Projection is a psychological phenomenon you’ll encounter on a daily basis, and one of the most important principles for people to understand.

What is projection

In the psychological sense, projection refers to people’s tendency to project their own mental states onto others. For example, if I regularly look down on people, I’m going to assume others are doing the same. Or if I loathe some quality in myself, I might project that trait or hatred onto others and accuse them of being that way.

Why do people project? What causes projection?

Projection arises for any or all of the following reasons:

1. We see the world as we are
Since we are all trapped within the confines of our own mind, we can’t help but view the world according to our own inner thoughts, beliefs and assumptions. Which means what we know from within will inevitably be what we see in others. If I’m a dishonest person who is always looking to get one over on someone else, then I’m going to assume you’re looking to get one over on me too, and project these dishonest intentions onto your actions and what I assume about you.

We project onto others all sorts of things: Our likes and dislikes, our basic understanding of the world, our feelings and beliefs, and more. Essentially, we remake the world (and others around us) in our own image.

“We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.”
-Anais Nin

2. We project to distance ourselves from uncomfortable feelings
We commonly project uncomfortable feelings onto others. For example,, if I’m feeling angry and upset, I might accuse you of being angry with me. Or if I’m struggling to cope with a trauma, I might put on a brave face while insisting that you’re the one who’s actually struggling. Projecting onto others is a way of distancing ourselves from discomforting thoughts. When we attribute these thoughts to others, we push them away and create a barrier between ourselves and our feelings. Even small children do this, projecting their thoughts onto dolls or stuffed animals: “I’m okay, but dolly is really scared right now.”

People often project onto others what they can’t acknowledge in themselves. If someone was raised to believe same-sex attraction is a horrible abomination, having such feelings themselves is going to create a great deal of internal turmoil. So many deal with this self-hatred by projecting it onto others, persecuting gays and lesbians as a means of alleviating the conflict they feel inside. +Surely, if I’m so visceral in attacking this trait in others, I couldn’t be that way myself.+ Or so the unconscious reasoning goes.

Those “who have a discrepancy within themselves about their expressed vs. unconscious sexual attraction find gay and lesbian people more threatening and are more likely to express prejudice and discrimination toward them,” says University of Rochester psychology professor Richard Ryan, who studies the subject. Which is why there’s a never-ending parade of people who persecute sexual diversity only to later be revealed to have such tendencies themselves. In fact, this phenomenon is so predictable that one of the best ways to find the closeted pedophile or the closeted homosexual in any group is to bring the subject up and then see who speaks out about it the loudest and with the most vitriol.

3. We project out of hurt or insecurity
People often project when they’re feeling hurt or personally insecure. The classic example of this is the person you’ve offended who presumes to know exactly why you did something and the intentions you had in mind. Or the crime victim who deals with their hurt by labeling the perpetrator a subhuman “monster.”

When people hurt us, whether intentionally or unintentionally, it threatens or ego, and so we protect ourselves from this hurt by projecting all sorts of malice, evil motives, or unadmirable qualities onto them. If the people who hurt me are simply bad people, it protects me from some of the sting of what they’ve done. Projection allows us to remake the world in a way that’s more comforting or less confusing.

4. We deflect shame by projecting onto others
Projection commonly arises as a response to shame or blame. When people are attacked or made to feel ashamed, their first tendency is to try to deflect that shame onto others.

Projection in our everyday lives

It’s important to be aware of this tendency, not just in others, but ourselves as well: what is projected out into the world is often a reflection of what resides within.