How to understand others

Understanding Other People (for Teens)

Predicting Feelings

Imagine yourself in this situation: A friend asks you to a party. You learn that all the girls in your group were invited — except for Paula. How do you think Paula will feel if she finds out?

A. angry
B. sad
C. hurt
D. excluded
E. confused
F. nervous
G. embarrassed
H. indifferent

You probably came up with your answer by putting yourself in Paula's shoes and imagining how you'd feel. Most people in this situation will feel some or all of emotions A through D: angry, sad, hurt, and excluded. It's not as likely that someone who is left out will feel confused, nervous, embarrassed, or indifferent.

Being able to predict how other people might feel is a part of emotional intelligence (EQ for short). It's a skill we can all develop with practice.

When we understand how other people are likely to feel, it can guide our interactions with them. For example, in the party example above, what if Paula asks: "Are you going to Regan's party?" Knowing that she wasn't invited probably influences how you respond. You might say (or avoid saying!) any of the following:

A. "Yes, I'm going — are you?"
B. "Yes, I'm going. I feel awkward telling you. Is it true she didn't invite you?"
C. "Yes, everyone's going!"
D. "Of course I'm going! It's going to be the best party of the whole year!"
E. "Yes. I'm sorry you weren't invited. I don't think Regan meant to hurt your feelings, I heard her parents only allowed her to ask a few people."

If you didn't know Paula wasn't invited, you might answer with A, C, or D. Because you know the full story, though, you're more likely to consider Paula's feelings and answer with B or E. Answers C and D are the kinds of things you say when you know for sure the other person has been invited.

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Reading Body Language

Sometimes you get more information about a situation from what a person doesn't say: Part of emotional intelligence is reading the signals people send and taking them into account.

Let's say Paula approaches you, looking upset. She asks: "Are you going to Regan's party on Saturday?" Her emotional signals (body language, facial expression) clue you in that Paula knows she wasn't invited. In that situation, you might still answer with option A, but you'd probably be more likely to choose B or E.

But what if Paula approaches you looking cheerful and says: "Hey, I heard Regan is having a party this weekend. Are you going?" Based on her body language, you might conclude, "Oh, she doesn't know and she's expecting an invite."

If you have good EQ, you probably feel conflicted about telling Paula you're going to the party when you know she's the only one who's not invited. Even though it's up to Paula to manage her own emotions, you probably feel empathy for her. You know that how you respond can help her feel supported or make her feel worse, so you choose your words accordingly.

Making Sense of Reactions

The skill of understanding others helps us predict what people might feel in a certain situation, but it also allows us to make sense of how people react.

For example:

In homeroom at 8 a.m., your friend is smiling, friendly, and full of energy. Later that afternoon, he looks upset, almost like he might cry. Which explanation is your best guess for what might have happened between these two times?

A. He had a fight with his girlfriend at lunch, and now they're not talking.
B. He passed the 4th period algebra exam.
C. He just found out he didn't make the final cut for varsity basketball.
D. The chemistry teacher assigned a lot of homework.
E. He probably just had a bad day.

You likely ruled out option B instantly: Emotional intelligence tells you that your friend's reaction looks more like failing an exam than passing. If your friend had a bad day or a lot of homework (options D or E), he might seem stressed out, tired, or worn down — but he probably wouldn't be on the verge of tears. Ruling out those options lets you zero in on what's most likely to be upsetting your friend: options A or C.

People who are skilled at understanding others imagine another person's feelings ("I think he'll feel awful if I say that to him"). They are able to relate to how that person reacts to things ("Oh, I completely get why she got angry like that. No wonder!"). Understanding how others feel, act, and react helps us build better relationships.

How to Build This Skill

It's not always easy to predict or understand how someone else feels. Some people are better at it than others, but just about everyone can improve with practice. Understanding others is all about watching and listening.

It Starts With Watching

If you see someone trip and fall, you probably wince — ouch! — as if it happened to you. We have a natural tendency to sense what other people feel just by watching them. Scientists think there's a biological reason for this. They believe that brain cells called "mirror neurons" activate in the same way whether we do something ourselves or watch another person do it.

Try these ways to develop your observation skills:

Look at people's expressions and body language. Next time you're at the mall, in the coffee shop, or on the subway or bus, try this: Look around and try to identify how people might be feeling based on their body language, facial expressions, and what they're doing. The girl with the textbooks on her knee might have an exam coming up. Does she seem confident — or stressed? What about the guy with his eyes closed? Is he feeling peaceful? Tired? Upset?
Read books or watch movies that have realistic portrayals of human emotions. Pay attention to how different characters feel and act. Try to understand why the characters feel the way they do. Based on those emotions, predict what a character will do next. Or see if you can explain why a character did what he or she did.

It Improves With Listening

People who are good at understanding others are usually good listeners. Research shows that the better someone listens, the more connected that person feels with the person who is talking. This produces a feeling of bonding and closeness.

Most of us rate ourselves as good listeners — after all, listening seems like such a simple, basic thing to do. But often we're so busy thinking of what we want to say that we don't listen as much as we'd like. Here are some ways to build good listening skills:

Practice listening well in everyday conversations. Really pay attention to what the other person is saying. Train yourself to think of listening as more important than talking.
Tune in to feelings as well as story. When a friend tells you about something, try to imagine how he or she might have felt. Make statements that show you're trying to understand your friend's experience, like: "Oh, that must have felt amazing!" or, "That must be upsetting for you." You'll probably notice that you feel closer, more "in sync" with the person. You might find you can predict what your friend will say next.
Take time to listen to someone in depth. Interview a friend or family member about a special time in his or her life. For example, ask your parents about their wedding day or get your grandparents to tell you about having their first child. Try to imagine what the experience was really like for them. Ask them to tell you more about how they felt and why.

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Turning Understanding Into Compassion

After building your skills in understanding others, how do you use that knowledge? If you're like most people, you use it to help and support the people you care about. This is compassion, and compassion helps us form relationships. Try these three ways to be more compassionate:

Ask others what they need. If a friend is going through a difficult time, ask what you can do to help. If your friend says, "I don't know," think about what you'd want in the same situation, then offer to do something similar.
Show a sincere interest in others. Be curious about the people you know — not in a nosy or fake way, but in a way that shows you want to understand them a little better. For example, ask about the kinds of things they like to do, or about their feelings, ideas, and opinions.
Act with kindness. When you hear gossip, ridicule, or unkind teasing, make it your first reaction to imagine how it would feel to be on the receiving end. That can help you tune in to other people's feelings and refuse to join in.

Even small acts of compassion can build positive social connections (try saying "hi" to someone who is sitting alone at lunch and see how it makes you feel). Scientists now know that strong social connections influence our health, happiness, and even how long we live.

Understanding People - 10 Ways to Make It Easier

By: TrinDiego

Constant difficulty relating to others can leave you feeling alienated, frustrated, and overwhelmed by loneliness, and is often a contributing factor for depression.

If understanding people is something you struggle with, what can you do to to make seeing how others think and feel easier?

10 Ways to Start Understanding Others More

1. Expect it to take time and energy.

Do you decide someone isn’t worth getting to know based on one small thing about them you don’t like? Or after only one quick meeting, are you convinced another is ‘too complicated’ for you?

People are formed of a lifetime of experiences, and like all good things need time and energy to be understood.

Stop any quick judgements and commit to being more open and available to the experience of getting to know someone, then triple the time you think it might take.

2. Drop the assumptions.

Instead of being sure you won’t like someone or they won’t like you, or making assumptions you won’t understand them based on small things (the way they dress or speak, who they are friends with), try to imagine that each person is a blank slate you know nothing about until you talk to them and spend time with them.

[Not sure you know what assumptions really are, or if you are or aren’t making them? Read our article on Why You Are Making Assumptions].

3. Be fully present.

By: BK

It’s hard to listen to someone when you are lost in your head, thinking about what you did at work earlier in the day or what you’ll cook for dinner later.

If we are caught up in the past or future instead of being in the present with the other person, how can we understand them?

Employ mindfulness techniques to get fully present. Take a few deep breaths, noticing how the air comes in and out of your body. Pay attention to something concrete about the other person to draw you into the present moment – the colour of their sweater, the way they move their hands. Focus fully on what they are saying, repeating it in your mind as they speak.

4. Use the power of perspective.

Perspective is the unique way you see things. And although it’s easy to assume others can understand your view, everyone sees things from their different perspective.

It’s as if everyone in the world were standing around a giant statue of an elephant. If you are describing the trunk to someone who is looking at the tail, you are bound to have a misunderstanding.

Never assume someone else thinks just like you or sees things as you do. Try to imagine life through their lens (try our article on The Power of Perspective for more on how this works) and explain how you see things as clearly as possible without blaming the other for not having your viewpoint.

5. Read body language.

While it would be helpful if everyone said what they really thought or felt, it’s not the way our society works. Most of us are instead programmed to say what we think others want to hear.

For example, we say we are ‘fine’. but our shoulders are slumped and we are fidgeting (we aren’t okay at all). Or we say we are okay to do something because we think we should, but our arms are crossed and we look down (we don’t really want to do it at all).

Learn the basics of body language and you’re bound to be more sensitive to others. Do keep in mind, though, that everyone has their personal habits – if a person always slumps their shoulders because they are very tall, it might be more of a habit than a sign that they aren’t okay.

By: Jonathan Powell

6. Listen fully instead of halfway.

‘Half listening’ is a bad modern habit – we listen as we check our phone, or as our mind goes over the shopping list.

Become a better listener by trying to clear your mind of other things and fully focussing on what the person is saying, leaving a pause before you respond instead of interrupting.

7. Practise reflecting back.

This is a part of listening skills that of itself can do wonders not only for your ability to understand others, but for making others feel heard and thus more comfortable around you.

‘Reflecting back’ involves rephrasing and repeating what someone has said to you so that you are both on the same page. For example, if someone tells you that they are very upset because they just spoke to their spouse and he mentioned that the trip they are going on is cancelled you would reflect back, “so, you feel upset because your partner cancelled the trip?” The other person might then explain that no, they actually aren’t upset at their partner, but at his company that changed his vacation week.

8. Ask really good questions.

Try to start questions with how or what over why. “Why’ questions leave the other person to speculate and look backwards, questioning themselves, leading to confusion for both them and for you, the listener. How and what tend to be questions that cause one to look forward and find clear solutions. [Read more in our article on the Power of Good Questions.]

9. Watch out for projection.

Psychological projection is when we unconsciously attribute the way we ourselves are thinking and feeling to others, thereby avoiding facing up to our own unwanted emotions or thoughts. For example, if you don’t like someone but feel guilty, you might instead tell everyone the other person doesn’t like you.

Learning to stop projecting means you can finally start to see others for what they are, not what you need them to handle for you.

10. Learn to understand yourself better.

The more time you invest in understanding the way you personally think and feel, the easier it is to have compassion for others. Try some bibliotherapy (good self-help books), journalling, mindfulness, or self-compassion as a start. Or work with a counsellor who can be an unbiased and supportive help to guide you into making sense of yourself.

Is my struggle to relate really so important?

Struggling to understand others can simply be the result of a childhood where the adults around you didn’t model good relating skills, and just be something you need to teach yourself.

But if you are constantly struggling with this issue it can be worth speaking to a therapist. Struggles with relationships can also be a sign of certain psychological issues that can include codependency, low self-esteem, Asperger’s syndrome, borderline personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder.

Can therapy help me understand others better?

Absolutely. Relationships are so important to psychological wellbeing that although all types of talk therapy will help you with the way you interact with others, there are several forms of therapy which focus just on helping you with relationships. Two such talk therapies that might be of use to you are dynamic interpersonal therapy (DIT) and cognitive analytic therapy (CAT).

How to learn to understand other people?

"I can't imagine why he did that"... "I don't understand your feelings!" Many of us, even if we didn't say those words out loud, felt something similar. Sometimes we really lack the ability to read the thoughts and feelings of other people. Some are lucky enough to be gifted with empathy almost from birth. And what about the rest? Are they doomed to remain ignorant? Not at all.

The ability to understand other people can be developed. This will help two simple and exciting exercises. Both of these are variations on a basic technique called "Duplication" in psychodrama. When there is a desire or need to better understand the state of a person, you enter the role of an interlocutor for a while, trying to think with his head, feel with his body, pronounce his state.

Method 1. With strangers

You can, for example, choose one of the passengers to train on public transport. Now mentally imagine that you are him. Become him. What do you think about when you are him? What do you feel? What emotions are you experiencing? Be sure to speak in the first person (not “he rejoices”, but “I rejoice”), as if putting yourself in his place.

It's not guaranteed that you will guess the parameters of the passenger's state. And even if you guess, it's not always possible to check it. But the task here is different - to get used to entering the role of another person, trying on his condition for yourself. You can also train in the park or in a cafe. At the end of the exercise, do not forget to "come to yourself", that is, to remind yourself who you are.

Method 2: With friends

Play Guessing game with a friend.

1. Invite a friend to participate in an experiment.

2. Place a chair next to his chair so that you are facing the same direction. A bench or sofa is also suitable.

3. Ask a friend to sit quietly for a while (15-20 seconds is enough).

4. Imagine that you are him. You can reproduce his posture, try to synchronize the rhythm of your breathing.

5. Now, as if from his role, pronounce the state in the first person. For example: "I'm calm and I like this game" or "I feel a little annoyed because you stuck with this game, but I didn't finish my coffee."

6. The task of the person being duplicated is to repeat only that part of the message that was guessed. You can't say "no", "wrong". If not a single word of "understudy" is suitable, then his interlocutor simply describes his condition in his own words.

The dialogue might look like this:

Understudy (D): I'm a little tired, so much work has accumulated.

Subject (I): I'm tired because I didn't get enough sleep today.

D: If I had more sleep, I would feel more alert.

E: I would feel more energized if this exhausting renovation was over.

D: I don't like it when something is not done, it creates constant tension.

I: I don't like it when something is not done, it creates constant tension

The exercise lasts an average of 2-3 minutes. You can switch roles if you wish.

How to use?

In its pure form, technology is not used in communication. But if you practice it regularly, you will be much better than before, closer to understanding the feelings and thoughts of other people. This will help you build good relationships and resolve conflicts more easily.

7 ways to learn to understand other people - HEROINE

High emotional intelligence and empathy not only make you a pleasant person for others, but also a competitive professional in the job market. Modern companies value specialists who understand well what is expected of them, who are able to read the reaction of colleagues or customers and quickly respond to it. Empathy is good for everyone, because it teaches us to better understand other people. Here are some scientific ways to develop this ability.

1. Meeting new people

We learn to empathize when we spend time with new people, according to a 2015 study by a group of Swiss scientists. Positive experiences of interacting with other social groups help a person understand that his experiences are not unique, and create a better emotional connection with others.

2. Stress

It has long been assumed that all stress causes people to react in such a way that they either withdraw into themselves, coping with an unpleasant situation, or run away from it. It is now known that a certain kind of stress does not follow this pattern; instead of encouraging people to hide from others to protect themselves, it increases a person's capacity for empathy.

A 2017 study found that when a person is stressed while performing a task, an area of the brain that is responsible for empathy is activated.

In the course of the experiment, 60 male students underwent a stress test, having received negative emotions. They were then shown images of other people undergoing some kind of painful procedure. The more emotionally they took their negative experience with the stress test, the more they sympathized with strangers. Even if a person experienced a completely different type of stress, he was capable of greater empathy.

3. Shared experiences with loved ones

An experiment conducted in 2015 at McGill University in Montreal showed that our ability to empathize affects our negative experiences. People were asked to dip their hands in ice-cold water in front of strangers doing the same, and then in the presence of loved ones.

When friends were around, participants in the experiment rated their discomfort from water as more severe. It turned out that when we experience negative situations next to loved ones, we feel their pain.

It took only 15 minutes of playing video games together to form an empathic connection with strangers. Even after such a short time, the subjects began to project the other person's pain onto themselves.

4. Films and books

Observing the plot of films, series or books develops our ability to understand other people. We have already talked about the experience of researchers from the University of Oklahoma, who showed that watching TV series helped the participants in the experiment to better recognize the emotions of others.
Biographical, psychological or melodramatic plots develop the ability to empathize especially well.

1Read on the topic: 9 signs that your superpower is intuition

5. Observation of other people

If you want to understand people better, develop psychological observation. Pay attention to the behavior of strangers on the street or in public transport: their facial expressions, gestures, the way they speak. Try to imagine what this person is experiencing right now. It is not necessary to check your guesses, it is enough just to develop the habit of such observations.

6. Nonjudgmental perception

Learn to perceive other people's reactions without specific judgments. When listening to a person, do not criticize, even mentally, and do not try to draw conclusions.

Moreover, you must stop dividing emotions into good and bad. Perceiving some feeling as negative, a person seeks to get rid of it as soon as possible or ignore it. To develop emotional intelligence, it is better to try to accept what you are experiencing at the moment, to find the reasons for your reaction.

It is good practice to keep a diary. In it, you should write down all your feelings and the situations that provoked them.

7. Empathy Exercises

The most popular empathy training is the exercises developed by psychologist Daniel Kieran.