Disliking and Hating Tendency

Disliking/Hating Tendency is one of Charlie Munger’s psychological tendencies. Strong dislike for a person, group, or idea warps how fairly we can judge it and anything linked to it.

The idea

Once we dislike someone, the mind tends to discount their virtues and distort the facts to support the dislike. It also treats anything associated with them as bad. That includes their ideas, their friends, and unrelated positions they hold. It is the mirror image of Liking/Loving Tendency. The two often combine. We favor our in-group and its ideas more than the evidence warrants. We disfavor the out-group and its ideas more than the evidence warrants.

When to use it

• Noticing you’re rejecting an argument mainly because you dislike who is making it.
• Reviewing decisions (hiring, partnerships, deal terms) where personal friction with a counterpart may be driving the outcome.
• Catching yourself extending dislike of one trait or action to someone’s entire character or output.

How to apply it

1. Separate the person from the claim. Restate their argument in its strongest form before judging it.
2. Ask what you would think of the same idea coming from someone you like.
3. Notice guilt-by-association reasoning (“X likes it, and I dislike X, so it must be bad”) and check it explicitly.

Watch out for

The bias is hard to feel from the inside. It presents as confident, well-reasoned dislike. It also compounds with confirmation bias, since once triggered it recruits selective evidence.

Related models

• Liking Loving. The mirror-image tendency that inflates our view of people and ideas we like.
• Envy and Jealousy Tendency. Another Munger tendency that distorts judgment through emotion toward others.
• Cognitive Biases. The broader category this tendency belongs to.

Sources

Charlie Munger, “The Psychology of Human Misjudgment” (speech), reprinted in Poor Charlie’s Almanack.