© T.H. Warrior – Tender Hearted Warriors
– S.S.P. & E.L.C.
JUDGMENT – An opinion or an evaluation?
It is not easy to determine the difference between „Judgment“ and „Evaluation“, since there are quite a lot of similarities between the two tasks – let’s take a look at them first.
Both Judgment and evaluation are about tackling a complex question in a problem-oriented manner. Both operators are based on a multi-perspective approach, which means that the quality of your Judgment is determined by how well you incorporate different perspectives.
When we judge, we create an opinionated assessment. The judge assumes to know better than the judged and usually speaks from a superior position, while the evaluator describes a factual statement about the actual state of something or someone. Compared to a judgment, an evaluation is expansive, whereas judgments are somewhat constrictive.
Evaluations provide us with facts and give the observer freedom of choice based on their cognitive abilities. Judgments, on the other hand, limit our behavior. Evaluations directly point to facts and enlighten us towards the actualities by merely stating what is what in an objective and neutral manner. On the other hand, judgments directly indicate a very subjective people-oriented opinion. While evaluations have a more observatory scientific approach, judgments speak out of an emotional place and have self-righteous signs written all over them.
What was that person’s name in court who gives his opinion at the end of a trial after the jury has a verdict? The evaluator? Or the judge?
Now let’s take a step back into the most straightforward way of Judgment; when we build a mental image of something or someone at the very first encounter, a.k.a. the „first impression.“ This impression we automatically and unknowingly create, while making someone’s acquaintance, is the most basic yet essential Judgment we have of them. First impressions tend to linger in our brain for as long as we know the person; it is almost impossible to erase this image and very difficult to replace it with a better or worse one.
But, is it easier to replace this impression with a better or a worse one? That is a fascinating question. To answer that I am going to walk you through an example:
Imagine you went to a football game, and the person next to you irritates you to your core by being annoyingly loud and spilling their drink on you while cheering for the players, without even apologizing. You just met them through another friend of yours. Weeks later, you see this person again on a nasty rainy day, and they offer you their umbrella. Will this act of kindness change your first opinion of them? You’re thinking, of course not. But you can’t quite put your finger on „why not?“
Some believe the answer lies in the fact that bad impressions, i.e., judgments, have a more substantial negative effect on people than good ones. At the end of the day, we are all humans, and humans are natural grudge holders, right?
The answer is No.
„At the end of the day, we are all humans, and humans are natural grudge holders, right?“
T.H. Warrior
Imagine your favorite football team introduces a new player on that very game, and you get to see this player play for the first time. Will you remember them better from that game if the ball was passed to them, they scored a goal, or missed the net? In most cases, players will miss the net. And that is precisely why a good first impression, i.e., a scoring first impression, will have a stronger impact on you.
We usually don’t change our opinion about the annoying person we had just met during the football match, because we don’t see people throwing their drinks at us on a typical day at the stadium.
On the other hand, it happens a lot more often when people offer their umbrella to others on a rainy day; that is one of the simplest ways of showing kindness.
The same pattern is to be seen in the new player example: A lot of games end up with no score at all, and rarely do we ever witness a game like Brazil vs. Germany in 2014.
Frequency is the answer.
We, humans, base our judgments on the frequency of events and not facts.
In a society where judgments should be fully correlated with the process of constructing evaluations, we, civilized law-abiding citizens, have set these two fundamental tasks entirely apart from each other, where they barely even relate to one other. We judge daily, sometimes even on an hourly basis, and it never occurs to us that:
Judgment limits us.
It is in our human „nature“ to categorize things, or even others. We place people or things into positive and negative categories. However, this also has consequences for ourselves. When we judge others, we limit ourselves. Why? When we regard someone’s behavior as negative, we project it onto ourselves. The result is that we start resenting this behavior and try to avoid it.
Imagine the following situation to understand my point more clearly: You have a lot of experience in fitness because you have been working out for a long time. Together with your friends, you make fun of the newcomer. However, you forget that If you try something new without any experience, you’re also a beginner. By making fun of beginners, you start to worry about those who could make fun of you. You worry about what you look like and what others think about you. In the worst case, you won’t try anything new ever again because you’re always afraid that someone might be laughing at you. All because you judged others and made conclusions about yourself.
‚What is the secret to factual judgment?‘
Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 describes a paradox as an experiment that answers this question without ever answering it. He says: „if we leave a cat and something that could kill the cat in a sealed box, there is no way for us to know if the cat is alive or dead unless we open the box. Until then, the cat is both dead and alive.“
We need to observe unbiasedly, make factual notes, take evidential mental pictures. We have to use our sense of empathy. It is the only allowed emotion in the decision-making process. And this is when Judgment and evaluation collide; They become the same.
The person sitting next to us might have had a terrible day, and no matter how often it happens, it might be their first time offering their umbrella to someone.
Frequency, rarity, shared beliefs, emotions, hearsay, physical features of a subject such as race, or even someone’s accent, should not affect our judgments.
And yes, these are all to be found in every single constitution, with the highest level of details and precision, but easier written than practiced.
Next time our mind is pushing us towards an act of Judgment, we should ask ourselves: „what would we do in a similar situation? Can we even expect this person to act better or worse than us? Were they brought up in a way or in an environment to do better? Know better? How would I look like trying to pick up that 17-kilogram dumbbell?
How would we feel if, together with observing the facts, we would empathize with that newcomer at the gym? The angry person from the game? The defendant in the courtroom?“
A lot differently.
There are two different types of depression. One is the least common but most known to the public. The depressed person typically tends to isolate themselves from the world. Self-harm, fatigue, lack of appetite, and sensitivity to light are some of the common signs. And then there is another category of depression- the most common and the least recognized. These people cannot be alone. They are always surrounded by a group of friends or family. Cannot have lunch in a restaurant by themselves, cannot go to the cinema alone, never feel the urge to be left alone or have a few days to themselves. These are straightforward common daily life signs, and little to none of these people are open to hearing that they might be suffering from depression.
The truth is that their biggest fear isn’t hearing the fact that they may be depressed; that would be just a phase of acknowledgment. The hardest part is what they have been avoiding all their lives: being by themselves, having to face themselves, and analyzing themselves.
Judgment stops once self-analysis starts.
It is a scary thought to think. Judgment does stop once we start to analyze ourselves first. Because technically all of us know someone who judges others a lot – the numbers are not that low. Does this mean a significant portion of our society is depressed?
Maybe we should start right there. Perhaps we should first open the box, learn about depression, and then decide if it’s negative or positive.
„Judgment stops once self-analysis starts“
T.H. Warrior
Remember, in a closed box; we could be both alive and dead.