Our perception of others is strongly guided by the personality traits we see in ourselves and how we evaluate these traits. If you’re an extravert, for example, another person’s extraversion becomes salient to you when you’re communicating with him or her. Likewise, if you pride yourself on being friendly, other people’s friendliness becomes your perceptual focus.
But it’s not just a matter of focusing on certain traits to the exclusion of others. We evaluate people positively or negatively in accordance with how we feel about our own traits. We typically like in others the same traits we like in ourselves, and we dislike in others the traits that we dislike in ourselves.
What personality traits do you like in yourself? When you see these traits in others, how does that impact your communication toward them? How do you perceive people who possess traits you don’t like in yourself? How do these perceptions affect your relationships with them?
To avoid this preoccupation with your own traits, carefully observe how you focus on other people’s traits and how your evaluation of these traits reflects your own feelings about yourself. Strive to perceive people broadly, taking into consideration all of their traits and not just the positive or negative ones that you share. Then evaluate them and communicate with them independently of your own positive and negative self-evaluations.