- Put yourself in their shoes
- Think of times you’ve been in a similar situation and explain your reaction
- Can the behavior be explained by a more “universal” model than a person-specific one?
- How are they empathizing with you, given they are projecting?
- How are they empathizing with you, given what you know about how they perceive others?
- What successful model have you used to explain similar behavior for similar people?
- Is your conclusion affected by your attitude towards the subject?
Well, sometimes people really are out to get you. My brother's immediately senior co-worker at Goldman Sachs once admitted to deliberately trying to sabotage his work. The co-worker was indeed behaving quite game-theoretic-rationally, though; the way Goldman Sachs works, it was likely that exactly one of them would soon lose their job.