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Transference is a human aspect of which many are unaware. Those trained in psychology are very aware of it. Those working with patients in the medical field are usually exposed to the concept in their education process. I think those interested in philosophy come across it too. Those examining existentialism and similar philosophies will likely run into it.

In casual conversation it is alluded to by people referring to ‘seeing through rose colored glasses’. It is the cause of many misunderstandings in conversations. Being aware of it is important for understanding one’s self and I think reaching mature levels of mental development.

Base Concepts
Even keeping this simple there are some things to understand for the idea of transference to make sense. One of those is the concept of meta-world. Each of us can be thought of as having a meta-world. This is our understanding of the world around us represented in our mind and thinking. We can use it to imagine what would happen if we stepped off a cliff, plugged up a bath tub drain or threw a ball at a window. Our model world gives us answers, unfortunately not always correct ones. We base it on our ‘remembered’ experiences of the world around us. We actually relate more to it than we do the ‘real’ world.

We also populate our meta-world with meta-models of people. When we know someone well and can predict what they will do or say in situations then we have a good working model well related to the real person. We are surprised by their behavior when they do something that is not predicted by the meta-model. That shows a flaw in our model or a misunderstanding of the situation.

Forming an opinion of another person sets our meta-model of them. President Bush (either) and President Obama are good examples. We can see people that have opinions about them that are simply outrageous with little if any basis in fact. Those opinions shade everything they see them do and hear them say. This is the control a meta-model has. And of course it is not just with people. Religion, science, games, preferences…

Surprise is possible in the physical world when our model is incomplete or mistaken. Kids jump off garages planning to fly while playing Superman, because of incomplete understanding of the world, which results in a radial and quick update of the model on contact with the ground. It takes feed back to grow an accurate model.

When our meta-world model deviates radically from the real world we have problems coping and things just don’t seem to work. Hostile and frustrated people often have a faulty model. Failure to make adjustments to the model is part of the definition of mental illness.

Is there really a model in our heads? May be. Mostly it is a way of thinking about how our mind works.

Practical Application
In our daily life we use the world model and models of people to fill in missing information. The Balloon Boy is a good example of our models in action. (Balloon Boy is the kid that supposedly floated off in the balloon in Colorado.) Some that had good models of the physical world immediately doubted the kid could be in the balloon. Depending on one’s models of the police, we believed them, or not, when they said they were sure the parents were telling the truth. These are examples of people using transference. We transfer our accumulated experiences of similar situations and our thinking, beliefs and preferences to a situation, usually without good evidence. It is a behavior we learn to save time and mental effort.

It is nearly impossible for one to see a problem with their meta-model. It is abundantly apparent to those around us. It is when we see/hear someone applying an inappropriate or unrealistic view or understanding of something or someone, that we can see a model/transference in action.

When we start to comment on another’s model, we are also putting our model out there and opening it to challenge. It is a risk. Transference can work both directions and get tangled.

For Forums
We see people with closed minds, some closed in general some on just some subjects. Many bang their head on a wall trying to convince those closed minds with facts and rational rhetoric. Often thinking they just have not seen the facts or misunderstood. One has to be able realize whether these are people that are protecting their meta-model, beliefs, prejudices and/or agenda or whether with an open mind they are trying to reason. Knowing when to leave things alone or challenge them is learned by experience. Understanding whether one is responding to facts of an issue or their beliefs is the key to knowing what to challenge.

We can’t make forum rules about transference or, at least, I don’t see how. However, the rules and guidelines for personal attacks, the characterization of others feelings, assigning motivation to others and tone of voice used, point to issues from people’s meta-models. It is often the moderators that have the final challenge of deciding whether a consistent problem poster has a personality problem that can’t be corrected or tolerated. Understanding the concept of transference can help one understand what people are doing.

I see understanding these concepts as a reference for members and moderators for deciding when to draw a line for repeated violations of rules and guidelines or when to stop interacting.

Edit: 3m/26/10 - added a couple of sentences

As someone who works with models and simulations on a daily basis, the concepts Nalates presents in the above post make perfect sense to me: Even though I'm working in a physical/electrical field rather than a psychological one does not detract.

As Nalates says, you can't readily see something through another person's eyes. Concepts and ideas are often extremely difficult to get across and few people are skilled wordsmiths, so it is easy to accidentally mis-represent things. I've done that myself often enough.

Coincidentally, one of the things my work has me looking at just now is how to describe part of an electronic system and it's behaviours. Here, the problem is that different people are looking for different things from the description and have different priorities. In effect, although people are looking at the same thing, each has a slightly different perspective. It's like looking at the subject through a multi-faceted prism - everyone sees something different; various parts are hidden from view; no-one can see the whole "thing". People may not agree on what they see, but it doesn't mean there's a right and wrong. Just different.

When people are prepared to openly compare their models then a greater understanding of the whole emerges. People may defend their own model, because it "costs" them in some way to admit it may be defective. That defence and robust argument is not a bad thing, because it actually serves to test the integrity of the model, but I've seen intelligent, professional people get into dogmatic stances and polarised positions because they refuse to accept that some else's model may have some validity. And that then develops into argumentum ad hominem, because that's usually the only only place they can then go. That's increasingly the way that politicians are going - don't attack the policy, attack the man.

(Look, I'm double posting! )

Something I meant to add to the post above:

Moderators, and indeed other forum users, cannot always be aware of the dynamics that may exist between certain posters. Two people who have known each of old may indulge in quite good natured banter and "sparring" that is in no way antagonistic to each other but may appear to the outsider to be crossing into the realm of personal attacks. Typed text does not carry the vocal intonations or other body language that give the clues here and a emoticon won't always be used. The other edge of that particular sword is that a genuine confrontation may be partly obscured by throwing in a few "smilies" to make a post seem less aggressive.

Then you have posters, and perhaps moderators, for whom the forum is not in their native language, leading to quite innocent mis-representations or mis-interpretations. Throw in some elements of irony and sarcasm within posts and you have a potential minefield for the moderator to tread through.

Additional information I came across comes from a paper written by an MIT computer geek...

Jay Forrester, in discussing participants' internal modeling of a discussion, says:

Jay Forrester wrote:Mental models are fuzzy, incomplete, and imprecisely stated. Furthermore, within a single individual, mental models change with time, even during the flow of a single conversation. The human mind assembles a few relationships to fit the context of a discussion. As debate shifts, so do the mental models. Even when only a single topic is being discussed, each participant in a conversation employs a different mental model to interpret the subject. Fundamental assumptions differ but are never brought into the open. Goals are different but left unstated. It is little wonder that compromise takes so long. And even when consensus is reached, the underlying assumptions may be fallacies that lead to laws and programs that fail. The human mind is not adapted to understanding correctly the consequences implied by a mental model. A mental model may be correct in structure and assumptions but, even so, the human mind--either individually or as a group consensus--is apt to draw the wrong implications for the future.[1]
Reference Quote Context

I find I agree with this 1971 description of what people do as they think and discuss a topic.

May be more emoticons would help... (tongue in cheek)