Observation VS evaluation

In my previous article I introduced you to the idea that language influences the way you see the world. And how you see the world directly influences your emotions and actions. This is not a new idea! You may have come across the following quotes before:

“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view they take of them." - Epictetus

“Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so." - Shakespeare

This idea is foundational to the practice of psychology and can be visualised cybernetically as a process. The question is, are you aware of this and managing it in your own life?

This article aims to delve slightly deeper into this topic by highlighting the difference between observation and evaluation. Put in other words: data and information, and yet in other words: sensing and thinking.

Your cybernetic analog ...

Let's start by reminding ourselves of how we work as an organism. This is not the truth of it all, but it is a useful map for understanding and managing ourselves.

You are driven by needs. Some come and go on regular cycles (i.e. the need to sleep and eat), and yet others grow and evolve over time as you find new and creative ways to meet them (i.e. how you serve those you care about) (Maslow, 2011).

In this article we will simply summarise what drives you by saying that your primary directive is to:

Meet your needs, now and in the future, in a dynamic environment.

Now that you have a goal, it is easy to conceive of yourself as a process or a verb, which is useful because it makes it easier to place your different experiences and functions in relation to each other. In short, it makes it possible to better know and manage yourself.

To meet your goal (needs), you need to orientate yourself in our present time and context. To do this you use your senses. Our senses provide our brains with data to process. There is of course an infinite array of data to process in the objective world, so our brains filter out the vast majority automatically, based on what we consider to be important. This again, is determined by our goal (needs).

Of course, we can't stop there, because data is inherently meaningless. We need to turn data into information. Information has many different definitions, depending on the field you are studying. Here I use it in the sense that Peter Drucker meant it when he said:

“Information is data endowed with relevance and purpose”.

That relevance is relative to your goal, and it is represented in our model as evaluation. Suddenly we are no longer trapped in the 'present' by our senses, we can also imagine/hallucinate alternative scenarios we call future and past, which in turn allow us to give the data from our senses meaning and turn it into information. These are your thoughts about something.

This is all happening simultaneously and organically in your mind. Data and information get mixed and our language doesn't easily differentiate between the two, causing us to very often confuse the two.

Why is this a problem?

Information is the building blocks of the stories we tell ourselves and thus directly affects how we experience the world through our moods and emotions. They are the premises for our experiences. Our experiences are felt and are subjectively real as our feelings, and yet the premises (stories/information/judgments/evaluations/meanings) they are based on may not be accurate, or at the very least helpful. In fact, our stories are often quite harmful to ourselves and those around us. Consider any of the current challenges humanity is facing right now - any war, global warming, economic policies. Each will have different evaluations (stories) of the data, sometimes resulting in catastrophic behaviours.

In his book Nonviolent Communication, Marshall Rosenberg proposes the ability to differentiate between observation and evaluation is the first step toward communicating in a way that will improve your likelihood of you meeting your needs, stating that:

The first component of NVC (Non-Violent Communication) entails the separation of observation from evaluation. When we combine observation with evaluation, others are apt to hear criticism and resist what we are saying. NVC is a process language that discourages static generalizations. Instead, observations are to be made specific to time and context, for example, “Hank Smith has not scored a goal in twenty games,” rather than “Hank Smith is a poor soccer player.”

When you saw the header image of this article you probably saw more than just a hand-drawn picture of someone holding up their middle finger (observation) - you probably thought (evaluation) that I was trying to get attention or being rude. Your thought about my motivations (trying to get attention or being rude), is examples of what you think the data means. It is no longer an observation; it is an evaluation.

Making this distinction is a foundational communication and emotional intelligence skill. Observations are factual statements involving time and context. Evaluations are judgments based on what a person thinks the data means. Can you see which is which in the statements below?

“Clara arrived 20 minutes after the meeting had started.”

"Clara arrived late again because she doesn’t respect anyone’s time.”

“During lunch, Peter spoke for most of the conversation.”

“Peter dominates every conversation.”

“Sarah didn’t reply to my message yesterday.”

“Sarah ignores me whenever she feels like it.”

“The teacher raised her voice twice during the lesson.”

“The teacher is always shouting at the learners.”

Do you get the idea?

Observations are much easier to process for people because they are devoid of judgments about someone’s identity and motivations. Psychology has a term for this: the fundamental attribution error, which occurs when you assume (evaluate) someone's behaviour erroneously - often in terms of who you think they are.

For examples of this, see the statements above. Why does Peter dominate the conversation? Because he is a bully. Why does Sarah ignore me? She is selfish. Our brains are excellent at labelling people like this, and even though you might disagree with me here some part of you may resonate with the knowledge that these judgments (evaluations) are not always helpful.

Think back on the times that you've been on the receiving end of these kinds of evaluations. Those times when you became defensive and started making excuses or explaining yourself. Those fights where you didn't feel heard, nor the other person - things just spiraled out of control.

There is a better way.

There are two practical takeaways from this article:

1. When we can see ourselves and others as verbs and not nouns, we can see that each of us are trying to meet our needs, now and in the future, in a changing environment. This is innocent and good. How we meet those needs is often misguided and tragic.
2. Seeing the difference between observations and evaluations helps you disentangle each, so that you may use them appropriately as you try to meet your needs, now and in the future, in a changing environment. It helps you react less impulsively and more adaptively to what is really happening now.

P.S. This is not to say that thoughts about things (evaluations) are evil. It is a power tool. Used correctly you can create amazing things with them. Used incorrectly they can 'chop off a finger or two' (or worse!).

References

Marshall, R. (2015). Nonviolent communication: A language of life (3rd ed.)

Maslow, A. (2011). Toward a psychology of being. Wilder Publications.