What a Plastic Surgery Story Reveals About Human Nature
Why it's so hard to believe others don't share your values.
Updated June 3, 2026 | Reviewed by Kaja Perina
Months ago, I saw a social media post about plastic surgery that said something along the lines of "You can choose to look old or look weird, but you can't choose to look young."
When I first saw it, I read the intended meaning as: You shouldn't get plastic surgery because you'll look weird, and weird is obviously way worse than looking old.
But, then I thought about specific people in my life and pondered that 50 percent of them would probably choose "weird" (in the sense of looking like they'd had surgery) over old.
I'd always assumed people who got surgery were all victims of an "it won't happen to me" bias where they thought that somehow, even if most people end up looking weird, that wouldn't be their outcome. I'd guessed they'd all thought they'd be the star outcome who looked young and people wouldn't suspect anything.
Why have I told this long story?
Because it stuck with me as an example of how people find it hard to imagine others having fundamentally different values from them. I'd found it hard to imagine anyone choosing weird over old, even though I'm probably surrounded by them.
The Stories We Invent to Explain Other People's Choices
We often go through a lot of cognitive gymnastics to maintain a belief that others must value what we value despite evidence to the contrary.
Being Open-Minded Requires Excellent Metacognition
It can be so hard to imagine others having fundamentally different values than us that we sometimes invent stories about other people's lives to support a belief that our values are the best values and there must be reasons others haven't come around to them yet.
I would be surprised if anyone reading this, including people who are genuinely open-minded, doesn't recognize themselves as having made judgments of others similar to the examples. You very likely have also felt others subtly judging you in these same ways.
Few of us are immune to our initial reflex that others must think the way we do and value what we do. Being open-minded and accepting of others is catching that. We need the metacognitive skill of noticing the self-oriented perspective we're taking.
That friend who lives in the town you see as boring might not harbor a desire to move. That person who made a choice you wouldn't might not regret it at all. The person we think has settled for an inferior option might not see it that way.
Since being accepting in these ways is a relatively sophisticated psychological skill, possessing it gives you the potential to offer others a valuable gift of acceptance and non-judgment, and to recognize the value in the people who give you that gift.
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Alice Boyes, Ph.D., translates principles from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and social psychology into tips people can use in their everyday lives.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.