by Linda-Ann Stewart

When you talk about another person, you reveal more about yourself than you do about the person you’re discussing. You reveal your biases and the things that bother you. Many times, what you complain about is more a factor of your filters and how you perceive what they’ve said or done, than it is an objective observation.

I know insecure people who consider self-assured people as self-important and arrogant. No evidence to the contrary will shake them from their opinion.

Research shows that when one coworker rates another one, you learn as much or more about the rater as you do about the rated. Negative people tend to rate others as negative, and the same goes with positive people.

You tend to filter your opinions of others through your own filters, and how you view yourself. It’s been said that what we see in others is actually a reflection of who we are. This research, published in the July 2010 issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, tends to confirm that.

Read more about this study at What you say about others says a lot about you, research shows.