How often do you expect your friends or family to behave in a certain way, and end up speechless when they act the exact opposite? We have to be careful of the expectations we place on others. Our perception of our friends and family, just like their perceptions of us, aren't real.We can't see people how they really are.
We project what we want to see onto other people, especially good and honorable qualities, masking their rather unfavorable ones. Harry Sullivan called these skewed perceptions of others "Parataxic Distortion". These fake perceptions of our friends, family, and acquaintances (even strangers), is not based on any real experience with them, but based on our own fantasies of how they ought to be.
These projected personalities are created by our expectations, past experiences, as well as a psychological response to emotional stress. One of the main stressors that causes Parataxic Distortion is when two personalities aren't necessarily compatible, or share conflicting views.
(This is a type of cognitive dissonance - check out my article about it by clicking here!)
To reduce this strain on the relationship we project certain qualities onto the other person to mask the conflicting view or stressful personality traits that are hindering our relationship....click here to read more!
Photo: MorgueFile
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