There is a problematic psychological disposition that is aptly called "being judgmental." It is getting a kick out of making negative moral assessments of other people. It's enhancing your own sense of moral worth by comparisons with the (supposed) lesser moral status of others. It's finding satisfaction in seeing others fail because it shows you are better than they are. People who tend to feel morally inferior feel relief when they see others fail; by comparison that they are not so bad after all. People who lack appreciation of their own potential for moral failure enjoy having their false sense of moral superiority reinforced. Those who are judgmental are invested in one-up-manship.
What are the signs of being judgmental? Here are five:
- Making a lot of negative moral evaluations of others.
- Having a moral rating system that is skewed in your own favor.
- Jumping to negative moral conclusions about others; being inclined to believe the worst.
- Moving very quickly from judgments of the form, "This action is morally wrong," to ones of the form, "This person is morally corrupt." (See Don't Be Judgmental, Be Discerning.)
- Acting as if you can know that what so-and-so did was wrong even though you know much less about the context of so-and-so's action than so-and-so.
Being judgmental distorts our perception of other people, of ourselves and of what matters most in living a well-lived human life. It feeds on and engenders a lack of sympathetic understanding of others. It is often linked with other related character flaws: hypocrisy, self-righteousness, malice, insensitivity, and the enjoyment of destructive gossip.