Why are people unkind

My son seems to have inherited her exact ways, dominating, blaming, arrogant dogmatic, and extremely selfish while my daughter was and is, always kind and helpful to everyone, ever since she was a toddler. I am quite a few years from 70 but as a 48 year old, I can vouch what you have said. There are people born this way. The author claims that calling people sociopaths is dehumanizing them. In any event, I have dealt with sociopaths. They are real, and their cruelty and meanness has nothing to do with pain.

In fact, many of them are extremely well-adjusted and happy, because their entire state of being is based on acquiring things and seeing other people as merely an extension of getting what they want.

How unfair! Everyone has the capacity to shine brighter than the sun, just make sure you bring the appropriate sunblock for those pesky UV rays that persist on burning you. As an emotional sensitive person growing up with a sometimes cruel mother Ive learned the hard way that its not my responsibility to absorb or carry other peoples pain. Its alot of undoing and unlearning emotional burdens that were not mine to carry in the first place. I still often feel responsible and guilty for other peoples emotions, especially anger.

I now understand more about the pain and fear behind peoples cruel words and violence that I feel more compassion for them but at the same time I release myself of the burdens of carrying their unresolved issues. Ive bettered learned to set boundaries , to stand up for myself and better yet, to stay clear from these toxic people.

I have learned that some of the cruelest, most selfish people live the longest. It is said that everything in nature is balanced. But i can not see even a single person who can say that he or she is happy. And i am no different. I have hurt people and have been hurt. Could not find how nature balances it. I was in a toxic relationship with my ex and she hurt me a lot. We both had mental problems depression and we broke up in the worst way. But now that I am wiser and older, i look back at that relationship and i feel guilty; because I feel like I could help her to love herself.

How can I move on from this feeling? There is no guarantee that what works for some people will work for everybody in the same situation. You need to do what you believe is best in your personal situation and not compare with others. Not everything is for everybody.

Well said, Alexandra. He bit like a playground runt to protect the defenseless little person he thought himself to be. The belief that we are smaller and less powerful than others underlies most meanness, even when that belief is delusional. But we can also use our author's imagination to size things in our favor. Think of a person who's been nasty to you. Imagine that person shrinking to one inch tall. Picture your enemy stomping around in the palm of your hand, yelling or sneering all the customary cruelties.

You'll find that if your critic is making a valid point, it will still sound accurate, but mere verbal abuse is hilarious when squeaked in the voice of an inch-tall Mini-Mean. Whatever your reaction to this tiny villain, that's probably the best way to react to your life-size challenger.

If the insults are laughable, just laugh. If the mean person has a point, tell her that you get it, but she could stand to work on her people skills. Practice what you would say if you felt big and invulnerable, then say it, even if you're scared.

Be "big" by responding to cruelty with honest calm rather than aggression or submissiveness. Ernest Hemingway claimed the most essential talent for a good writer was simply a "built-in, shockproof shit detector. To write the stories of our lives as honestly as possible, we must thoroughly reject crap.

This is especially useful when cruelty masquerades as kindness. Some of the most merciless behavior ever perpetrated looks very nice. The sweeter a lie sounds, the meaner it really is. Avery Rogers is a high school student in California.

She aspires to be an author, spiritual writer, and neuroscientist when she grows up. She is the creator and host of the Brainstorms Podcast , a neuroscience podcast for teenagers.

This site is not intended to provide and does not constitute medical, legal, or other professional advice. The content on Tiny Buddha is designed to support, not replace, medical or psychiatric treatment. Please seek professional care if you believe you may have a condition. Before using the site, please read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. Click to opt-out of Google Analytics tracking. Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine.

Click here to read more. When I became depressed, though, my temper shortened and I felt far more irritable. Loving Kindness Meditation. Self-Esteem Exercise. Lies You Were Told. Choosing Happiness. Although the issue may be more prevalent online due to the anonymity and accessibility, it is by no means limited to the online community.

The more that people can recognize that the meanness they experience from others is either unintentional or is more about the mean person rather than about them, the less they personalize the meanness and the less impact it has on them. Fran focused on doing a good job at work and because she tended to not spend much time chatting with her co-workers she tended to accomplish a great deal. In fact, it was apparent to everyone that she was able to complete more tasks than her co-workers who spent a great deal of time on their phones, playing on the internet, and talking with one another.

You make everyone else look bad by being such a brown-noser. Obviously, Fran hadn't done anything wrong. The problem in this situation was the co-worker who was directing her anger at Fran rather than taking responsibility for her own behavior.

This misdirected self-protective behavior often occurs when someone has problems with insecurity which frequently leads to jealousy and blame. However, even though Fran wasn't wrong, she still suffered the consequences of the co-worker's wrath. In fact, this is the purpose of such behavior, by blaming the problem on someone else and causing them to feel bad, the co-worker could feel better. I don't believe most people are mean people.

However, under the right circumstances, most people can be mean. The subject was to ask this person questions and to deliver a shock by flipping a switch on the machine in front of them. The device had a dial on it clearly labeled from mild to dangerous.

The researcher told the subject to increase the amount of shock with each wrong answer. This type of study is not allowed to be conducted today due to the potential psychological harm to the subject from knowing they could cause harm to another human being. However, the research and other similar research was conducted with different variations showing the same type of outcome. I believe that this research shows what I stated earlier, that under the right circumstances most people can be mean.

The circumstance in this research was the pressure to obey, the pressure to conform, the stress of the situation, and the fear of authority. Often there appears to be so many mean people in the world around us, because the behavior of mean people tends to be more noticeable. One reason for this is probably the way our brains are wired for survival.

According to Rick Hanson, author of Buddha's Brain, we need to be especially observant of the negative things in our environment because those are the things that are most likely to harm us.

As a result, those most likely to survive and pass their genes to the next generation were those who were particularly sensitive to danger in the environment. Another reason mean people are more noticeable is that their behavior is often particularly offensive and hurtful. We are more likely to notice and dwell on the person who cut us off in traffic rather than the person who let us merge.

The more malicious the behavior, the more likely we are to be distressed and to dwell on what occurred. However, this supports my position that meanness isn't the norm. For instance, notice what stories make the news. The nature of news is that it is unusual or it has an extreme impact on people's lives. A good example is that the West Nile virus that had significantly fewer episodes and fatalities than the flu got much more media attention. Or a major airplane crash, because it is so rare, will get extensive coverage.

And certainly, anything negative tends to generate more media focus than positive things. Therefore, since meanness gets our attention, I would propose that it is actually rarer than niceness but more noticeable.

Unfortunately, another aspect of meanness that makes it more visible is that it is often rewarded. Sometimes the reward can be tangible such as a ruthless businessman being rewarded by making more money. However, it can also be rewarded with attention or escalation of conflict. It varies with each person what sort of reward is meaningful, although for meanness to continue there must be some sort of reward to the perpetrator.

We will examine this further as we look at the different reasons for meanness. However, I believe that, in general, the following categories represent a continuum of meanness from unintentional to malicious.

Unintentional meanness refers to behavior or statements that the recipient may perceive as mean but that weren't intended to be hurtful. Whereas malicious meanness is behavior or statements that have the purpose of hurting the recipient. The idea of a continuum is that most mean behavior is a mixture of intentionality. Also, much of intentional meanness may not be severe enough in its impact to be considered malicious. Therefore, malicious meanness for the purpose of this article and the categories I have created is considered both intended and extreme.

The following reasons for meanness are listed in order, to the best of my ability, from the unintentional situations that may be perceived as being mean, to the reactive situations in which people are mean, to the situations with malicious intentions.

Frequently people will perceive a behavior as mean when there was no intention to be hurtful. Instead, the behavior may be due to a lack of skills, a lack of knowledge, or a lack of awareness. It is important to be able to determine if this may be the case because there are many situations in which people appear mean for these reasons when they have no such intention.

Sometimes others may be focused internally or on something else and don't notice your situation. For example, someone doesn't let you merge in traffic because their attention is focused on their companion and they don't notice that you want to merge. Certainly, you could make a case that they should be paying more attention in traffic.

However, the evidence isn't available that they were being mean; instead they were unaware. Also, lack of awareness is often involved with cultural differences. For instance, a great deal of misunderstandings occur because of personal space. Research has shown that in the U. Someone from another culture who stands much closer may be interpreted as intimidating or rude. Some people may have little insight or awareness of how they impact others.

They might tend to be more concrete in their thought processes and don't realize their behavior may be hurtful or rude. Some people are insulted by the question because they believe it implies they are old. Someone with little insight about others' feelings may not realize that they insulted someone.

Some people may have poor social skills. They may not have been taught the proper social skills or they may not have the experience with social interaction to have learned the skills.

As a result, they may be awkward interacting with others. For instance, someone who is shy or who has Asperger's Syndrome may not make adequate eye contact. Some people may interpret this as lack of interest and be insulted. Some people may not know certain skills such as solving problems assertively. When they are attempting to learn these skills they may not be able to find the right words or tone of voice that comes with more experience. When people are first learning these skills they may appear more aggressive than they intend.