Typical-minding

Golden rule and the platinum rule.

• Golden rule: "treat them how you want to be treated"
  • easy
  • does not protect from "typical-minding": where you forget that they work differently from you
• Platinum rule: "treat them how they want to be treated"
  • hard

Better to model them as they are, not put yourself in their shoes. Trust less in instinctive empathy, more intellectual: "what do I know about how this person prefers to deal with this kind of situation…?"

I figure it's a reason why psychopaths can manipulate people so well – they always operate by the platinum rule, as they never had the option of "put yourself in their shoes" in the first place.

The golden rule only works between people who think very alike, and the more dissimilar you are, the more important to upgrade to the platinum rule.

What links here

• Understanding the other