Mirrorimaging

Mirrorimaging, or mirror imaging, is a term used in social sciences and related fields to describe the tendency to interpret others’ actions through one’s own beliefs, motives, and experiences, or to model one’s own behavior after others under the assumption that they will respond similarly. The concept can function as a heuristic or bias, shaping expectation and interpretation in social interaction, diplomacy, and analysis.

In international relations, mirror imaging refers to misperceiving other states as sharing the same interests, priorities, or reasoning as one’s own. This can lead to overestimating compatibility or underestimating differences, increasing the risk of miscalculation, escalation, or defensive posture based on false assumptions about adversaries.

In criminology and policing, the idea is used to describe the tendency to view criminals as thinking and acting like investigators or to anticipate criminal tactics by reflecting those same choices. This can bias threat assessments or strategic planning, but it can also, in some contexts, be used deliberately as a tactic to anticipate opponents’ moves.

In psychology and organizational studies, mirror imaging appears as projection or attribution biases, where individuals attribute their own motives, values, or strategies to others, shaping predictions and persuasive efforts. Critics argue that mirror imaging can obscure diversity of perspectives and contexts, leading to oversimplified analyses.

See also: projection, attribution bias, misperception, bias in reasoning. Note that in computing, “mirror imaging” can refer to disk mirroring or data duplication, a usage unrelated to the social or cognitive sense described here.