Have you ever wondered about the fact that ‘why people tend to resist the bad person’s opinion even though it may be good and why we tend to justify a good person’s opinion which may be bad?’
Let’s read this story first.
John has started his small business very recently after being fired from a famous advertising company, saying he is not creative in his craft. John had presented many different ideas to the chief editor Mr. Martin, but none of them fascinated him. Mr. Martin was very strict with his business but unfortunately quite unwelcoming to the new ideas, especially from newcomers. John was very passionate and enthusiastic youth. But often, John and Mr. martin used to get caught in strong disparagement while editing new drafts and new idea implementation, which led to the termination of John’s employment. John had given the best he could to convince the company and Mr. Martin that his ideas are good. But nothing worked out. Naturally, a very negative image of Mr. Martin got portrayed in John’s mind as a wrong person.
Coincidently Emily (John’s Wife) and Mr. Martin’s wife were office colleagues. Since John started a new business downtown where Emily was working, both John and Emily began looking for a new house near the city center.
One evening Emily ran to John with excitement and little hesitation and said, “John! there is an amazing house available near downtown I just saw the pictures and that too in the price that we’d want…. but ….”
“but what?” John asked
“That house is offered by Mr. Martin …his wife just called me since she got to know that we are looking for an appartment.”
“Mr. Martin’s property …” John Murmured.
John denied owning that amazing house at affordable cost, without giving a second thought, because John didn’t find that offer good since a bad guy provided that.
Months later, John was sipping coffee in the balcony of his newly bought semi-furnished house, which he purchased at a 50% higher price than Mr. Martin’s wife had offered, and was staring with the look of the disappointment of missed opportunity at……. guess what……??
Mrs. Martin’s fantastic house.
Why good suggestions from bad people seem bad?
We often unconsciously categorize some people or things as good or bad based on our psychological and intellectual reference (I call it a PAI reference).
What is a psychological and intellectual reference? And how it develops?
Our thoughts develop through our general observation and our social environment which plays a vital role in developing PAI reference. Social environment includes movies we watch, books we read, advertisements, and people we hang out with or frequently encounter. We continuously get fed with how to talk, behave, and even think to be the right person. And those facts create a benchmark in our mind and that we call it psychological and intellectual reference. Then we feel this psychological reference is a normal way of thinking, behaving, or collectively we can say- living.
This developed PAI reference benchmarks our emotions, thoughts, and actions as standard that define the so-called usual way of living or say behaving.
When we find the deviation from this standard, we start judging people. This judgmental nature of human beings is quite normal. We get impressed if finds someone deviates above the PAI reference and we find that person is good (expert/wise) in some aspect and on the other hand we indirectly get disenchanted by someone who deviates down of standard reference. We find that person bad(inexpert) in some aspects.
When do we observe deviation from PAI reference?
When someone disagrees with opinions which you believe very strongly, then that person deviates down from your PAI reference and you put that person in bad (inexpert/unwise) category. (not in every case of disagreement but often when strongly protested).
More interestingly, there is the third category of people who are unpredictable at any moment, and you cannot certainly tell whether they are good or bad because they oscillate around your PAI reference continuously. Some call them crazy some call weird or sometimes superhuman: depending upon where they are from PAI reference at an instance.
Why sometimes a nice movie suggested by our bad categorized colleague seems terrible? Why medicine suggested for small injury by some of your XYZ relatives seems less effective than a professional doctor who suggests the same medicine?
When we tag someone good, bad, or weird, …we anchor their tag to their character, their name, their car, their shoe, and everything associated with them. And when we do that, we feel their suggestions, decisions, recommendations, advice, and opinions the same as a tag attached to that person. We tend to criticize all of these if they come from a bad person, and the worst is that we tend to justify if coming from a good person.
So, I think when we attach the tag to the person’s belongings, we naturally tend not to be factual and rational.
Wouldn’t it be nice to go with the facts detaching anchor from that person about the suggestions you get and when they may decide your fortune?
Please convey your thoughts.….
The content of this post is purely the author’s personal opinion and it does not necessarily reflect the view of any, person, government, religion and infofable.com. We hope readers will consider this perspective.
Nice Article!!
Thanks for the message!