this is X…what do you think of X? One option is X…X is important to me because…
We have nothing in common	We agree on…
You’re lying. I don’t believe that.	I’m confused about…
You said… But you did…	Let me see if I have this right, you are saying… I’m not clear about… Let’s focus on the future
That’s not fair	Let’s find a solution that is fair for both of us
You make me mad You’re making me feel	I get upset when… I feel…
I…You…	We…

2. Perspective: understand the differences in everyone’s backgrounds

Consider the differences between each and everyone’s backgrounds: upbringing, traits and inclinations, life experiences. Those differences produce diverse interests and systems of values different people subscribe to. There will always be people, with superior to your skill in some areas, which you, of course, may or may not consider to be relevant. Conversely, many of your accomplishments may be unimpressive to others. Looking down on people based on skills will be a waste of effort, put into even thinking about how you are superior to others, and a waste of your time.

Some life choices are clearly and objectively bad, of course. But again, people making those choices may be ignorant to a superior alternative or have weaknesses, making them vulnerable to deceptive attractiveness of leading expedient lifestyle. Granted, those people are making conscious choices to do what the do, nevertheless, consider showing compassion for the gullible and confused souls. Compassion is the nemesis of condescension: it is a display of tender understanding, rather than arrogant judgment.

If you care enough about misguided people – put efforts into helping them, guide them on a better path. Arm yourself with patience, because people very often resist changes, the status quo is a powerful force. If you don’t care enough about others to help them – then don’t waste your mental efforts into gloating at misfortunes of others.

3. Stay mindful throughout the day

If you can be mindful in your daily life, your resistance to stress and your mental well-being improves. You are less likely to be insecure about any of your abilities or social status, and begin looking down on others to feel better about yourself. You also are less likely to escalate argument into a condescending competition of who could “puff their chest up” more.

4. Accept yourself, with all your flaws and imperfections

The more accepting you are of yourself, the more accepting you will be of others. Maybe there are some hidden complexes, which you aren’t aware of. You need to study your personal history, your childhood, how things were going in your family of origin, consult your dreams, journal them, understand them. Journal your judgements, instance of looking down on others, feelings associated with them, their consequences, the contenxt, under which they appeared.

You need to acquire self-knowledge to understand the origins of your maladaptive tendencies. That will give you peace and serenity from learning the lessons of your past, and being aware of any faults of your personality. And a peaceful mind won’t have to be hostile toward others.

5. What if I am not judgmental intentionally?

If looking down on others is not your intention, you don’t need to accidentally appear as one. Of course, you have to realize, that unhealthily overly-sensitive people might not be the type to be around for you. However, if you receive continuous feedback about your condemning and excessively critical pessimistic attitude, maybe you could consider the non-judgemental communication, described above.

6. Tips and Tricks

• Wear a rubber band around your wrist, and when you catch yourself being condescending toward others, snap it hard – this will make this habit unattractive.
• Be nice to waitresses, bartenders, cashiers and similar people, whose job is to serve others – being friendly to strangers will “leak” into other social situations.
• Try volunteering.
• Be happy about someone, who shares their accomplishments with you – get into the mindset of positivity.