The Top 100 Most Hated People

A national Australian magazine recently announced the top 100 most hated people. These strange surveys are conducted in many different areas such as on sports stars and actors and are in many different countries.

My only thought as to why these type of surveys are done is for a good laugh. Well, this particular survey certainly did that to me.

I'm sorry I couldn't find the official list I'm referring to. However, I found one that's worldwide for your pleasure:
http://www.hat.net/pop/lists.top_people/most_hated_people/

Among the most hated was the Sting Ray that killed Steve Irwin.

What I want you to know is the US President George W. Bush and the Pope, were more hated then Osama Bin Laden! This has probably left Osama very disappointed. The guy tries his hardest to like threaten the world, while the Pope is promoting wonderful things like world peace and yet Osama is more liked.

Why do you think this is so?

The answer ties very nicely in the recent post I made about Steve Irwin's death and in another post about "perceptual blindness" in the managing conflict email I also sent.

Steve's personality made him so visible to us. He was in a position of power even though no position was "officially" assigned to him. This is otherwise known as referent power where you create power for yourself based on charismatic and inspirational like skills. Other people look-up to you and follow you.

President Bush has a position of power that was assigned to him giving him a place in our lives.

Osama Bin Laden created power for himself through devastation and instilling fear in people.

If these positions of power are true, then why is Osama more liked then someone like President Bush or the Pope?

Referring directly from the perceptually blind post:

"Your perception is your understanding of what you see and hear. This means your perceptions are different to others as your understanding differs from theirs.

Perceptions can be nasty little things. What they do is filter out things in what we see and hear. Something may occur, but it does not reach our minds because it was 'filtered' out...

It's very similar to panning for gold except you're not looking for the gold.

You filter out the good (the gold) and let in the dirt with what we see in situations and others. We love to judge, analyze, and criticize others so we perceive the dirt in others."

The Pope has his interests in developing goodness in the world but the voters in the survey didn't see this! They were "perceptually blind" and ignored this.

Oh, by the way I didn't vote ;-)

Guess why he was hated? The voting Aussies hated him because he was too conservative and boring! Come on! According to the survey, this is a more awful characteristic then killing people. Talk about "perceptually blind!"

This just proves how powerful our perceptions are in how we see people.

Your co-workers, friends, family, children, and partner are all judged with this awful and natural human measurement. For this reason, I want you to stop judging people.

I'm currently writing an ebook about the most common communication problems and in it I thoroughly explain judging and how it is one of the biggest barriers to interpersonal communication.

I'll leave you with a powerful quote I use in the ebook: "Assumptions are the termites of relationships." - Henry Winkler

Have a great week with no judging!