Practicing understanding of people will save you from hating them.

Practicing Understanding of People Will Save You From Hating Them

Hook: A small moment on a crowded street

One winter evening, I watched a man shout at a bus driver over a delayed route. The words were sharp, the tone unforgiving. The driver looked tired, eyes ringed with the quiet fatigue of a long shift. Most of us standing nearby felt the familiar surge—annoyance, judgment, maybe even a flicker of contempt.

Then something unexpected happened. Another passenger spoke up, not in defense, but in curiosity. “Rough day?” she asked the shouting man. He paused. His shoulders dropped. “My wife’s in the hospital,” he said. “I just need to get there.”

Nothing about the delay changed. But everything about how we felt did. The anger in the air dissolved into something softer, closer to understanding.

That small moment captures a profound psychological truth: when we practice understanding, hatred loses its fuel.

What this phrase means in this interpretation

Under the learning and behavioral scaffold interpretation, “practicing understanding” is not a moral command or a personality trait. It is a skill built through repetition, much like learning a language or strengthening a muscle.

Each time we intentionally ask why someone might think or act as they do, we scaffold our minds toward empathy, emotional regulation, and more accurate social judgments. Over time, this habit reduces reflexive hostility—not because people suddenly become perfect, but because our brains become better at context.

The science behind it, explained simply

Several well-established psychological and neuroscientific concepts converge on this idea.

1. Attribution and the brain’s shortcut problem

Humans rely on mental shortcuts to make sense of others. One of the most powerful is the fundamental attribution error: our tendency to explain others’ bad behavior as a flaw in their character, while excusing our own as a product of circumstance.

Understanding disrupts this shortcut. When we pause to consider context—stress, incentives, background—we activate slower, more deliberate cognitive systems associated with perspective-taking.

2. Empathy as a trainable process

Empathy is not a single feeling. Researchers often distinguish:

• Cognitive empathy: understanding what someone else is experiencing.
• Affective empathy: feeling what they feel.

Practicing understanding primarily strengthens cognitive empathy, which has been shown to reduce hostility even when emotional warmth is limited.

3. Emotional regulation through meaning-making

Neuroscience shows that when we reinterpret a situation—known as cognitive reappraisal—activity in threat-related brain regions (like the amygdala) decreases, while regulatory regions in the prefrontal cortex increase. Understanding is, in effect, a form of emotional self-regulation.

Experiments and evidence

Below are landmark studies that ground this idea in empirical research. Where details are debated or simplified, that uncertainty is noted.

Study 1: The Fundamental Attribution Error

Researchers: Lee Ross Year: 1977 Publication: Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

• Research question: Why do people over-attribute others’ behavior to personality rather than situation?
• Method: Participants observed or read about others taking positions that were either freely chosen or assigned.
• Sample/setting: Laboratory experiments with university students.
• Results: Even when participants knew positions were assigned, they still assumed the speaker genuinely believed them.
• Why it matters: This bias is a core engine of hatred. Practicing understanding directly counters it by forcing situational reasoning.

Study 2: Perspective-Taking Reduces Bias

Researchers: Adam D. Galinsky & Gordon B. Moskowitz Year: 2000 Publication: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

• Research question: Can imagining another person’s perspective reduce stereotyping?
• Method: Participants were asked to write about a day in the life of a target individual from that person’s perspective.
• Sample/setting: Controlled experiments with student participants.
• Results: Perspective-taking significantly reduced automatic stereotyping and increased more favorable evaluations.
• Why it matters: This shows that deliberate practice of understanding can reshape implicit attitudes.

Study 3: Reappraisal and Emotional Control

Researchers: James J. Gross & Kevin Ochsner Year: 2005 (and later neuroimaging studies) Publication: Trends in Cognitive Sciences

• Research question: How does cognitive reappraisal change emotional responses?
• Method: Participants reinterpreted emotionally charged images while brain activity was measured.
• Sample/setting: Laboratory studies with fMRI.
• Results: Reappraisal reduced negative emotional intensity and dampened amygdala activation.
• Why it matters: Understanding others’ motives is a form of reappraisal, biologically linked to reduced anger and hostility.

(Details summarized from multiple related papers; exact protocols vary.)

A simple thought experiment you can try at home

Thought experiment: The Three Stories Exercise

Time: 5–10 minutes Safety: Completely safe; purely reflective

1. Think of someone who recently irritated you.
2. Write three different explanations for their behavior:
   • One that assumes bad intent.
   • One that assumes neutral circumstances.
   • One that assumes hidden stress or hardship.
3. Notice how your emotional response changes with each version.

Most people report that even imagining alternative explanations softens anger. That emotional shift is not weakness—it is your brain learning flexibility.

Real-world applications

In families and relationships

Chronic resentment often comes not from conflict itself, but from unexamined stories we tell about others’ intentions. Practicing understanding reframes conflict as information, not insult.

In workplaces

Studies in organizational psychology show that managers trained in perspective-taking handle conflict more effectively and foster higher trust. Understanding reduces personal grudges and improves problem-solving.

In politics and public discourse

Research suggests that exposure to opposing views without perspective-taking increases polarization. But structured understanding—asking what values or fears drive a belief—can reduce moral hostility even when disagreement remains.

In mental health

Therapeutic approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Mentalization-Based Therapy explicitly train people to reinterpret others’ behavior more accurately, reducing anger, anxiety, and interpersonal distress.

Limitations, controversies, and open questions

Understanding is powerful, but it is not a cure-all.

• Understanding is not excusing harm. There is a real ethical line between empathy and enabling abuse.
• Empathy fatigue exists. Constant emotional labor without boundaries can lead to burnout.
• Not all contexts reward understanding. In high-conflict or unsafe situations, distance—not perspective-taking—may be healthier.
• Cultural differences matter. Most studies are conducted in Western contexts; how understanding operates across cultures remains an active area of research.

Science supports the value of practicing understanding, but it does not suggest limitless tolerance or self-sacrifice.

Inspiring close: A quiet revolution of habit

Hatred rarely begins as hatred. It begins as a story told too quickly, with too little information.

Practicing understanding is not about being endlessly kind or emotionally porous. It is about training your mind to pause, to ask better questions, to recognize the hidden complexity in other human beings.

Each moment of understanding is small. But habits compound. Over time, this practice reshapes not just how we see others, but how we experience the world—less sharp, less hostile, more human.

And in a time when anger travels fast, that may be one of the most quietly radical skills we can learn.

Key takeaways

• Practicing understanding is a learnable cognitive habit, not a personality trait.
• Perspective-taking reduces bias, anger, and automatic hostility.
• Neuroscience links understanding to better emotional regulation.
• Understanding does not mean approval or lack of boundaries.
• Small, repeated acts of perspective-taking can transform long-term attitudes.

References (selected)

• Galinsky, A. D., & Moskowitz, G. B. (2000). Perspective-taking: Decreasing stereotype expression, stereotype accessibility, and in-group favoritism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
• Gross, J. J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology.
• Ochsner, K. N., & Gross, J. J. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
• Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology.