The Psychology of Having an Opinion: Why We Care How Other People Live
Transcript
It was Halloween morning, and the air on campus already had that mix of sugar buzz and midterm fatigue that always makes for a lively class. As I set up my computer for the day’s lecture, my students in the first few rows were deep in conversation about their plans for the night. Costumes, haunted houses, parties—everyone had something to share. Then one student announced that she never does anything on Halloween, so she always puts her Christmas tree up that night instead. She said it casually, almost sheepishly, as though admitting to an odd habit.
The reaction was immediate. A few students gasped in mock horror. One of the boys said, “Halloween? That’s way too early!” The rest of the group joined in, nodding, laughing, echoing the same judgment: too early, too weird, too soon.
Then, as if sensing an opportunity to turn this into a class-wide moment, one of my more animated students—Cody—looked at me and said, “Professor, what’s the psychology behind that? Why would anyone put their Christmas tree up this early?”
I smiled. I had to admit, I felt the same twitch of... what was it? Judgment? Surprise? That old, familiar "that's not how it's done" feeling. I'm a psychologist trained to observe these impulses, but I'm not immune to them. And in that split second, I saw the real lesson.
“That’s an interesting question, Cody,” I said. “But if we’re going to explore the psychology of putting your Christmas decorations up early, we also have to explore the other side of that polarity.”
He tilted his head. “What other side?”
“The psychology behind why you’d even have an opinion about when and how someone decorates their own home,” I responded.
The room went quiet for a second. Then came a few laughs, a few thoughtful looks. And that’s when I realized the conversation had touched something deeper. This wasn’t about Christmas trees. It was about human nature—the strange compulsion to judge, correct, or comment on other people’s harmless choices.
We live in a time when opinion feels like oxygen. Everyone has one, everyone shares it, and silence can even feel suspect. To have no opinion is to risk invisibility. But beneath that constant stream of commentary lies a fascinating psychological reality: our opinions about others are rarely about them. They’re about us—our need for belonging, control, certainty, and meaning in an unpredictable world.
Let’s unpack that.
When people express strong opinions about what others do—like decorating early, parenting differently, eating certain foods, or spending money on things they wouldn’t—it’s rarely because the act itself threatens them. It’s because it threatens their sense of normalcy.
Humans are wired for norm maintenance. Across cultures and history, group survival depended on a shared rhythm: when to plant, when to harvest, how to mourn, how to celebrate. Predictability was safety. So when someone decorates in October or wears white after Labor Day, to use an old expression, it’s not just a breach of fashion etiquette; it’s a small emotional jolt to the nervous system. Something feels off.
Social psychologists call this deviance regulation. It’s our instinct to keep everyone moving in sync. Even in trivial situations, that old evolutionary wiring kicks in. We experience discomfort, label it as “wrong,” and try to restore order by pointing it out. The phrase “too early” becomes shorthand for “stay with the group.”
In Cody’s classroom exchange, what looked like teasing was really norm enforcement disguised as humor. He wasn’t trying to be unkind; he was reasserting shared cultural timing. And when the others laughed along, they were participating in that social ritual—each one reaffirming that they still belong inside the boundaries of what’s familiar.
It’s subtle, isn’t it? It’s subtle but powerful. It’s why people feel uneasy when others live differently even when it has no impact on them. The discomfort isn’t moral, it’s emotional. Difference disturbs equilibrium. Conformity restores it.
But this isn’t just about tribal psychology, now, it’s also about ego.
The modern self is built, in part, on commentary. Every time you scroll through social media, you see people performing identity through reaction. Likes, shares, opinions - they’ve all become emotional currency. Expressing an opinion—especially a critical one—signals participation in a shared reality. It reassures people that they exist, that they have relevance, that their perspective matters.
We used to demonstrate belonging through shared labor, ritual, and physical proximity. Now we do it through shared opinion.
The problem is that constant commentary can become a performance of selfhood rather than an act of connection. It makes people feel temporarily significant but slowly erodes empathy. If everything becomes an opportunity to express judgment, we lose the capacity to simply witness life—to let something be without shaping it through approval or disapproval.
That’s the irony of this cultural moment: we’ve confused visibility with validity.
Now, Cody’s question might have been lighthearted, but it mirrors the world we live in. His classmate wasn’t doing anything harmful. She was quietly expressing joy. But her difference became a moment for others to reaffirm their normality. It’s the same dynamic that drives online pile-ons, moral outrage, and endless unsolicited advice. The instinct to correct others often masks a deeper anxiety—the fear that if others live differently, maybe our own choices aren’t as universal as we’d like to believe.
And I'll be honest, I am not immune to this. I'm the "Professor" in this story, but my own ego is just as loud. I feel that spike of judgment when I see someone parenting differently than I would, or when a friend makes a career choice I find baffling. My mind automatically generates the commentary: "bad idea," "irresponsible," "I would never."
It took me years to realize that this internal monologue wasn't "discernment." It was my own anxiety in a clever disguise. It was me, trying to reassert my own life choices as the "right" ones, precisely because I felt momentarily insecure.
The need to comment, control, or correct others is also tied to the psychology of projection.
When life feels uncertain, controlling others can become a way of controlling our own anxiety. If the world feels chaotic, we focus on what we can name, criticize, or define. Freud described projection as the mind’s way of relocating its discomfort. Instead of acknowledging our own disorganization, we externalize it: “Why would she do that?” translates unconsciously to “Why can’t I tolerate that difference?”
There’s also psychological reactance: when we perceive others acting freely in ways we wouldn’t, we interpret it as a threat to our autonomy. Their freedom stirs something inside us, and instead of recognizing it as envy or discomfort, we label it as wrong.
In everyday life, that plays out constantly. The person who comments on someone’s diet. The coworker who critiques how you spend your weekend. The friend who insists they’re “just being honest.” Most of these interactions aren’t malicious. They’re unconscious attempts to restore a sense of internal order.
But here’s the deeper layer: mature people don’t need to regulate others to feel stable. They have enough psychological structure within themselves to tolerate ambiguity, difference, and autonomy. They can see someone putting up a Christmas tree in October and think, That’s not for me, but good for them.
That’s emotional regulation. That’s boundary integrity.
Having an opinion is easy. Restraining one—that’s psychological sophistication.
Restraint requires confidence in one’s own worldview and enough humility to recognize that one’s own worldview is not universal. When someone says “too early,” they’re unconsciously asserting, My timeline is the right one. They might not mean it arrogantly, but it still centers their experience as the reference point for what’s acceptable.
The most emotionally balanced people I’ve met don’t lack opinions. They just choose not to weaponize them. They understand the difference between having thoughts and offering them as judgments.
There’s a quiet kind of maturity in letting people live their lives without inserting commentary. It’s not indifference; it’s respect.
Think about it: every moment you spend policing someone else’s harmless decision is a moment you’re not tending to your own. You lose the chance to understand yourself because you’re busy trying to define others.
And yet, in our culture, we’ve turned this habit into entertainment. Entire industries thrive on commentary—the YouTube reactors, the influencers dissecting others’ choices, the endless cycles of judgment that keep attention flowing. It’s social reinforcement on a global scale.
But underneath it all is the same emotional mechanism that played out in that classroom: belonging through shared disapproval. The collective high that comes from feeling “right” together.
But here’s the question I asked my students that morning, after the laughter had faded:
“Why do we think our opinion is needed at all?”
It wasn’t meant as criticism. It was an invitation to awareness. Humanity has survived millions of years without our specific commentary on seasonal décor, yet we still act as if the world will malfunction without our input.
That belief—that our opinions are essential—is one of the ego’s most persuasive illusions. It tells us that our perspective adds order to chaos, that our correction protects others from wrongness. But most of the time, it just distracts us from sitting with the discomfort of difference.
The ego wants to feel necessary. It wants to matter. And in a world where everyone’s voice can be broadcast instantly, opinion becomes the easiest way to feel real.
But what if maturity involves the opposite movement—not asserting more, but asserting less? What if peace comes from realizing that our relevance doesn’t depend on constant commentary?
To be able to witness life, to hear someone say “I put up my tree on Halloween,” and simply respond with curiosity instead of correction—that’s freedom. It’s emotional independence.
There’s also something tender beneath all of this. The student who puts up her Christmas tree early wasn’t trying to provoke anyone. She was expressing comfort, joy, anticipation—a small private ritual that gave her a sense of meaning. And the reactions she received by sharing that, though playful, reflected a broader truth: people often react strongly to joy that is not synchronized with their own.
We are uneasy with others’ happiness when it appears at the “wrong” time. It reminds us that well-being is subjective, not collective. It suggests that happiness can be chosen rather than scheduled, and that unsettles the parts of us still waiting for permission.
So perhaps the psychology of early Christmas decorating isn’t just about control or conformity. It’s also about envy—the quiet discomfort we feel when someone allows themselves delight without waiting for a cultural cue.
When you think about it that way, the judgment “too early” sounds less like disapproval and more like a disguised longing: I wish I felt that free.
The older I get, the more convinced I am that the highest form of emotional intelligence is non-interference. The ability to see someone’s life—especially the parts that don’t match our own expectations—and resist the reflex to correct it.
That doesn’t mean apathy. It means respecting the autonomy of others’ experience. It means recognizing that your preferences aren’t moral laws. It means having enough empathy to understand that what brings you comfort might bring someone else nothing at all—and vice versa.
When we practice non-interference, we create psychological space—for others, and for ourselves. We stop filling the air with noise and start noticing the subtler dimensions of human life: curiosity, difference, creativity, personal meaning.
I told my students that the next time they felt the urge to comment on someone’s harmless decision, they might pause and ask: What am I trying to regulate right now? Is it the other person’s behavior—or my own discomfort with it?
Because here’s the truth: the more comfortable you are with yourself, the less you need to fix or explain the world around you.
The freedom to let others be as they are is a sign of inner order. The compulsion to make others conform is a sign of inner chaos.
Every opinion you express carries a hidden motive—to connect, to control, to affirm, to defend. None of those are inherently bad, but most are unconscious. The task of psychological growth is to bring them to light.
So when you catch yourself about to say “too early” or “too much” or “too weird,” pause. Notice the subtle flicker of emotion underneath. Is it discomfort? Envy? The need to belong? Because once you see that, the comment loses its power.
You might even find that the silence that follows feels surprisingly peaceful.
That morning, after our discussion, class began as usual. The projector warmed up, the slides appeared, and the hum of the room shifted from chatter to focus. But I kept thinking about that small exchange—the Christmas tree, the laughter, the question that opened a door.
As students were packing up, the student who'd mentioned her tree stopped by my desk for a second. She didn't say much, just "Thanks for that." She looked, more than anything, a little less sheepish than before. A little more seen.
And it struck me that psychology isn't just in the analysis; it's in the outcome. It's in the quiet relief that happens when we choose curiosity over correction.
Psychology lives in those moments. The everyday, the ordinary, the offhand. The way we decorate, comment, tease, and react. It’s all data about who we are and how we relate to one another.
The psychology of having an opinion isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about recognizing that most opinions aren’t information—they’re emotional expressions. They reveal where we’re comfortable, where we’re threatened, where we need to feel significant.
Understanding that doesn’t mean silencing yourself. It means speaking with awareness instead of impulse. It means realizing that not every reaction deserves an audience, and that sometimes the most profound expression of humanity is restraint.
So if you’re listening to this while scrolling through social media, or standing in line at a store, or in your car, or preparing your own home for the holidays, I’ll leave you with a simple reflection.
The world will keep turning without your opinion. It doesn’t need your approval to function. But it does benefit from your understanding, from your empathy, and from your ability to let people live peacefully inside their own choices.
And maybe that’s the best kind of Christmas spirit there is—the kind that lets others find joy on their own timeline.