What's more important: what someone thinks about you or how they treat you?

[ceri]

I would say they are both important. However I would place more importance on how they treat you. Simply because actions have a stronger direct impact on you as a person then thoughts. However, thoughts are a very important factor, as this influences the actions you would impose upon another person (whether positive or negative). It could also lead to a sense of distrust and dishonest. Just because someone treats you well, does not mean they think well of you. While personally I would be glad that they treat me well, but it would be dissapointing to learn that it could be a show in effect. Good intentions behind this though would soften this by a high degree.

This pretty much sums up my view.

 

[Reon]

Thoughts influence action. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. In the end, I don't think they are really separable.

 

[Oranguh]

I hear many people saying that "How they treat you is important because in the end it's influenced by what they think of you" Or something along those lines.

This is very true. But the actions attached to certain emotions can vary greatly. Some people can show their love with great affectionate actions and words while other people can only seem to become angry at the people they cherish most.
If I take an example from the other side of the spectrum... People with Asperger's syndrom have trouble communicating. It could even be so that they have almost no means to convey their emotions to their beloved ones, or even worse they convey it by saying things that come over as something totally different. Their emotions are pure yet their actions convey something else.

If you had a... let's take a stereotype here.... If you had a father that was always extremely stern towards you (but not to anyone else or so), would you see that as his way of showing affection? Or would you only see it as him being stern?

There are so many different individuals that out their intentions in many different ways. It would be near impossible for us to catagorize specific actions for each emotion. Love can be expressed in many ways often overlapping ways to express even hatred. To me this degrades the merit of actions greatly.

In the end I feel I am merely the naaive one here >.<, I mean... could you really live by these words in reality? There are indeed so many people.... so many words being interchanged. Trying to get behind every single intention and always taking a forgiving/open stance is.... indeed something very naaive and perhaps crazy.

 

[Mogura]

How they treat others (not a poll option unfortunately). You can figure out how they think by observing how they treat others.

Regarding "How they treat me" (i.e., "How they feed my ego"). If a person treats you like a king/queen and shits on others then that only means your turn hasn't come up yet...

 

[laurie]

What someone thinks - it's more genuine than actions.
Actions can be misunderstood, but thoughts are what they are. If someone hated me, but was nice to me, that would make me feel awful.

 

[Barnabas]

I'd think better of some one who hated me and was able to remain respectful, that takes a boat load of will power.

When you can look at your enemy and say "this man is my equal" then you have earned my respect.

 

[Gaze]

What someone thinks - it's more genuine than actions.
Actions can be misunderstood, but thoughts are what they are. If someone hated me, but was nice to me, that would make me feel awful.

agree. Although i do value treatment in some cases more than actions especially in professional or more social settings, it annoys me more if the polite treatment is a cover up for negative feelings not because the person is trying to remain cordial but because they think they have an upper hand by being nice to their sworn enemy assuming the person is not aware of what they're doing. i think it's the pretense to like the person, not simply being nice or respectful towards them, kind of treatment which is disconcerting. Someone who doesn't like me may still choose to be nice or polite as a courtesy - which is fine. Just don't go overboard and pretend to like me, especially by saying nice things or being complimentary. Eventually, i see it and then it just makes me feel ridiculous. So, when someone is overly polite to cover up the fact that they dislike the person, that's annoying. But of course, like most, i would dislike it if someone was overtly rude or impolite. To be fair, I wouldn't expect anyone to be overt about how they truly feel if they don't want to show it or reveal it because they have that right.

 

[NeverAmI]

What someone thinks, because ultimately it will underpin their actions.

 

[Faye]

I can never know what someone thinks of me, no matter what. I can only know how they treat me.

So I have no choice but to say that is most important. If someone is nice to me all the time but secretly hates my guts, then I guess that is their problem.

 

[Morgain]

I said how you think about me

it was a though call but I think that if people tread me poorly it is honest, I know what I'm up to, I at least know what the other person is like and I can take some measures. If people think bad about me, it is hidden, almost undetectable but I'll be aware of it somehow. I don't think that someone who things poorly of me will tread me right, maybe not in the open but bad treatment under the belt can be as hurtful maybe even more.

 

[Morgain]

If you had a... let's take a stereotype here.... If you had a father that was always extremely stern towards you (but not to anyone else or so), would you see that as his way of showing affection? Or would you only see it as him being stern?

There are so many different individuals that out their intentions in many different ways. It would be near impossible for us to catagorize specific actions for each emotion. Love can be expressed in many ways often overlapping ways to express even hatred. To me this degrades the merit of actions greatly.

that is why I think thoughts are more important than actions. My father was always very stern with me but I know he really really loves me and it is his way of showing to me by making sure I end up alright. That makes me able to look past the way he treads me. I had a coworker who was all ways false nice to me and it gave me the shivers since I couldn't find out what was true and what was false, was she honest to me or did she go behind my back. I can never forgive deliberate fakeness.

 

[DrShephard]

I would have to unequivocally say... that the most important factor is how you feel about it. Whether you're being treated badly (in your eyes) by someone who loves you, or if you're being treated well by someone who holds a great deal of contempt for you - ultimately, it's the other person who gets to decide if you are ok with the situation, hate the situation, love the situation, or simply don't care about the situation. It's all you. On a case by case basis, sometimes the first can be worse, and sometimes the second. It all, ultimately, depends on your perspective on the situation and how you feel.

Also - I am proud of myself for spelling unequivocally correct on my first try.

 

[Odyne]

Actions speak louder than words. This has been incontrovertible for some time now.

How can you tell what the person thinks of you if it wasn't through the way they treat you? For all you know, they could have buttered up the words (or soured them) and spoke the opposite of what they truly think.

No matter how hard they try to hide what they think by acting differently, eventually their actions will betray them and show their true thoughts. The indications lie in the overall consistency of those actions, not in single cases.

 

[Jill Hives]

Actions speak louder than words. This has been incontrovertible for some time now.

How can you tell what the person thinks of you if it wasn't through the way they treat you? For all you know, they could have buttered up the words (or soured them) and spoke the opposite of what they truly think.

No matter how hard they try to hide what they think by acting differently, eventually their actions will betray them and show their true thoughts. The indications lies in the overall consistency of those actions, not in single cases.

Yep, this.

 

[donkeybals]

I voted "how they think". But I may have to retract that. I think if someone is treating me good, even though they don't like me, that probably is more respectable. Initially fakeness came to mind, but if they came to the realizition that they would try despite disliking a person that takes a lot of courage. But if they do it because they want something from me, and trying to manipulate me in a certain type of way, I wouldn't like it.

 

[poshlost]

damn fine cup o joe

 

[Oranguh]

yay

I am truly happy with the direction this thread is going, there have been many well rounded arguments for both sides, and I feel we are understanding eachother much better as we speak.

Initially fakeness came to mind, but if they came to the realizition that they would try despite disliking a person that takes a lot of courage

Very true, this is a very admirable trait one would be able to find in the other individual.Therefore we can adopt some degree of liking towards them. But the question I would ask myself next would most likely be: Could the fact that he/she taking the effort to act "nicely with respect" towards me be applicable to the spetcrum of Intentions? You like the person that puts effort into being nice out of respect and you despise the person that tries to deceive you for their own gain. Even though you cannot see the difference in "action" per se, you would prefer someone that would act out of virtue to someone that acts out of "un" virtuous intentions.

No matter how hard they try to hide what they think by acting differently, eventually their actions will betray them and show their true thoughts. The indications lies in the overall consistency of those actions, not in single cases.

And

What someone thinks, because ultimately it will underpin their actions.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. Without action we could not possibly find out what the intentions are. The two are definitely linked together. But to claim that actions or emotions are more OR less important simply because the two are interlinked seems... to me odd. Although one could argue that because one is in line with the other that both are even in value.

So that brings me to the next "dillemas" or ingrediants to our little mind adventure.

The last one is kind of thought provoking isn't it? (well it is kind of contradicting to ME considering what I claimed in earlier posts) ~~~ "Actions and intentions are both on one line, therefore they are even"

The question I then ask myself is.... Why would I still claim that intentions are infinitely more important than actions? Well to me the answer is... well I guess the answer would be personal.

Perhaps this is true, perhaps it isn't. But I believe that if I were to put more importance to intentions that I would be able to communicate better with other individuals. If I would... say... put less importance on that aspect I would not motivate myself to look beyond the actions, I would probably simply let it be and not think too much about it.

By setting intentions as a priority I can automatically "look" for the intentions. I seem to then become more "open" and "tolerant" in a vast array of social situations.

In the end, to me, it's not per se about what is truly "greater" in value, intentions or actions. But rather that I communicate better with people. Does that kinda make sense at all?

---------------------------------------------Spicey time-----------------------------------------------

Now it's spicey time so I will try to totally dismantle my logic with counter arguments. (Bear with me because I'm not THAT good at thinking in a totally different way).

So to make things easier for myself I will use some "extreme" examples.

Let's see... Say we have a situation wherein we have a very wealthy celebrity. This celebrity wants to boost his/her popularity. He/she does so by donating millions of dollaz to the 3rd world. The intentions of this celebrity are far from virtuous, you can easily say that it's out of self interest.

But now we have a different situation.

Someone that is truly empathic and wants to make the world a better place.... donates: tissues, CD's, ice cubes, and... I don't know.... paint? The intentions are so good and well... but the donations given are far from usefull. (You can compare this situation with when a relative gives you the most horrendous present ever... out of good intentions).

But this is not about unwanted presents! this is a life and death scenario!!! (well... uuh kindaa)

The person with bad intentions saves lives. The person with good intentions just made the world dirtier with useless trash (Oh deary me ) and troubled the postal service by sending a..... damp parcel.

In this scenario is quite easy to see that the actions are most definitely more important than the intentions. We're talking about lives here!

-----------------------------------------Juxtapose-------------------------------------------------------

Alright, now that I have these two next to eachother I can make some conclusions (that I hope are all wrong so that we can learn more ).

If you look at it from a very very Black-White point of view intentions aren't really that important at all. Yet in our society most of us find intentions quite important. One of the reasons for that can be traced down to trust. If someone does something that isn't in accordance to their intentions.... Who knows what they will do next time? Can you really trust this deceptive person? You can trace this social phenomenom down to survival of the fittest all you like but.... Let's get back.

These were very pragmatic conclusions I made here, which is very different from the reasoning that supports my reason to uphold intention... and well... although there may be some traces of logic in it... I still feel I am missing a large part to this puzzle.... Intentions or actions... It's so difficult.

(sorry for grammar and such... I know it's important buuut xD you knoow)

 

[NeverAmI]

So there is the opinion of another (what they think), and the actions towards another (how they act), not always correlated.

The way I view it, there are many different influences for how one would act towards another. However, I think there are two main categories that would influence the actions, the opinion of the person and external circumstances. In some situations, circumstances could mandate a friendly disposition to another despite a low opinion. The motivation could be to attain a certain level of cooperation or to fulfill some agenda. However, once those conditions change, the disposition could change as well.

Having a high opinion would usually have a higher probability of maintaining a friendly disposition and more genuinely caring actions.

I usually view things in the long-term, so opinion would matter more. Although some have taken a much more pragmatic stance and taken not that opinions are unable to be influenced by us, therefore actions take more priority because those have a higher probability of changing due to our interaction.

There seems to be a few camps of people: Those that pragmatically focus on changing external circumstances to better facilitate favorable actions on the part of others; those that (perhaps fruitlessly) try to affect the opinions of others; and those that don't really take any action whatsoever (Don't care?).

 

[Quest]

They're both important, but when it comes to how someone treats you, their actions are more important. My initial stance was that what someone thinks of you is more important than how they treat you because thoughts are what tells you just how genuine someone

 

[not sure]

For the general population it's more important how they treat me. There are very few people who touch my heart. I would do anything for them and it would hurt beyond measure to know they're not pleased with me.