If the glasses are the boss 🌧️
What happens if I don't take them off? · 8 min
What it costs
What do I lose if I keep judging? · 12 min
What it costs
What do I lose if I keep judging? · 15 min
Each age has its own progress. People of the same age share this space and its logbook in this browser.
Laughing at the new kid once seems like a small thing. What if it happens every day?
Thanks for sharing. You're not the only one.
The new kid's story
Case 1The new kid
A new boy joins Lía's class.
Illustrative case. The characters and events are made up. The pattern is based on evidence.
Where would you have changed course? Pick the panel where you would have done something different.
- The first day
A new boy joins Lía's class. He speaks with a different accent and his clothes are different. When he says his name, Lía and her friends laugh.
What could have been done here
Instead of laughing, say to him: "Hi! Where are you from?"
- A week later
They give him a nickname because of how he talks. Every time he says something in class, someone imitates him.
What could have been done here
Not laugh at the nickname and not repeat it.
- A month later
The new boy plays alone every break. He hardly talks in class anymore.
What could have been done here
Invite him to play.
- At the end of the year
The teacher tells them that the boy comes from another country, that he left his grandparents and his friends there, and that he misses them a lot. Lía thinks about how she would feel. The next day she invites him to play.
What could have been done here
What Lía did! It's never too late to invite someone.
Any moment was a good moment to change course, even the last one. The best one is today.
The cost: A very lonely year for a boy who already missed his home.
What the data says: Some scientists looked at more than 500 studies from many countries and saw that when we really get to know people who are different, we are less afraid of them and judge them less. Source: Pettigrew, T. F. and Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751–783.
Today: Ask someone new where they're from and what they like to play.
With the glasses on, the new kid was “the one who talks funny”. Without the glasses, he was a boy who missed his grandparents.
How would you feel?
Imagine you move to a school in another country. How would you like them to welcome you?
Ask someone you don't know well what their name is.
Is there someone in your class who's always alone?
Stories of a man who never wore judging glasses.
Finish and go to lesson 5 →A ten-second voice note. A classmate who had to change schools.
Thanks for sharing. You're not the only one.
The timeline
Case 1The callout
Someone posts a piece of an audio clip of Martín, a classmate, in the class group chat.
Illustrative case. The characters and events are made up. The pattern is based on evidence.
Where would you have changed course? Pick the panel where you would have done something different.
- One Monday
Someone posts a piece of an audio clip of Martín, a classmate, in the class group chat. In the ten seconds you can hear, it sounds like he's making fun of another classmate. Dani forwards it with a message: "This guy is so fake."
What could have been done here
Not forward it. Ask yourself: "Do I have the whole story?"
- On Tuesday
The whole school is talking about Martín. Nobody sits with him. Teo has doubts, but says nothing: "If everybody says so…"
What could have been done here
Message Martín: "What happened with that audio?" One question in time takes apart a lot of callouts.
- A week later
Martín stops coming to class. Online, he keeps getting messages from people who don't even know him. His parents are thinking of moving him to another school.
What could have been done here
Ask the group to stop sharing the audio until they know what happened.
- A month later
The full audio comes out. Martín was repeating what others said about the classmate, to defend her. It's too late: Martín has changed schools, and almost nobody apologized to him.
What could have been done here
It's still possible: message Martín to apologize, and tell the group they got it wrong.
Any moment was a good moment to change course, even the last one. The best one is today.
The cost: A classmate's school, friends and peace of mind, for ten seconds of audio without context.
What the data says: In a study of more than 560,000 messages on controversial topics, each extra moral-emotional word increased how much the message spread by 20%. Outrage travels faster than the whole truth. Source: Brady, W. J., Wills, J. A., Jost, J. T., Tucker, J. A. and Van Bavel, J. J. (2017). Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks. PNAS, 114(28), 7313–7318.
Today: Before sharing something about a person, ask yourself: "Do I have the whole story?"
Online, false things spread faster than true ones. In a study of more than ten years of Twitter, false news reached more people and faster. It wasn't the bots: it was us. (Vosoughi, Roy & Aral, 2018)
That's why a callout spreads in hours, and the truth, if it comes, almost nobody sees.
A nuance: warning someone about real harm to protect them isn't the same as gossip. The question is: do I really know it? Why am I saying it?
The tally
Step 1 · Who did you stop getting to know because of a judgment?
Step 2 · Which judgment of yours turned out to be false?
Step 3 · What did you forward without knowing if it was true?
Step 4 · One small action for this week.
Really say hi to someone you've judged.
What has judging cost you?
Someone who looked at the person first and at what they had done second.
Finish and go to lesson 5 →Sources for this lesson
- Vosoughi, S., Roy, D. & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146–1151. View source: Vosoughi, S., Roy, D. & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146–1151.
A judgment takes one second to form.
Sometimes, a person takes years to shake it off.
Thanks for sharing. You're not the only one.
The timeline
Case 1What everyone knew
Mara sees the kids of the second-floor neighbor alone in the hallway again, after dark.
Illustrative case. The characters and events are made up. The pattern is based on evidence.
Where would you have changed course? Pick the panel where you would have done something different.
- One Tuesday
Mara sees the kids of the second-floor neighbor alone in the hallway again, after dark. She writes in the building chat: "Isn't anyone going to say something to that woman? So careless." Several neighbors reply with outraged faces.
What could have been done here
Knock on her door and ask: "I saw the kids alone, do you need a hand with anything?"
- Two weeks later
Now the whole building repeats that the neighbor "is careless." Nobody says hello to her in the elevator. Mara won't let Lía play with those kids: "We don't know how they're being raised."
What could have been done here
Not repeat what she doesn't know. Let Lía play with the kids and get to know their mom.
- Three months later
One rainy afternoon, the neighbor's kids are stuck outside because they don't have a key. Mara sees them from the window and says to Sam: "See, I told you." Nobody opens the door for them.
What could have been done here
Open the door, give them something warm and wait with them for their mom.
- Six months later
Tita finds out from another neighbor that the woman worked nights at a hospital and was caring alone for her sick mother, who has just passed away. In all that time, nobody in the building helped her. Mara says nothing.
What could have been done here
It's still possible. Knock on her door, say "I'm sorry, I didn't know," and offer concrete help: watch the kids one afternoon, bring food.
Any moment was a good moment to change course, even the last one. The best one is today.
The cost: A neighbor alone in the worst moment of her life, and some kids who learned that in their building nobody helps.
What the data says: Psychologists call it "correspondence bias": the tendency to explain what others do by "how they are," even when the situation explains it. It's one of the most basic findings in social psychology: it happens to almost everyone. Source: Gilbert, D. T. and Malone, P. S. (1995). The correspondence bias. Psychological Bulletin, 117(1), 21–38.
Today: The next time you see something you don't understand about someone, ask them before you comment on it.
What it costs the person judged
A repeated judgment becomes a reputation. And the reputation arrives before the person: at the meeting, in the group, in the elevator. The neighbor wasn't just tired: she was alone, because everyone already knew “what she was like”.
What it costs you
Every judgment closes a door. People you didn't get to know, help you didn't give, friendships that never started. Mara missed the chance to help someone who lived two floors away.
What it costs all of us
Online, false things spread faster than true ones. In a study of more than ten years of Twitter, false news reached more people and faster than true news. And it wasn't the bots: it was us, because falsehood tends to be more surprising and stir more emotion. (Vosoughi, Roy & Aral, 2018)
That's why a callout spreads in hours, and the correction, if it comes, almost nobody sees.
An important nuance
Not everything said about someone is harmful gossip. Warning someone about real harm (a scammer, someone who abuses others) can be fair and protect people. (Feinberg, Willer, Stellar & Keltner, 2012)
The difference lies in two questions: do I really know it, or was I told? and am I saying it to protect someone, or to have something to talk about?
The tally
Step 1 · Who you didn't meet. Is there someone you stopped getting to know because of a judgment? A coworker, a neighbor, an in-law.
Step 2 · The judgment that was wrong. Was there a judgment of yours that turned out to be false? What happened when you found out?
Step 3 · What you repeated. Did you repeat something about someone without knowing if it was true? To how many people?
Step 4 · One single action. Choose one of those people and write something small you could do: say hello, ask them something, stop repeating what's said about them.
Really greet someone you've judged: by name, if you know it, and with a question.
What has judging cost you most: people, opportunities or peace?
So far you've seen what judging is, how it disguises itself, where it comes from and what it costs.
In the next lesson you'll see the opposite: someone who looked at the person first and at what they had done second. Even with those everyone had already condemned.
Finish and go to lesson 5 →Sources for this lesson
- Vosoughi, S., Roy, D. & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146–1151. View source: Vosoughi, S., Roy, D. & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146–1151.
- Feinberg, M., Willer, R., Stellar, J. & Keltner, D. (2012). The virtues of gossip: Reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(5), 1015–1030. View source: Feinberg, M., Willer, R., Stellar, J. & Keltner, D. (2012). The virtues of gossip: Reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(5), 1015–1030.
Lesson 4 of 10.
You're doing well.
To take with youAsk someone you don't know well what their name is.
To take with youReally say hi to someone you've judged.
To take with youReally greet someone you've judged: by name, if you know it, and with a question.
What you write and your progress are saved only on this device. When you finish the lesson we add 1 to the total, without knowing who you are.