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scav comments on Rationality Quotes March 2014 - Less Wrong
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Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
I think those mistakes usually happen for an entirely different reason. New people remind us of ones we've already met, and we unconsciously "fill in the blanks" in what we know about the new person with what we know about person we know, or some kind of average-ish judgement about the group of comparable people we know.
It's pretty remarkable to detect yourself in that kind of mistake; most people are very good at finding confirming evidence for whatever judgments they've made about people, and ignoring any contrary indications.
Yes, this is a good point - we generally don't realise that we are (self-)deceived, so we can't even begin to think about where we went wrong.
Of course, Elinor Dashwood is something of an authorial stand-in, so it's not really surprising that she's incredibly wise and perspicacious like that.
Yes. This can happen, but what you describe is more common. Once a coworker was sure that I was an ultra-right-wing militiaman, based on one indirect, misleading bit of evidence, ignoring all else.
Merely declaring my general political alignment and support and opposition to various candidates was totally inadequate. I had to explicitly enumerate several political positions to get him to adjust, and even then he seized on the nuances to try to interpret it as my secretly being a right-wing nut.