Snap Judgment Syndrome
Why you feel isolated from other humans
I used to be a really judgmental person. Tattoos? That’s gross. Nose rings? Eww. Smoking? Disgusting.
But it went further than feeling icky inside. By judging people, I used to think, you’re wrong for living like this. I thought that if people didn’t act in alignment with my tastes, they weren’t “acceptable.”
But this explains why I felt isolated from other people for most of my life. Usually when I met new people, these snap judgments would impact the rest of our interactions and make things feel awkward. People have psychic abilities, so whenever I passed judgment, they picked up on it.
I call this Snap Judgment Syndrome. It’s when you see someone for the first time and create this story in your head about them based on one tiny data point. It could be physical in their appearance, like when a black lady has finger nails that could basically be a back scratcher. It could be behavioral, like when a guy calls you “buddy.”Or it could be based on some label, like when a girl says she’s a vegetarian.1
Based on our worldviews—especially when we see something unfamiliar—we create these superficial stories about someone. All of these tiny traits make it seem like someone is separate from us, which then leads to assumptions that corrupt human connection.
So what’s the cure for Snap Judgment Syndrome? Before I answer that question, we first have to address another: where does being judgmental come from?
Impute
In 1977 when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were designing the Apple II computer, they met a man named Mike Markkula. Mike was a marketing wizard. One principle he articulated for Apple was this funky word “impute,” which meant that first impressions matter:
“People DO judge a book by its cover. We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.” - Mike Markkula2
Impute implies that we’re naturally judgmental, so let’s give ourselves some grace. In fact, from an evolutionary lens, snap judgments were critical for survival. We created cognitive shortcuts to see if some weirdo was a threat to our tribe. And since our brain uses 20% of our body’s energy, this freed us up to find a place to sleep and a snack to eat.
DoorDash
But now in the modern world, our basic needs have been upgraded. Forget about affording an apple: if I don’t get my low-angle morning sunlight and delay my caffeine intake for 90.0 minutes, then my day was a disaster.
Besides the time when I went solo to Spain and needed a place to sleep at two in the morning, I’ve never needed to worry about food, water, and shelter. So given that I feel safe and will physically survive, I technically don’t have to create cognitive shortcuts anymore. But I still do. Why? Well why not? Why not save time and energy? A basic tenet of human nature is that we seek pleasure and avoid pain. So why would I go trek ten minutes to a restaurant when I can take ten steps to get my DoorDash?3
In cognitive psychology, they call these mental shortcuts “heuristics.” The word itself comes from the Greek word heuriskein, which has three meanings: to find out, to invent, and to gain. So of course snap judgments can come in handy, like when learning mental models to make better decisions faster.
But this logic is like ripping ass in the library: just because it’s natural, doesn’t mean that it’s ok. So while these shortcuts are a signature of human nature, they can lead to the onset of mental retardation via Snap Judgment Syndrome.
So what’s the treatment?
Mirrors
When I sit down to meditate every morning, the whole goal is to realize that I’m lost in thought. To be aware that I’m aware. To return back to the breath and the present moment. With Snap Judgment Syndrome, you can do something similar: treat your people perceptions like a mini meditation. Try to notice when you feel yourself frowning. Try to be aware when you’re judging someone with a story rooted in superficiality. Try to see it, love it, drop it, and come back to the conversation.
As Anthony De Mello said in his spiritual conference that would become the book Awareness:
“When I’m listening to you, it’s infinitely more important for me to listen to me than to listen to you. Of course, it’s important to listen you, but it’s more important that I listen to me. Otherwise I won’t be hearing you. Or I’ll be distorting everything you say. I’ll be coming at you from my own conditioning. I’ll be reacting to you in all kinds of ways from my insecurities, from my need to manipulate you, from my desire to succeed, from irritations and feelings that I might not be aware of.”
One of the most powerful mental models I learned this year is to assume that all people are mirrors. So whenever you feel like you’re judging someone or have some strange feeling about them, first look inward.
When I was in Madrid last year, I sat down to write at a cafe and saw a sexy Spanish couple sitting in a booth, making out. I looked at them through the sides of my eyes. It was a bit too much for my morning breakfast. I felt uncomfortable. But why? Was there something wrong with what they were doing, even though I was in a touchier culture?
To me, yes. I never really saw my parents publicly intimate and felt some shame about intimacy. It’s also because I was a bit jealous—I hadn’t had a girlfriend in two years and missed the physical touch. My reaction came from my my insecurities and my lack of self-love. So in other words, their public intimacy showed me that I wasn’t intimate with myself.
The Log
Remember: people are psychics. They can feel the judgment. And when we assume that people are mirrors, they reflect back who we are and what we feel. As De Mello also said, “We see people and things not as they are, but as we are.” So if you’re always angry with people, you’re probably angry with yourself. If you’re always judging people, you’re probably judging yourself.4
There’s a powerful passage from The Bible on this idea:
“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
- Matthew 7:3-5
If everyone is a mirror, then the only thing that you can change is what’s in the mirror—you. So if I find myself trying to change someone to fit my frame of reality, it’s a sign that I’m not free somewhere. The meditation practice gives me the awareness that I’m judging, which then enables me to examine myself.
In a culture that craves comfort, it’s hard to not deny reality. I’m still working on it. But to help, any time I catch myself judging or complaining, I’ll ask myself: “What if this is perfect? What if this is ok, just the way it is? ”5
Now that I’ve introspected intensely and learned to accept all parts of myself, I feel happy for the Spanish couple. I’m happy that they could enjoy each other’s presence and not feel shame in expressing their affections. What a cute scene—even though that smooching was not a soothing sound for writing nonfiction.
Be Careful
Besides treating Snap Judgment Syndrome with a large injection of introspection, there’s something else we can do. In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky wrote:
“Do not judge him too quickly and rashly, as you tend to do, if something in him does not appeal at first sight … And besides, if one wants to know any man well, one must consider him gradually and carefully, so as not to fall into error and prejudice, which are very difficult to correct and smooth out later.”
The word “prejudice” comes from the 13th century Old French word prejudice, which means “prejudgment.” And nowadays, it refers to a court of law not giving a “due examination of the facts or arguments necessary to a just and impartial decision.”
So to avoid snap judgments, we have to realize that just like in court cases and scientific studies, one data point is not convincing. It’s too small of a sample size. Just because someone wears a turban doesn’t mean that they’re a terrorist. Just because someone has a tattoo on their throat doesn’t mean that they’re evil. And just because someone is honest doesn’t mean that they’re an asshole.6 Coming back to the meditation practice, we have to let go of all these logs of judgment that compromise our chemistry with other people.
Be Curious
Another thing that helps is a legendary line from Ted Lasso: “Be curious, not judgmental.” When I think of being curious, I think of a child, who has no preconceptions or prejudices about the world. They’re innocent of ignorance and ignorant of innocence. Everything just is. All they do is wonder why. They ask a lot of questions, like, “why do mosquitos bite me?” or “why does my penis stand up sometimes?” They don’t have an ego that’s scared to say, “I don’t know.”7
And what’s most fascinating about this is that “curious” comes from the Latin word curiosus, which means careful and diligent. So to be curious echoes exactly what Dostoevsky wrote: be careful. It means to make no assumptions about anyone. It means to assume that all first impressions are fake.
The easiest way to do this is to be like a cute kid and just keep asking why. As Stephen Covey wrote in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, seek first to understand, then to be understood. No matter how “true” you think something is or how “ugly” someone’s tattoo is, there is always some part of their story that you haven’t seen. And even if it was a drunk tattoo, that’s the ultimate test of unconditional love.8
In his 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, David Foster Wallace said, “Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe.” So it seems like the cure to Snap Judgment Syndrome is to assume only one thing: that I know nothing.
There’s something about my trip to Spain that I forgot to tell you. I met plenty of wonderful people with tattoos and nose rings, smoking their hand-rolled cigarettes. One night after meeting in the hostel kitchen at 10 pm, a group of us walked to dinner. We bonded over beer, broken English, and America’s obese serving sizes. Then later that night, a girl joked with me and said something that I’ll never forget: “you’re straight, white, and have no tattoos. You’re so plain!”
Notes
I'm not a Christian, but sometimes I read The Bible. I’m not a pianist, but sometimes I love playing the piano. I'm not in college, but sometimes I love learning stupid shit. Labels are limitations. As Paul Graham wrote, "The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you."
I found this story in Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
For what it’s worth, I don’t do DoorDash. I cook for most meals, so when I do go out, I don’t believe in bringing it back home to eat. Part of the joy of eating out is being around the ambiance of the restaurant. Lights and laughter. Live music. Fresh food that you don’t have to prepare. It’s a sacred act of creation. Especially in the world of remote work, people probably need to get out of the house more, anyways.
That said though, I can see why people don’t like to sit down at chain restaurants like McDonald’s. Sure, the fries might get soggy on the car ride home, but who wants to sit in those sterile white lights and awful aesthetics anyways?
Psychologist Marshall Rosenberg said: “Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need.” My friend Danny Miranda taught me how to relieve resentment with people: imagine them as a cute, crying child that just didn’t get enough love growing up. Otherwise, they would’ve communicated to you in a more loving, less reactive way.
In The Surrender Experiment, Michael Singer wrote about applying this practice of acceptance to the weather:
“Could it really be so hard to just let it rain when it rains and be sunny when it’s sunny without complaining about it? Apparently the mind can’t do it:Why did it have to rain today? It always rains when I Don’t want it to. It had all week to rain; it’s just not fair. I simply replaced all that meaningless noise with: Look how beautiful; it’s raining.”
One useful thing I learned in college was the pyramid of scientific evidence. At the bottom is the least valid type of data: case studies and n = 1 stories. For statistical tests, scientists generally use n = 30 as the minimum sample size to correct for variability in data. So as a helpful heuristic, don’t make any assumptions about anyone until you’ve learned 30 things about them.
This is where cultural conditioning can come take a fat shit on your life. The answer that the child hears could have a societal script in it that will need to be undone later in life. That’s why I adore what Walt Whitman wrote in his poem “Song of Myself”:
“A child said, What is the grass? Fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child? . . . . I do not know what it
is any more than he.”
George Orwell wrote something similar in 1984: “Perhaps one didn’t want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
Thanks so much to the people whose conversations with me helped inspire this essay: Jack Moses, Max Schult, Danny Miranda, Max Reisinger, and Connor Wid.
Really good piece Baxter!
I love reading the footnotes too.