When I analyse people’s statements and try to understand who they are, I pay close attention to how they talk about other people. What someone says about others often reveals more than the relationship itself. It also reveals where their attention naturally goes and what they consider important.
The same observation applies in ordinary conversation. When people respond to you, the way they frame their response usually shows what they are primarily noticing: their own internal experience, the shared moment between you, or you as a person. The difference may seem subtle in individual sentences, but across repeated interactions it becomes quite visible.
The model I am proposing here is essentially a way of tracking the location of psychological attention in language. In social cognition this ability relates to perspective-taking, the capacity to move attention between oneself, the shared interaction, and the inner world of another person.
A Note of Caution
Before diving in, a necessary disclaimer: This isn’t a statistical model or an experimentally validated typology. It is a field observation that emerged while analysing language in investigative contexts. It should be treated as a heuristic for noticing patterns rather than a rigid diagnostic tool.
Two additional limitations are vital. First, no single statement or interaction is enough to draw a conclusion. The real signal appears in patterns over time; one sentence means very little. However, if someone repeatedly frames others only through what they do for the speaker, a specific relational orientation begins to emerge.
Second, cultural context is everything. Research in cross-cultural psychology shows that some cultures favour relational language, while others normalise individualistic expression. In an environment where self-referential phrasing is the norm, a “me-focused” sentence might just be a conversational style rather than a personality trait. For that reason, the model works best as an intrapersonal comparison: the question isn’t how two different people speak but how the same person frames attention across different situations.
Positive expressions
With those limits in mind, we can observe communication moving between three basic orientations of attention: ‘Me’, ‘Us’, and ‘You’.
Self-oriented attention (Me)
In this mode, the speaker frames the other person primarily through their effect on the speaker’s own internal experience. The other person is relevant only because of what they cause, produce, or trigger.
Statements in this orientation sound like the following:
- “That was very pleasant.”
- “Your story makes me sad.”
- “I enjoy it.”
The speaker is processing the situation through their own reaction; the other person appears in the narrative mainly as the source of that reaction. If this framing dominates every interaction, the relationship can start to feel transactional or empty. The other person’s experiences are being filtered through the speaker’s state rather than being explored for what they are.
Relational attention (Us)
The second orientation shifts the focus toward the shared moment. The priority isn’t the speaker or the other person individually, but the fact that something is happening between them.
Typical expressions:
- “Good to have you here in this.”
- “I’m glad we’re doing this together.”
- “It was nice being there with you.”
Here, the other person is recognised as a partner. The relationship itself becomes the centre of gravity. This register usually creates a cooperative, inclusive atmosphere – which is why it’s so common in effective teamwork and friendships. However, it still frames the interaction through the shared experience rather than through a deep curiosity about the other person’s specific inner world.
Other-oriented attention (You)
In this third orientation, the speaker directs attention toward the other person as an independent psychological subject. The focus shifts away from the shared situation and toward the other person’s unique perspective and internal life.
Statements in this register:
- “How did that feel for you afterwards?”
- “I’m curious how this changed the way you see things.”
- “You’re one of a kind.”
The other person is recognised as distinct and irreplaceable. Their thoughts and emotions become the focus, rather than their effect on the speaker. This orientation creates the strongest sense of being “seen”. It is the register most closely associated with deep personal bonds, as it signals a genuine interest in someone else’s subjective experience.
The Healthy Flow
These categories aren’t “good” or “bad” – they simply describe where attention is directed. In a healthy interaction, people naturally move between them. For example, if someone shares a difficult story, a natural flow might look like this:
- “You must have been exhausted after that.” (Focus on the other person’s experience).
- “I’m really glad we both share that story now.” (Acknowledging the shared moment).
- “Hearing that actually makes me quite sad.” (Expressing the speaker’s internal reaction).
The interaction becomes problematic only when communication remains locked almost exclusively in one register, especially the instrumental one. A good relationship should consist of the ‘We’ and ‘You’ when expressing the positive. The ‘Me’ one, if taking the majority of all of the communication, followed by a deliberate avoidance of ‘You’-centred topics, may suggest a form of narcissism, entitlement, or severe relational incapability to see another human as human and not through their function.
Negative expressions
When communication becomes negative, the same structure often appears again, but with a slightly different meaning. Negative statements reveal where a person “places” the problem: in the other person, in the relationship, or in themselves (or stay stuck in their internal processing).
Negative You-focus: The problem is the other person
When criticism centres on the other person as a person, it becomes global and essentialising. The issue is no longer a behaviour or an interaction but the person themselves.
- “You’re impossible to deal with.”
- “You’re just like everyone else.”
- “You’re the kind of person who ruins things.”
These statements communicate contempt or hatred. Instead of describing an event, they define the other person as the problem. In extreme cases, this moves toward dehumanisation because the individual is reduced to a negative label.
Negative Us-focus: The problem is the relationship
In this orientation the difficulty is located in the interaction itself. The language remains relational, describing how two people function (or fail to function) together.
- “We just couldn’t get along.”
- “We kept misunderstanding each other.”
- “This didn’t work between us.”
The tone might be full of conflict, but the focus stays on the dynamic rather than condemning the other person’s character. This framing often appears in ordinary disagreements, relationship breakdowns, or professional friction.
Negative Me-focus: The problem is in my experience
Here, the speaker locates the difficulty within their own reaction or limitations. They describe their internal response rather than defining the other person as the source of the trouble.
- “I felt overwhelmed by it.”
- “It feels so awful to me.”
- “That situation made me uncomfortable.”
This can signal emotional awareness or vulnerability. It doesn’t necessarily mean the speaker is taking 100% of the blame, but they are acknowledging that their internal experience is the central part of the story. Staying solely in this register may suggest being stuck here, circling their internal state over and over with no ability (or intention) to move forward.
How conflict is handled
Conflict conversations often move between these registers. Constructive resolution usually involves at least some movement toward the ‘Me’ and ‘Us’ levels, because those frames allow discussion of behaviour, reactions, and interaction patterns. When someone remains exclusively in the negative ‘You’ register, the conversation often stalls since the other person themselves is defined as the problem rather than the situation.
As with the positive forms, the meaningful signal does not lie in a single sentence. What matters is the repeated location of attention and blame across a longer interaction. Over time, those patterns can reveal how a person tends to position themselves, the relationship, and the other person in their psychological landscape.
P.S. If you are interested in this kind of study, I suggest the following:
Selman, R. (2017). Manual to assess levels of interpersonal understanding. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.26577.53605
Zahavi, D. (2015). You, Me, and We: The Sharing of Emotional Experiences. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 22. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-08850-007