What people project onto others

Sometimes, when we relate to others, we do not really talk to them, but to ourselves.

Personal relationships are always a bi-directional process: we do not limit ourselves to interacting with other people from a situation of neutrality in which we emit information and adopt an attitude depending on what they send us back, but our ways of thinking and the previous learning we have done influence us from the first moment.

That is why when we socialize, in addition to establishing communication, it is also very common for us to project our own thoughts and attitudes. it is very common for us to project our insecurities onto others.. Even if the person in front of us has not given us any reason to do so, we may start from prejudices or beliefs that lead us to think that, rather than interacting with someone, we are interacting with something we carry inside. Perhaps, even, that "something" has been inside us for many years. What is the reason for this phenomenon?

The importance of cognitive dissonance

People have a tendency to look for an internal coherence between our beliefs, thoughts, attitudes and the behaviors that we carry out in our day to day; that is the most habitual way of functioning in the day to day and of relating to our surroundings.

When there is an inconsistency or contradiction between our beliefs or between the ways of thinking to which we tend to cling, a state of discomfort is generated in us, a kind of psychological tension. This is partly due to the fact that these "clashes" of ideas have implications in how we perceive ourselves and how we perceive what is around usand so we feel compelled to resolve that conflict.

Sometimes, in order to solve this problem, we can deceive ourselves or look for mechanisms to solve this internal incoherence by manipulating the premises from which we start, the meanings of words, etc.

How does cognitive dissonance affect self-esteem?

Inconsistency between different cognitive processes or between what one thinks and what one ends up doing is a phenomenon associated with cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance can also be defined as the tension that a person experiences when their actions do not coincide with their thoughts, attitudes or beliefs; or when they perceive that they have two simultaneous thoughts or cognitions in their mind that are mutually exclusive, so that they cannot serve as a guide to know what to do until they are able to position themselves adequately in this "conflict".

It is a phenomenon that has been highly studied in the field of psychology since the 1950s, when psychologist Leon Festinger first coined the term "cognitive dissonance". In his case, he described it in such striking cases as that of a cult that was forced to generate explanations as to why the apocalypse had not occurred on the dates predicted by its leader; however, cognitive dissonance also occurs in much more everyday situations, such as what we do when we compare ourselves with others.

Cognitive dissonance can greatly influence our self-esteem, especially when the contradictory cognitions or thoughts we may have are related to our self-concept, that is, the set of beliefs and ideas that orbit around our concept of "Self."

For example, this is noticeable in the way in which many people develop a tendency to constantly compare themselves to influencers and celebrities.. These are public figures whose raison d'être is precisely to offer their best face, making it very easy to idealize them, by filtering in a very careful way the image they transmit to their followers. This is a reality that, from an intellectual point of view, is known to most people.

However, from an emotional point of view, it is very common not to be able to avoid comparing oneself with these celebrities, which can even facilitate the onset of psychopathologies such as depression, body dysmorphic disorder, anorexia, etc.

People whose self-esteem suffers because of these unrealistic comparisons often recognize that the people they admire hide many imperfections, but at the same time they cannot get it out of their heads that their ideal, what they want to become, is formed by those images and impressions associated with people who in reality do not exist beyond marketing. And in such a situation, the cognitive dissonance is resolved (at least in appearance) by generating the illusion that in order to feel better about ourselves we have to emulate the behavior of those famous people, even if we are not famous people, to end up frustrating us by not achieving self-acceptance.

Projecting our insecurities onto others.

As we have seen, the path to self-acceptance can put us on the path to projects that actually lead to self-sabotage.. That is, when what we believe to be personal development and self-improvement is actually the tendency to project our insecurities onto others, everything we do works against us.

That is why it is not uncommon for us, without realizing it, to use other people as battlegrounds in which struggles are waged between parts of our mind that have been in conflict for some time. This harms these people, yes, but it also harms us, keeping us anchored to problems and insecurities that we cannot overcome, because we allow our interactions with others to perpetuate them, making this struggle between conflicting beliefs or desires become increasingly bitter.

An example of this can be found in love-hate relationships of people who generate envy.. Those who suffer from self-esteem problems easily develop envy, and this leads them to adopt a hostile attitude towards those they admire. This, in turn, is not an effective source of motivation for self-improvement, because the need to leave the other person in a bad place (even if only in our mind) weighs more heavily than the need to reconcile with our "I".

In such cases, cognitive dissonance is managed by making our low self-esteem become an excuse to belittle that person, bringing us a relief that in the medium and long term is unsatisfactory and forces us to start all over again.

What to do?

Psychotherapy is the most effective way to achieve a balanced self-esteem and to incorporate into our lives good ways of socializing and communicating with others. If you are interested in professional help in this area, please contact me.

Referencias bibliográficas:

• Festinger, L. (1962). Cognitive Dissonance. Scientific American. 207(4): pp. 93 - 106.
• Jordan, C.H.; Spencer, S.J.; Zanna, M.P.; Hoshino-Browne, E.; Correll, J. (2003). Secure and defensive high self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5): pp. 969 - 978.