Guest post by Gerold
Another of our dangerous mental biases is Complementary Projection, a type of Cognitive Bias in which people believe that more people share their beliefs and values than actually do. We ‘project’ our beliefs and values onto other people and overestimate the extent to which other people also have them.
Good Therapy says Complementary Projection occurs “when a person assumes that others feel the same way they do. For example, a person with a particular political persuasion might take it for granted that someone else shares her beliefs.” It is similar to the False Consensus Effect where we project our beliefs and values onto people within our group, whereas in Complementary Projection we project them onto people outside our group.
Humans are social creatures. We like to feel ‘normal’ and fit in and be liked by other people. We tend to believe that our opinions are shared and attributing one’s personal characteristics to others reinforces our self-esteem. Unfortunately, like many of our biases, they can also be harmful or dangerous. With Complementary Projection, the danger is the increased likelihood that, with the best of intentions, we open the door to those who would harm us.
Complementary Projection should not be confused with ‘Complimentary Projection.’ Notice the sixth letter is ‘i’ rather than ‘e.’ ‘Complimentary Projection with an ‘i’ “… is the assumption that other people can do the same things as well as oneself. For example, an accomplished pianist might take it for granted that other piano students can play the piano equally well.” The former involves values and beliefs; the latter involves skills.
One also finds complementary projections in numerous other fields unrelated to psychology. There is Complementary Projection Hashing which is computer-related. There is Oxford Journal’s paper involving the cerebral cortex of the brain. There are also complementary projections of mathematical convex polytopes. There are neurotic interpretations and no doubt many others down this curious rabbit-hole.
The disconcerting bias of Complementary Projection is especially evident in politics as seen during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election which demonstrated extreme partisanship on both sides. Under the subtitle Blinded by Anti-Leftism Jeffrey Tucker writes, “Why would anyone believe that Trump is anything but a state builder? Much of it has to do with the strange way in which people infuse candidates with their own ideological longings, hoping against hope that Trump shares their values. In other words, Trump’s supporters, like so many people, are subject to the Complementary Projection bias.
Complementary Projection also leads to intolerance when we are unable to project our knowledge-based values based onto those less knowledgeable and thus find them lacking. On a Christian FaceBook group, the group moderator wrote this about a young atheist anarcho-capitalist (ancap). “I’m in a dialog with a young atheist ancap. Her ignorance and hostility to Christianity was staggering … I suppose she is a product of the nation’s woeful education system.” The older Christian with more education and experience than the young ‘ancap’ is unable to project his knowledge and beliefs onto her and so, finding no target, he considers her deficient.
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Another reason complementary projection can be perilous is its similarity to one of our greatest human foibles, self-deception. A monkey might fool another monkey, but no monkey will fool itself. Willful self-deception is strictly a human trait. As one writer put it, “Projection is at the root of human foibles.” The more we can fool ourselves, the more others will be inclined to profit from our gullibility and, most likely, to our disadvantage. As Derek Landy said, “The lies we tell other people are nothing to the lies we tell ourselves.”
Admittedly, some self-deception can be a handy survival mechanism, but past a certain point, it can be harmful. In the book States of Denial, Stanley Cohen explains how the ability to repress, disavow, push aside or reinterpret is often helpful, even necessary, in the development of our species and civilization. “The inhabitants of Beirut, Bogota or Belfast cannot live in a permanent state of heightened awareness that a car bomb may go off at any minute. Some switching off is necessary to get through the round of everyday life.” However, Gregory Bateson says, “There is always an optimal value beyond which anything is toxic.” (Goleman, p. 245)
SEVERAL EXAMPLES
If you find the incidents below offensive, then you may be prone to Complementary Bias because you’re projecting your values onto people whose cultural values are far different than yours.
I worked with a retired British soldier once stationed in Aden, a city in Yemen. Soldiers had ‘bat-boys’ (a resident serving as butler, servant, and ‘go-fer’ that shined their boots, ran errands, etc.). Being young, full of the milk-of-human-kindness and projecting Complementary Bias, he was offended by the other soldiers’ rough treatment of their ‘bat-boys’ and vowed to treat his more humanely.
His ‘bat-boy’ was insolent, lazy and pilfered from him. An experienced veteran took the young soldier aside and told him he was doing it all wrong. The locals saw kindness and mercy as signs of weakness. After dressing in the morning, he should call in his ‘bat-boy’ and tell him to turn around, bend over and then administer a hard, swift kick in the ass to show him who’s boss. Reluctantly, he did so. To his surprise, the ‘bat-boy’s work habits and morale improved considerably, and he stopped stealing.
Another former soldier told me about the British military stationed in India before India’s independence. Officers on foot carried a ‘swagger stick’ (cavalry carried riding crops) tucked under their arms. What Wikipedia doesn’t tell you is what their purpose was. In a dense crowd, an officer would walk a straight line and cudgel anyone who came within arms’ length to create a physical ‘safe space’ around them. If they didn’t do that, officers would be bruised black and blue from errant elbows in short order.
Here is a third example. Those soldiers stationed in India marched in formation from barracks to disembarkation points and vice versa. A tractor followed them towing a flat-bed wagon carrying soldiers’ kit-bags (duffel bags containing clothing and personal items). Guards stationed at each corner of the trailer with clubs to fend off sticky fingers otherwise the trailer would be quickly emptied by thieves. The drivers were ordered NOT to stop under any circumstances and, if necessary, to drive over ‘cripples’ deliberately placed in their path. Stopping, even briefly, attracted swarms of thieves that sped off with the kit bags despite repeated blows from the guards’ clubs.
Nowadays, slavery gangs cripple and profit from maimed child beggars. The mainstream media turns a blind eye to modern slavery. “The image of the wino taking the money he receives around the corner to the liquor store is replaced by the slave owner who beats and starves those who do not return with enough earnings.” However, Slate warns never to give money to child beggars in India.“Giving money to child beggars is the least generous thing a tourist can do.” Kidnapped children are deliberately starved and maimed before being put to work as beggars. In the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire a child in Mumbai, India, is intentionally blinded so he could bring in more money. That’s fact, not fiction.
The degree to which the preceding examples unsettle you may indicate the strength of
continue reading at https://geroldblog.com/2016/12/10/complementary-projection-bias/
wow Gerald, you have noted some exotic psycho-psycho
terms that exemplify the need to broaden one’s perspective.
Travel, read and read some more, and relax for creative impulses
to leak out or burst forth. Thanks.