Language in Thought and Action: Tips for Effective Communication(Part 3)
How is subjective judgment formed? How to avoid it?
This is the third part of ‘Language in Thought and Action’: Tips for Effective Communication. For more tips, please read my other articles.
The main sources of subjective assumptions are inferences and judgments.
We would guess that a woman leads a decent material life based on her modest and beautiful clothes; we would guess that a person is often engaged in very heavy physical labor based on a pair of calloused hands. **This kind of guessing about the unknown, based on what is known, is an inference. **The degree of merit of an inference usually depends on the inductor’s ability and the source of the observation. Just as a good mechanical engineer can make correct inferences about the internal structure of a motor when he hears it turn on, an amateur is likely to be completely wrong if he is allowed to do so.
Judgment is an expression of approval or disapproval of the person, thing, or object we are describing. For example, “This car has been on the road for 50,000 kilometers and has never needed repairs” is a fact, but describing it as “This is a perfectly good car” is a judgment.
To better understand the formation of subjective judgments, let’s compare the following two statements:
Statement 1: “John lied to us.”
Statement 2: “John told us that he forgot his car keys, but within a few minutes, when he fished a handkerchief out of his pocket, a set of car keys fell out.”
In our daily lives, we often think of statements such as statement 1 as stating a “fact”, but in fact, the word “lie” itself includes first an inference (John knew that what he was saying did not match the truth, but he intentionally said it that way), then a judgment (the one who said it), and then a statement (the one who said it did not match the truth). a judgment (the person who said it inferred what Lao Zhang did, and he disapproved of what Lao Zhang did). In this process, subjective assumptions are made.
So how do you avoid subjective judgment? There’s a highly actionable exercise: write a report text.
Unlike inferences and judgments,** reports emphasize verifiability. **For example, if we report that “it’s snowing outside,” we can go outside and see if that’s true.
In our exercises, we will learn to replace “He thinks he is great” with “He seldom talked to his subordinates before” and “He has an inferiority complex” with “He refused to apply for the scholarship, although I believe that if he did, he would be the one to get it.
This approach improves our attention to language and identifies inferences and judgments effectively. Especially when confronted with fanatical opinions that are intentionally stirred up by others for certain purposes, we can become more calm and collected by comparing the inferential judgments in the language of others with the facts. At the same time, statements of fact are clearer and more persuasive.
