[HN Gopher] Ask vs. Guess Culture
___________________________________________________________________
Ask vs. Guess Culture
Author : kiyanwang
Score : 527 points
Date : 2023-08-18 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jeanhsu.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jeanhsu.substack.com)
| boobalyboo wrote:
| [dead]
| tcgv wrote:
| I mainly "Ask" for people in my inner circle, and "Guess" for
| everybody else
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Great article. One point I would like to add, is that "guess"
| culture works great when there is already a lot of shared
| cultural background, but "ask" culture works better when people
| are coming from very different backgrounds (and thus won't know
| enough about what the other person wants or needs, to guess very
| accurately). Sure, it's good to find out more about where other
| people are coming from, but this takes time, and in the meantime
| stuff has to get done. I'm guessing this is why most workplaces
| are "ask" culture.
|
| Also, most families have enough common background to make "guess"
| culture work, so a lot of adolescents and young adults are more
| accustomed to "guess" culture, but once they move out into the
| world to deal more with people that have very different
| backgrounds, they will need to become more comfortable with "ask"
| culture.
| tetha wrote:
| Hm, interesting. I guess me with northern german heritage am very
| much more of an Ask-Person.
|
| But this is missing an important part of the ask-aspects: You can
| put needs and issues onto peoples radar.
|
| Like, someone recently just asked me if I have a kiln to sell. I
| very much don't have a kiln I don't need to sell and I had a good
| laugh about the request. But interestingly, someone else I know
| apparently knows how to setup kilns and he'd help if there was a
| kiln to sell and he's now talking to the other dude about kilns.
|
| This is very much how things work in rural nothern germany or
| northern germany overall. You just ask around if you need
| something, people learn what you need, and suddenly someone is
| like "Yo, this friend of a brother of the owner of a goat my
| sister owns has this thing and you mentioned you could need it
| three years ago and he wants to get rid of it. Could he come over
| tomorrow?"
| spookie wrote:
| Thanks for the post, it has really made me feel better about
| things in general!
|
| I come from a rural place in Europe, guess culture was the norm.
|
| Now, I'm on a different country altogether, and it has been
| difficult perceiving the world around me... But this makes sense,
| it somehow clears my mind.
|
| Really, thanks.
| noahlt wrote:
| The "Ask vs Guess" name rhetorically frames it in favor of the
| Askers. Asking sounds reasonable, guessing does not!
|
| But really it's not about "Guessing", it's about understanding.
| It's about community, and relationship, and trust. What this
| culture really wants is for you to pay attention and understand
| the people around you, rather than treating everything as a
| transaction.
| moffkalast wrote:
| I'm not sure if I see it that way, both extremes equally lead
| to dysfunctional interactions.
|
| You shouldn't feel bad for asking for help when you need it and
| other people haven't noticed it, and it's good to be mindful of
| those around you and what they need. A balance of both should
| be healthy.
| sfg wrote:
| I've never heard of asking vs guessing culture before and don't
| know much about them, but, based on the article, I'd say
| guessing looks more transactional. It uses a shared history and
| remembers past favours ("I gave him soup, so I can seek to get
| his van", as the example in the article had it), which is
| really an implicit transaction without guarantee the other side
| will meet their end.
|
| I am not even sure transactions are possible in asking culture,
| as it looks stateless. Askers just broadcast needs without
| reference to any past event, such as a favour.
|
| This might be an equivocation, but, funnily enough, you said
| guessing is about understanding and for people to have an
| understanding is a way of saying they have a transaction (often
| implicit). For instance, "I gave him a pass on that, so now we
| have an understanding that I can do this".
| samus wrote:
| People in "ask" culture can provide context to their request,
| in effect making it transactional again. That works best if
| parties are not in a close relationship with each other, else
| the communication is already more contextual and "guess"-like
| than with loose acquaintances.
| bee_rider wrote:
| The author mentions a couple times coming from a "guess"
| culture and adjusting to an "ask" one, so I think they are in
| some sense in favor of "ask," at least in the workplace. I mean
| they are clearly trying to adopt some of the habits.
|
| It is interesting--I think thoughtful people like the author
| tend to see the limitations of the habits they've grown up
| with, and the advantages of the ones they are trying to adopt.
| But of course both tendencies have advantages and
| disadvantages.
| superfrank wrote:
| I've never heard these terms before, but I've known about this
| concept for a while and I've always used "implicit" and
| "explicit" as my descriptors for the two different approaches,
| which I feel have less negative connotations.
| opportune wrote:
| Asking isn't necessarily transactional.
|
| If I go to your house and ask for a glass of water, it's
| because I'm thirsty and I know it's NBD for you to get a glass
| and put water in it. I'm not expecting to give or get anything
| else in return, nor am I trying to be rude by insinuating you
| should have given me a glass of water. The thought process
| goes:
|
| 1. I am thirsty.
|
| 2. I don't think it's rude to ask for water since it's
| effectively free and only requires you to have a clean glass to
| serve it in.
|
| 3. I ask for water.
|
| Community and trust is all well and good, but most of my social
| circle are transplants from all over the country/world which
| all have different social mores. There is no common or
| universal social dance about how to behave when you want
| something from someone else or how you should be polite when
| you go hang out with someone in this kind of setting. And if
| someone does try to fit their specific background culture into
| such a setting in a way that makes it so they're offended when
| I ask for water or a favor, it's on them.
|
| That's not say I think Asking is "superior" but just that it's
| not transactional so much as it is pragmatic (but potentially
| impolite) especially in certain situations, like socialization
| within a highly diverse-background group.
| wwweston wrote:
| "Explicit vs Implicit" is more accurate and value neutral, and
| doesn't require anyone to load down the explicit side of the
| equation with generalized aspersions like "treating everything
| as a transaction."
|
| There are advantages to explicit and implicit negotiation.
| There are situations in which either might be more graceful or
| necessary.
|
| Most situations are probably best navigated with some degree of
| implicit negotiation first, paired with a layer of explicit
| interaction as a check.
|
| > it's not about "Guessing", it's about understanding.
|
| _Asking_ is often a good way to make sure you actually
| understand.
|
| "Guessing" may be an acceptable substitute to the extent your
| intuition doesn't have an error term.
| [deleted]
| solarmist wrote:
| "Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other
| Guess people - ones who share a fairly specific set of
| expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get
| from your own family and friends and subculture, the more
| you'll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you'll spend
| your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (pace Moomin fans) the
| Cluelessness of Everyone."
|
| The more diverse the people a guesser interacts with the more
| dysfunctional, as in not working how they intend, guess
| behavior becomes. If you need to interact with people who have
| even somewhat different values guess culture becomes
| unworkable.
| johnnyjeans wrote:
| Maybe "Inquire vs Infer" is better?
| amerkhalid wrote:
| I am from guess culture, it is almost impossible for me to
| decipher needs of everyone and communicate my needs without
| asking. Unless those needs are very standard traditional needs
| like offering water to a guest, giving up seat for an elder
| etc. And it is not just me it seems everyone seems to
| misunderstand and everyone complains about others who didn't
| guess their needs correctly.
|
| Using the example from article, the mover would be complaining
| about everyone who didn't guess that they needed help with
| moving and how they had given soup to all those people.
|
| I really appreciate ask culture and find it much easier to
| navigate. It is so much easier to hangout with friends who can
| just ask for what they want or just say no. I have learned to
| ask but still find it stressful to say no.
|
| Speaking of no, in my culture, apparently, no means, "ask me
| again I am just being polite, I will say yes after your ask me
| 3rd time."
| smeej wrote:
| Hmm. I think I've primarily experienced the really dark side of
| guess culture, so I appreciate your framing of it as a desire
| for understanding when it's in a healthy context.
|
| I've experienced it in the contexts of narcissism and
| borderline personality, where the underlying thought is, "I am
| so obviously the center of the world that anyone with half a
| brain who's paying a whit of attention should to intuit my
| needs without my having to speak a word. If I have to speak,
| you have already failed." And anyone who failed was punished,
| sometimes intensely.
|
| Ask culture, for me in that context, became about being able to
| exist as a separate person and express a boundary. I'd much
| rather put the cards on the table, find out we want completely
| different, even opposed things, and work from there, than deal
| with the power imbalance of one person's assumption that anyone
| who isn't reading their mind is an idiot.
|
| It seems the virtue, as most of the time, is in the mean.
| mannykannot wrote:
| In this case, the unreasonable person does not understand the
| culture he is embedded in, and would not understand an 'ask'
| culture either, where refusal to accede to his wants is
| regarded as reasonable.
|
| The difference between normal and pathological behavior in
| either culture lies in whether people treat others in the
| same way they would like to be treated themselves.
| platz wrote:
| I expect you incorporate aspects of "guess" culture without
| even realizing it.
|
| For example, Is it okay if I bang your wife/gf?
|
| If you think that's a rude question, why? All I'v done is
| Ask.
| smeej wrote:
| I don't think I understand your example, but that may come
| from having had more than my share of polyamorous friends.
|
| By default, I would take your request at face value and
| have no trouble saying, "No, we're monogamous, but I can't
| very well blame you for wanting to!"
| platz wrote:
| very well, but what percentage of the population do you
| think would consider that rude.
|
| Of course, the nut of the question is whether its ever
| possible to be rude with a question. If it's possible to
| be rude with a statement, I don't really see the
| difference between questions and statements, at the
| higest level, though
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| > "I am so obviously the center of the world that ... If I
| have to speak, you have already failed."
|
| IME this person is always a women dominating her family. Idk
| why.
| throwanem wrote:
| What you're describing is abusive behavior, which is
| something I would hesitate very strongly to characterize as
| part of any cultural norm.
| DirkH wrote:
| I guarantee you that abusive cultural norms exist and many
| poor individuals stuck in cultures with abusive norms wish
| they were living in a different culture.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| It can be more moderate than that. "what is wrong honey?".
| "Nothing, I'm fine". Which can either mean, no really I'm
| fine, or if you don't know, you obviously don't care about
| me, or you know exactly what is wrong and don't pretend
| otherwise. I've been both parties in that conversation, and
| over time I have learned that ask culture works better
| between close friends and family. That doesn't mean I'd
| consider it abusive though, just a non optimal
| communication strategy.
| hosh wrote:
| If there is one thing I learned, it is that when it comes
| to life partners and family where the stakes are
| conmingled, for the really important stuff, it is better
| to be open and direct.
|
| So I think one of the hidden dimensions here are -- are
| you guessing because you are trying to consider the other
| person, or are you guessing because there is
| vulnerability to exposing what you really feel?
| throwanem wrote:
| As a product of Southern American culture, I would note
| that "guess" culture as described here - specifically,
| the preference for indirectness and inference - is always
| something that exists primarily in and near interaction
| among strangers. It doesn't always disappear entirely in
| familiar relationships, but does abate significantly in
| favor of being more direct. (Of course, this in itself
| increases the chance of cultural mismatches causing
| conflict, as what's ordinary for someone from an "ask"
| culture can easily read as an insulting assumption of
| excess familiarity for someone raised with "guess".)
|
| That said, it is important to keep in mind that what's
| here under discussion is a broad and fairly imprecise
| description of how varying acculturation can affect
| interpersonal relationships mostly among people who don't
| know one another all that well. In that context it's
| useful; to try to generalize it to every human
| interaction is not.
| throwanem wrote:
| This also reminds me of the distinction drawn between
| "honor" and "dignity" cultures, as eg in [1]; I'd be
| interested to see how the "ask" vs. "guess" distinction
| maps, especially as antebellum Southern and prewar
| Japanese cultures both fall as strongly on the "honor"
| side as their modern successors fall on the "guess" side.
|
| [1] https://alexandria.ucsb.edu/lib/ark:/48907/f37d2s7h#:
| ~:text=....
| epylar wrote:
| I can think of several examples.
|
| Verbal abuse, childhood bullying, body shaming,
| cyberbullying, workplace harassment are all abusive and
| normal and accepted in many cultures.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Why is that? Don't you think that abuse can become a
| cultural norm?
|
| I don't think we'd have ever come up with money if abuse
| weren't a common cultural norm. It's pretty much a proxy
| for "or I'll have my thugs hurt you".
| throwanem wrote:
| Better put, I'd say that I would hesitate to characterize
| a cultural preference for either directness or
| indirectness as akin to the kind of abuse a narcissist
| deals out to everyone around them.
|
| The argument is easy to construct in either direction,
| but in no case adds anything of value to the
| conversation.
|
| Too, claiming that abuse is "just a cultural thing"
| offers both abusers a convenient excuse for their
| actions, and everyone who isn't abusive but does share
| traits of whichever culture an undue indictment.
| flatline wrote:
| I have lived this too.
|
| Likewise ask culture can only be healthy if there is not a
| power imbalance: is the asked party really free to say no?
|
| The title is catchy but I'm not sure how useful this
| dichotomy really is.
| reddit_clone wrote:
| It is also true that for some (many?) people it is very
| hard to say 'No'. I don't know any psychological/technical
| name for this but it is simply true and it is in their
| nature.
|
| When asked directly, they will give in even if they don't
| like doing what is being asked.
|
| 'Asking' in these cases is actually exploitation (if done
| with prior knowledge).
| TylerE wrote:
| People Pleaser
| ativzzz wrote:
| You can also be more empathetic with ask culture and soften
| or make the request more obvious to say no to.
|
| Instead of saying "can you do x" you can say "i know you're
| busy so no pressure whatsoever but if you're available can
| you do me out with x? feel free to say no my feelings won't
| be hurt"
|
| Yea it's a lot more words but the general gist is you ask
| with an additional explicit "out" for the other person so
| they can say no using your pre-provided excuse instead of
| them having to come up with one. I've found this over
| communication can be useful for bridging the gap sometimes
| reddit_clone wrote:
| As a (suffering) guesser myself, when I have to ask
| something I always phrase it like 'would you be
| interested in doing this?' so that they can say 'no'
| without stress.
|
| Instead of asking 'Would you do this for me? etc.' which
| I know would cause a mild-natured guesser stress.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| > [...] one person's assumption that anyone who isn't reading
| their mind is an idiot.
|
| Ah, I see you've met my dad.
| MyneOutside wrote:
| This and when that person is a manager, yikes
| kolanos wrote:
| I actually think there's an inversion of ask/guess spectrum and
| it is the offer/guess spectrum.
|
| To add on to a GP's example of the northern U.S. being
| predominantly an ask culture and the southern U.S. being a
| guess culture, I think the inverse is true for offering things
| as opposed to asking for them.
|
| Southern hospitality is very much an offer culture. Whether you
| need or want something, it will be offered. The guess culture
| aspect of asking flips when it comes to offering. In the south
| it is widely considered rude to not impulsively offer even when
| you know you're likely going to get a "no".
|
| However, in the north the reverse is true. Usually you will
| only be offered something when it is apparent that thing is
| wanted or needed. It is actually considered something of an
| imposition to be offered something you don't want or need.
|
| In other words, I don't think you can just cast these cultures
| as high context and low context, it is more a case of where the
| culture places contextual importance.
| davideg wrote:
| I appreciate you calling this out! In my community we started
| talking about it as "Ask" vs "Attune" culture. On the one hand
| do you assume everyone will be explicit with their wants,
| needs, and boundaries? On the other, do you pay attention to
| who you're engaging with, their general disposition, their
| communication style preferences, etc?
|
| I personally like to keep a balance between the two extremes
| and try to adapt my behavior to who I'm engaging with (you can
| tell I'm comfortable in an "Attune" culture environment, but I
| appreciate when people are up front and communicative about
| their needs, wants, and boundaries). Considering the power
| differentials at play and the ability for someone to enforce
| their true boundaries is really important to me, and also
| having meta conversations to encourage folks to speak up about
| their needs and boundaries.
|
| In a work context, I will have a meta conversation with someone
| about their preferred communication style, how they want to
| receive feedback, how they want to be checked in with, etc. to
| avoid mismatched communication expectations.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| That framing is at least as bad as the framing you project on
| the Ask/Guess split.
|
| Clearer communication is always better.
| blargey wrote:
| > What this culture really wants is for you to pay attention
| and understand the people around you
|
| This sort of framing highlights the worst case scenario of
| "guess" culture imo. Where members assume that outsiders to the
| "guess" culture only need to "pay attention" to pick up on all
| the right norms and assimilate into the community that they
| spent decades growing up in (and that everyone ought to, in the
| first place, because the "guess" culture considers itself the
| necessary consequence of virtues like trust and caring). Which
| leads to great offense being taken when people don't adhere.
| xeromal wrote:
| I think that guess culture has attuned me to knowing when I
| need to include a quiet person into a conversation or to
| check in on my neighbor when I notice they seem down. Reading
| people is an undervalued skill that was honed in my guess
| culture upbringing.
| sircastor wrote:
| What term would you use to describe it? Respectfully, I think
| you're projecting an opinion onto it. There's no inherent value
| in the word "Guess". A "guess" culture isn't without
| transactional interactions, it's just shifted the transaction
| to implicit expectations instead of explicit.
| [deleted]
| sh1mmer wrote:
| I feel like "Ask" vs "Sense" would be a better term.
|
| I've found this a lot in relationships where partners where a
| high bar is expected for how well I can to intuit their current
| state. "If I have to say it, it's not romantic", etc.
|
| I think I tend to fall somewhere in the middle between the two
| extremes. Being able to ask is feels good, giving and getting
| feedback feels good, but having someone not care about being
| aware of where I am at (or factoring that in) doesn't feel
| good.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| People actually DO feel annoyed when people ask them for
| unreasonable things. So it's not unreasonable at all to take that
| into consideration and predict if a question will put them out.
| People are tuned to favor one strategy over another, but there is
| a real social cost to asking, and a real cost to not asking.
| There is no one right strategy, just another optimization problem
| that our brains have solved with emotional weights. Also the
| people who ask for things get offended all the time when people
| say no, so that's a problem too.
| swayvil wrote:
| Asking as submissive act. Thus avoided.
|
| I've seen that in internet conversations. Where a simple question
| would do, a prolonged process of guessing, assuming and even
| accusing is embarked upon. Because none of the participants wants
| to submit, to lose.
|
| It's a dom/sub culture thing. USA culture is such a culture. Look
| at popular fiction. It's invariably concerning the dominance of
| rightness over wrongness.
|
| So reality itself stands upon the form of the dom/sub
| relationship in a way.
|
| It's pretty deep.
| solarmist wrote:
| The most important thing I got from this was from the original
| Ask post forever ago.
|
| "Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other
| Guess people - ones who share a fairly specific set of
| expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from
| your own family and friends and subculture, the more you'll have
| to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you'll spend your life in a
| cloud of mild outrage at (pace Moomin fans) the Cluelessness of
| Everyone."
|
| The more diverse the people a guesser interacts with the more
| dysfunctional, as in not working how they intend, guess behavior
| becomes. If you need to interact with people who have even
| somewhat different values guess culture becomes unworkable.
| RangerScience wrote:
| Seconding this. Anecdotally, the more multicultural a space is,
| the more it trends towards "ask".
| solarmist wrote:
| Through necessity.
| quacked wrote:
| I am from the northern US (Protestant Scandinavian/German) and my
| wife is from the southern US (Protestant English/German) [1]. In
| the first several years of our relationship, we had several big
| disputes about how to treat each other, and how to treat guests.
| After a while we realized that she had been brought up to feel
| extreme insecurity over responding to the needs of guests, and I
| had been brought up to be blithely ignorant to the needs of
| guests.
|
| Over the years I definitely insulted several southern guests by
| mostly ignoring them, and she definitely projected insult onto
| several northern guests by assuming that they were secretly
| judging us for not being better hosts. We've since realized that
| southerners tend to prefer "guess" culture and northerners tend
| to prefer "ask" culture, to use the terminology from the article.
| There are certainly many exceptions, but this generalization has
| taught her to chill out a little over hosting duties, and taught
| me to pick up some slack when taking care of guests.
|
| We still both greatly prefer our native cultures. I don't like
| being fawned over or offered things I don't want, and she is
| extremely recalcitrant when it comes to asking for anything.
|
| [1] I mention the distant ancestral backgrounds because it's
| amusing to me how well I get along with northern Europeans who
| are plainly spoken and "rude" by US standards, and how a lot of
| proper hosting culture from the UK reminds me of how her family
| operates. She finds Scandinavians and Dutch incredibly rude,
| whereas I find the English hilariously polite, even to their own
| detriment.
| burlesona wrote:
| This is fascinating to me, because I'm from the southern US and
| strongly align to "ask culture" and my wife is from the
| northwest and strongly aligns to "guess" culture.
|
| I wonder how much it's about individual family background and
| not strongly regional?
| ketzo wrote:
| When you say that your experience in the south is more Ask --
| who is usually doing the asking, host or guest?
|
| I said this down the thread but my experience (grew up in the
| south) has always been that Southerners are very up-front
| about trying to meet your needs before you can even ask for
| them. That was always how I was taught to host, anyway.
|
| And I think that weirdly, that's more aligned with Guess
| culture: the person who _needs_ something should never have
| to _ask_ for it.
| burlesona wrote:
| No, for my family growing up, nobody was going to try and
| read your mind, if you want something say something. For
| her family, they are always trying to anticipate needs. For
| her, if I'm not anticipating needs and taking care of them
| -- ie, if she has to ask -- then I'm being rude.
| nmstoker wrote:
| Yes, I'm with you on considering this to be a guess culture
| thing (since you have to be sensitive to what they might
| need, likely want)
| echelon wrote:
| > This is fascinating to me, because I'm from the southern US
| and strongly align to "ask culture"
|
| As a southerner, I don't agree. It's split by the
| directionality of the request. And I think that's what makes
| southern culture distinct.
|
| We'd never "ask" when we're the guest, only when we're the
| host. "Ask"-y guests are considered rude. "Guess"-y hosts are
| considered unwelcoming and inhospitable.
|
| You can "ask" a stranger how they're doing or if they need
| anything, but you don't impose upon them. It's often common
| to strike up conversations this way.
|
| It's a directionality. "Ask" when you're the giver, "guess"
| when you're the receiver.
|
| You always hold the door. You don't ask for someone to do it
| for you, but you probably feel miffed if they don't, because
| it's expected that everyone extends each other courtesy.
|
| "Southern hospitality".
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| yeah im from the south and there is definitely a level of up-
| front-ness that i'm not sure the parent comment is talking
| about. like a level of exuberance and get-it-out-ness that
| often borders on belligerence
|
| "yall doin okay?"
| gottorf wrote:
| > "yall doin okay?"
|
| Speaking as a Southerner, this sentence is so on point.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Questions like that really... confuse me, because is it
| just a generic 'hello' or a serious question?
|
| In my own experience, I once had an obnoxious colleague who
| asked "How was your weekend?". I didn't like the question
| because one, I don't like to talk about what I do / did in
| my spare time, and two, it was leading because the guy was
| really really eager to talk about HIS weekend, but... I
| didn't care, or else I would've asked.
| ketzo wrote:
| If it's coming from someone who could even _remotely_ be
| considered a "host" to you, it's definitely a serious
| question, and they actively want to fulfill any needs you
| might have. Southern hospitality is a super real thing,
| it's pretty awesome.
|
| If it's said as a greeting, "how y'all doing?" usually
| means "how are your family?," which also tends to be
| meant very genuinely.
|
| Even outside of a host-guest dynamic, I do think
| Southerners tend to care more about pleasantries; when
| they ask about your weekend, they're a little more likely
| to really want to know.
|
| Of course, this is all very broad strokes based on
| anecdotal experience. Plenty of cold/self-aggrandizing
| jerks in the South, too!
| dkga wrote:
| Couldn't help but listen it in Ted Lasso's voice. Thanks
| for that beautiful moment.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Yeah, I'm a lifelong southerner (18 years in MS, 6 in AL,
| now 29 in Houston). We're pretty up front about what's
| going on across the board. If you come to a southerner's
| house, there's usually already hospitality happening -- but
| if you want something, ask! Just realize we'll say "no" if
| it's not something we're going to do.
|
| This is jarring to people who cannot receive a no, or who
| cannot articulate one.
| ketzo wrote:
| This is counterintuitive, but in the framing of the
| article, I think that "y'all doin okay?" would actually be
| part of Guess culture, not Ask culture. It's just a very
| up-front manifestation of dealing with Guess culture, I
| think..? It's not Ask culture because _the person who needs
| something_ is not doing the asking.
|
| This is abstract, but stay with me here
|
| I'm also Southern, and I think that the inclination towards
| that kind of belligerent helpfulness comes from trying to
| figure out what your guests want, and making sure they _don
| 't_ have to ask you for anything.
|
| in my experience the response is "we're all good out here,
| but thank you!" -- which is classic Guess culture
| quacked wrote:
| I'm the original commenter, and I agree with you. The
| person you're responding to is accurate about that
| "friendly belligerence", but whenever I go down there _I_
| get all the "y'all doin' all right?" questions by hosts
| who are trying to see if I need anything.
| BestGuess wrote:
| I reckon it has got to do with bein rural and poor, or maybe
| different kinds of european family cultures preserving
| different attitudes? Where I'm from in the south you didn't
| ask at all if you knew what was good for you all about keepin
| up appearances and you had to be all sly about helping people
| out. More poor somebody is more sly you got to be. Bein in a
| city nobody gives a darn but way back when that darn was
| given pretty darn hard.
|
| Just a guess but could be that attitude has lots more to do
| with how many are poor or not and how many generations
| they've been poor, or lived in cities, like a lag time sorta
| thing. Nothing I really know about just sharing because it
| might be interesting even if wrong
| detourdog wrote:
| Baltic state heritage and you sound like my kind of guest/host.
|
| To quote Jerad/Donald at Silicon Valley:
|
| "I like when people yell at me, at least I know where I stand".
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| To misquote quote a meme, I like dominant women not because I
| want to be humiliated, but because they say what they want.
| detourdog wrote:
| I told her she had control problems... she said we can talk
| about it in 2 weeks.
| lostlogin wrote:
| This is a lot like the fantastic line by Scaramucci: 'Where I
| grew up, we're front stabbers'
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-40748918
| brandnewlow wrote:
| A true friend stabs you in the chest. - Oscar Wilde
| mgaunard wrote:
| The American south always were the sophisticated ones, with
| proper etiquette.
| rgoulter wrote:
| "Disputes arising from different communication attitudes in
| relationships" reminds me of Deborah Tannen's "You Just Don't
| Understand", which was recommended to me.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Just_Don%27t_Understand
|
| Tannen's main suggestion is at least if you're aware that
| someone communicates differently than you do, you might either
| make accommodation, or better understand things that might
| frustrate you.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| "Guests, like fish, begin to smell after 3-days"
|
| - Ben Franklin
| hinkley wrote:
| This reminds me of John Mulaney's bit about Jewish versus
| Catholic culture. He loved that he didn't have to guess what
| his girlfriend was thinking, she would just tell him. No
| filter.
|
| For some people that can be rude or shocking. For others the
| opposite can be exhausting. The middle ground of mind games is
| the fucking worst. "Go do that thing I don't like. It's fine."
| "Why did he go? He knew I was upset!" He answered your passive
| aggressive bullshit with his own passive aggressive bullshit.
| That's why. Good luck in couples therapy.
| sss111 wrote:
| do you have a link or timestamp for this?
| crooked-v wrote:
| Probably this segment.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogHxa4aPXN8
| [deleted]
| thefourthchime wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogHxa4aPXN8
| carabiner wrote:
| That sounds more like urban vs rural. The southerners I've
| known (Alabama) are pretty blunt about asking for what they
| want. Going further with stereotypes, some people say west
| coast is guess, east is ask.
| samus wrote:
| Indeed rural vs. urban is another divide across which such
| differences are observed. People from big metro areas are
| usually more blunt than in the surroundings. Probably because
| people there usually come from diverse backgrounds, but
| "guess" culture requires the opposite to work.
| hosh wrote:
| It may have more to do with deeper, more static personal
| relationships within a community in rural settings. In
| urban settings, folks generally don't know their neighbors,
| can hide in numbers, have to be more assertive with
| strangers and acquaintances, and can get away to a fresh
| start if they wreck their reputation.
|
| I think ask vs guess is a good start, but looking at my
| experience and looking at what people are talking about
| here, there is at least one more dimension at play here.
| xeromal wrote:
| As someone who's lived in both environments, I think most
| urban people develop a shell from the constant interaction
| that's required in a city. People selling wares,
| hobos/homeless, and a stronger need to protect oneself. You
| have to be blunt or you'll never get anywhere. lol.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| This is advice preached to people visiting NYC all the
| time.
|
| The person on the corner asking "excuse me sir may I
| please ask you a question" almost certainly has ulterior
| motives. Locals in a busy neighborhood ignore a guy like
| that a few times a day.
|
| But the person on the corner who says "hey which way is
| the 7 train?" with no preamble is gonna get good answers,
| despite being less traditionally polite.
|
| Where there is constant stimulation, the cultural norms
| get a lot more direct
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| That's a very good analysis, so much it seems obvious in
| retrospect. But I think it misses one other factor: I've
| witnessed the most rural people to adopt ask-culture when
| they were guess people before. My gut says this has
| something to do with social media/smartphones but idk.
| xeromal wrote:
| Yeah, on the other hand, I recently was looking for an
| old land cruiser and got in touch with a local guy on
| facebook. Knew I wanted it and sent him 1k to hold the
| car for me for a few days until I could rent a trailer.
| He did so and I picked up the suv without a hitch.
|
| I'd never do this in Los Angeles where I live part time.
|
| I context switch based on which home I'm at, North
| Georgia or Los Angeles.
| nostrademons wrote:
| "Going further with stereotypes, some people say west coast
| is guess, east is ask."
|
| My experience is the opposite. I grew up in New England, and
| it seemed like there were a large number of unspoken norms
| (in both business and personal culture) that were really hard
| to grok. Moving out to the Bay Area, people are refreshingly
| direct. "Want to come work for equity on my crypto startup?"
| "No, you're crazy." "Okay goodbye!"
|
| I think that where hypocrisy and indirection are ingrained in
| Silicon Valley, it's because of diverging incentives and a
| lust for power. In other words, people won't unconsciously
| hurt your feelings because they assume you would've
| consciously spoken up; they will _consciously_ screw you over
| because they want that billion dollar deal. It feels very
| much like an ask culture, though, regardless of how crazy the
| asks are.
| BoxFour wrote:
| Well, I'd suggest that:
|
| 1) A substantial number of individuals in the bay aren't
| originally from there.
|
| 2) Assuming the role of a startup founder inherently
| demands a familiarity with ask culture.
|
| One of the initial steps frequently involves requesting
| significant amounts of money from individuals, with minimal
| consequence to the borrower if it doesn't materialize to
| anything!
| nostrademons wrote:
| That's precisely what makes Western (and particularly
| American) culture an "ask" one, though. Ask cultures
| arise when you have a great diversity of individuals and
| can't make assumptions on their backgrounds, desires, or
| how they would interpret an interaction. Guess cultures
| arise when you have a long period of stability, and
| communities that form and persist over generations. When
| this happens, you can start to make consistent norms and
| then pass them down in childhood, so everyone in the
| community has a good sense of what's expected of them.
|
| Bay Area startup culture is an extreme example of Bay
| Area culture in general, which is an extreme example of
| Western U.S. culture, which is an extreme example of
| American culture, which is an extreme example of general
| western European culture. But they're all marked by
| fluid, transient groupings of people that came from all
| over.
| BoxFour wrote:
| I see what you're getting at. My intention was to
| highlight that I don't believe Silicon Valley culture is
| synonymous with Bay Area culture. In my interactions with
| individuals who were _raised_ in Northern California or
| even the Bay Area, I've seen a lot of "guess" culture
| fairly similar to the PNW.
|
| To phrase it differently, a significant number of the
| people you're thinking of probably wont establish lasting
| roots in the Bay and thus wouldn't be passing down that
| culture to the subsequent generation of Bay Area
| youngsters.
|
| It's a thought-provoking query indeed though, pondering
| what characterizes the "prototypical San Franciscan" and
| how that might evolve over time!
| dheera wrote:
| > Moving out to the Bay Area, people are refreshingly
| direct
|
| Weird, I moved from Boston to the Bay Area and I have the
| opposite experience.
|
| In Boston if someone asked me to have dinner with them it
| was always just dinner. If they had other intentions they
| would state them up front.
|
| In the Bay Area a good fraction of the time the other
| person has an unstated intention (hiring, dating, asking
| for intros to dates, asking for intros to investors, asking
| for other help ...) that I usually need to dig up before I
| say yes or no. The thing is, sometimes it is a yes, I just
| wish people would be more upfront that there is an agenda
| around this "dinner".
| camel_gopher wrote:
| Have you heard of the California no?
|
| "Gee, that startup sounds cool. Let me get back to you."
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| > I am from the northern US (Protestant Scandinavian/German)
| and my wife is from the southern US (Protestant English/German)
|
| You're American, your wife is American.
| margalabargala wrote:
| This applies to other countries too.
|
| One person from London, the other from Belfast? Both British.
|
| One from Barcelona, the other from Madrid? Both Spanish.
|
| One from Prague, the other from Bratislava? Both
| Czechoslovakian, until a couple decades ago.
| quacked wrote:
| Outside America, this is true. Inside America, if you are
| unaware of pronounced regional cultural differences arising
| from the settler groups that form your ancestry and local
| culture, you're either ignorant, or not American.
| ttepasse wrote:
| But you're already using perfectly good American regional
| identifiers for those regional differences in your original
| post.
|
| Pet peeve from a European: the American habit of using
| their distant ancestor's European ethnicity as a shorthand
| for stereotypical personality and culture today a)
| undervalues the massive political and cultural changes in
| Europe since their ancestor's emigration und b) undervalues
| the regional differences inside their ancestor's origin
| country. Being german I find both Ask and Guess culture
| here, just 50 km apart. And often in the same place,
| differing by class or the rural/urban divide. Describing
| ,,German" as just Ask culture is rather wrong from my
| perspective. I know the outside and Hollywood stereotypes
| differ.
|
| (And c), I think, distant ancestors ethnic stereotypes
| undervalues the melting pot/salad bowl effect over
| generations of the US itself.)
| anthk wrote:
| Ditto with Spaniards. Most of the "Hispanic coulture with
| flamenco, sun and beaches" won't apply to a whole 80% of
| the country. The North has beaches, but the Sun it's an
| English tabloid. The middle Spain has Sun, but water is
| something you see in rivers in reservoirs. Also, cold as
| hell winters.
|
| Now try to figure that across the pond with zillions of
| native cultures merged with an ( _older than North
| America itself_ ) Southern Hispanic culture from Mexico
| to the Patagonia close to the South Pole.
| [deleted]
| crazygringo wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious, what is the point you're trying to
| make?
|
| Do you think American doesn't have cultural differences
| within? Or that those cultures don't correlate at all with
| geography? Or with ancestry?
| NavinF wrote:
| You're not wrong, but there are some pretty big differences
| between south, east, and west. In a lot of ways US states are
| like independent countries that share a military
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Absolutely, I just disagree with trying to identify as
| being from somewhere else when you're born and raised in
| the US
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| You underestimate how vastly cultures can differ based on
| location or background. Also keep in mind the US is young and
| most of its inhabitants have a migrant background / family
| history.
|
| The US is the opposite of a monolithic culture.
| anthk wrote:
| Even been into Spain? Half of the Andalusian culture around
| flamenco it's alien to the rest of the country. Basque and
| the Nort-Western cultures related to the Celtic lore it's
| similarly alien to the Castilles, Andalusia, Catalonia and
| Valencia.
|
| And even in _regions_ themselves you can find alien customs
| to each other. For instance, in the Basque Country from
| valley to valley. Or in Andalusia with huge differences
| between East and West. Yes, like a Mandelbrot fractal.
| Spain it 's like that.
|
| You can find here any climate. Desserts? Glaciars? Tundra
| like climates? Cold winters down to -30C on high peaks? Dry
| heat? Windy heat? Dry cold? Windy cold? Rainy weather, like
| London if not more? All of them across the country. Now,
| from these megadiverse climate diffs you can guess you will
| find zillions of cultures and subcultures because, you
| know, traditions and architecture change a lot if you live
| between ponds in Cantabria with more mist than in a Stephen
| King novel compared to a dry dessert in Almeria were
| "Spagetthi Westerns" were filmed here and white homes with
| Arabic architecture reflecting the Sun was a must in order
| to just survive the Summer.
| Delk wrote:
| I feel somewhat conflicted about this. I'm from Finland, and
| while we aren't technically Scandinavian and might be something
| of an outlier among Northern Europeans in general, the
| stereotype is that we're not fond of small talk and prefer to
| be to the point and perhaps even blunt. But in terms of asking
| for things, I don't feel like I identify with the culture of
| directly asking. Feeling out or giving hints that I might
| appreciate some help without making outright requests seems a
| lot less intrusive and graceful to me. And while personality is
| probably also a factor, I don't think it's just me.
|
| I think we're generally a high-context culture, and the
| "guessing" culture as postulated in the post immediately
| reminds me of that. I don't know if other Northern European
| cultures are less high-context but it makes me wonder if high
| vs. low context (possibly similar to guessing vs. asking) is
| not quite the same axis as bluntness.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| If I've learned anything in my 20 year mental health journey,
| it's that until you've addressed your childhood trauma, nothing
| you do will be a lasting fix for any interpersonal issues you
| may have.
| solarmist wrote:
| I learned this this year. I'm in my 40s.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Yeah I'm 39 and just learned it last year.
| carabiner wrote:
| That's because we all read Body Keeps the Score at the
| same time.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Close...Atlas of the Heart
|
| Along with a bunch of other more medical reading
| solarmist wrote:
| +1 for Atlas of the Heart, but that was more useful after
| I handled my childhood trauma.
| solarmist wrote:
| Haven't read it yet. I guess I should.
| [deleted]
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I think a lot of people would benefit from getting some
| counceling in their earlier adult years, although on the
| other hand they may not be ready yet / not see any issues
| yet.
|
| I'm late 30's and same btw.
| throwanem wrote:
| If you've learned anything in your 20-year mental health
| journey, I hope it would be that not everyone is exactly like
| you, nor needs the same things you need. It's remarkably
| self-centered to assume the prescription that's suited you is
| exactly right for everyone else, don't you think?
| linster wrote:
| Wow that's a pile-on.
|
| "What works for you only works for you, so you might not
| have discovered that it works for anything else, but only
| if you were _really_ paying attention."
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| That's also definitely true!
|
| Some people are lucky to not have significant childhood
| trauma which means it was never needing to be resolved
| throwanem wrote:
| And some people are aware that "all interpersonal
| conflict derives ultimately from unresolved childhood
| trauma" is one school of thought among many, and no more
| guaranteed to offer anything generally dispositive than
| any other.
|
| If it worked for you, that's great! No joke, that's
| fantastic. But not for nothing, too, is there the old
| joke about the guy who just started a 12-step program and
| now no sooner sees someone take a drink in a bar but
| assumes they're an alcoholic.
| boppo1 wrote:
| >addressed your childhood trauma
|
| This is pretty frustrating as 90s-kid who had a Good
| Childhood(tm) and struggles with interpersonal issues. I have
| a close friend from childhood who also had quite a Good
| Childhood(tm) and he can't shut up about "trauma" and it
| seems like every two years he has this big epiphany about how
| he addressed some "trauma" he was previously repressing and
| how now that he's done so he's All Better Now(tm). His
| behavior and overall life outcomes do not have any
| correlation with these epiphanies. Both of our lives
| absolutely pale in comparison to the lives of average
| children in previous generations in terms of 'trauma'.
| Minimal bullying, no fights, always plenty of toys and food,
| loving parents, etc.
|
| I know some people with real, legitimate trauma (verbal and
| physical abuse) and they said that visiting a therapist
| really helped them to feel a lot better. In such cases of
| legitimate trauma, I agree that one should do something about
| it if it's making you feel bad. However, many of those people
| were already. interpersonally excellent before and after
| 'addressing' their trauma.
|
| I have had people (including the friend from the first
| paragraph) suggest I need to "work on my childhood trauma"
| but really and honestly I can't think of a single thing that
| was legitimately traumatic. I could take my worst
| experiences, which I have moved on from and don't feel any
| need[0] to think about, and inflate them, but I'm pretty sure
| that would be creating a new psychological problem.
|
| [0]I don't feel any hesitance to thinking about them either.
| I can sit and ponder them for a whole afternoon if I like,
| without emotional fluctuation. They're just memories.
| hinkley wrote:
| In college we hit that age where classmates started losing
| grandparents. I was one of the oldest grandchildren so I
| had a few years yet.
|
| Some of these people absolutely fell apart. It was the
| first time they'd ever lost anyone and they couldn't
| process it. When gently pressed, we would find out they had
| no pets growing up. They had not lost so much as a
| goldfish.
|
| A painless life can set you up for failure when real
| adversity comes. You lack the resilience, and in some cases
| the empathy, to navigate these situations. That's not
| trauma, but it is loss.
|
| Those experiences gave me a whole new perspective on peers
| whose parents got them goldfish or hamsters at a young age.
| Some of these parents were setting up object lessons.
| Basically the chicken pox party of loss.
|
| At that point I had lost a dog, and as a sensitive kid it
| wrecked me. And the worst part of it was every time I
| caught my breath some new asshole would offer his
| condolences. Thanks, I wasn't thinking about my dog for ten
| minutes and now I'm thinking about her again. Can we just
| stop talking about it please?
|
| I learned to offer sympathy without an agenda. Engaging
| them is trying to make them process on your timeline. It's
| thoughtless, even a little cruel. Definitely selfish. A
| good friend will step in and push if weeks later you have
| not mourned. But the next day? Give them space, Jesus.
|
| I really appreciated, in that moment, the northern
| midwestern trope of bringing the bereaved food and just
| sitting with them. Let them talk, or not. I almost pulled a
| muscle watching Lars and the Real Girl. The little old
| ladies sitting in his living room, knitting, surrounded by
| casseroles and hot dishes. Just talking to each other and
| watching him out of the corner of their eyes. Talking about
| anything else. Yep that's about it. Here if you need us,
| not holding our breath for you to say so.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I went to a Waldorf school and now my daughter does. At
| around age 10-11 children learn about death and practices
| around it (Norse, Egyptian, local practices) and what it
| means. The Waldorf philosophy holds that children start
| to understand that death is a permanent loss at about
| that age, and aims to teach them about it.
|
| Having a kid lose a pet at that age is a major thing for
| them to process.
|
| I love the school, but the disorganised over-parenting
| libertarian hippies can be overbearing at times.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education
| TuringTest wrote:
| Is it true what they say that Waldorf is based in
| irrational teachings about the supernatural, and let's
| children go several courses without learning basic
| rational stuff like reading well and doing math?
|
| I'm all for growing children with creative teaching and
| avoiding rote memorization, but I'd be horrified if that
| was at the cost of missing the best years for setting the
| pillars of rational thought.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| One way to view it is dealing with childhood trauma is
| necessary but not sufficient to fixing interpersonal
| issues. The problem is there are at least three
| opportunities for common errors of reasoning.
|
| _if_ you have unresolved childhood trauma (people forget
| this is conditional) then resolving it is _one of_ (not
| all) the requirements for fixing chronic interpersonal
| issues you _may_ have (not everyone does).
|
| If someones make all those mistakes at once, you get they
| tell you to heal your childhood trauma to fix your
| relationship disasters and it's like "My childhood was
| fine. And I had one argument with one person. I'm just
| gonna go talk to him about it..."
| cfiggers wrote:
| People overuse and overgeneralize the term "trauma" for
| sure. But it might be helpful to see real actual trauma as
| only one item in the larger set of "stuff from your past
| that impacts/has influence on you today, that you mostly
| aren't aware of, but that if you were aware/more aware of
| you'd be able to handle better."
|
| The way our primary caregivers relate and respond to us
| when we're a) in our most rapid periods of development and
| b) completely dependent on them for everything _absolutely_
| has an influence on the way we turn out. How could it not?
|
| So there's no such thing as Neutral/No Influence, there is
| only identifying what effects there are and learning how to
| lean either into or out of those influences on a
| situational basis. All of this definitely applies to
| childhood trauma, but it doesn't HAVE to be trauma for that
| logic to apply. Figuring that stuff out is a helpful part
| of maturing, and it doesn't have to be a critical or
| negative thing.
|
| In many ways I've come to appreciate and love my parents
| even more as I've worked through the ways they raised me
| the best they could, given the resources they had, but in
| ways that I can now see preferable alternatives to.
|
| I think it's the biggest "I Love You" in the world to self-
| consciously seek to grow beyond the limitations that were
| passed on to me, just like I want my little girl to outgrow
| the ones I consciously or unconsciously hand down to her.
| ggambetta wrote:
| I just want to say I appreciate your humorous use of the
| trademark symbol. I love it, but not everyone does. There's
| dozens of us! Dozens!
| nicup12345689 wrote:
| I think the key is to inspect the childhood trauma, however
| small, BUT don't try and make it your identity. You are
| just making some things conscious, understanding yourself.
| The moment it becomes a crutch, it is just an excuse for
| not taking agency over your own life.
|
| In a way it is the perfect excuse, a childhood determinism
| of sorts. Blame everything just to avoid ANY change of the
| self.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It doesn't have to be a Big Thing though; the problem is
| that the word "trauma" sounds / feels very serious, but it
| can be trivial things, or things you shrugged off like
| "well those things just happen".
|
| Personal example, I had a good (girl) friend when I was
| like six, I was very lonely / isolated before she came
| around and we played together and the like. But then her
| parents moved and I never saw her again.
|
| And for many years, that was it, it happened, couldn't do
| anything about it, nothing abnormal about it. But then
| because of Reasons I ended up going to therapy, and that
| event (plus others) are probably linked to a fear of
| abandonment / commitment, of a pessimism when it comes to
| relationships (as in, don't get too close, it'll end and
| there's nothing you can do about it).
|
| But also there's a factor of "My 'trauma' isn't that bad
| because others have had it worse". Doesn't mean you aren't
| valid either.
| munificent wrote:
| _> I have had people (including the friend from the first
| paragraph) suggest I need to "work on my childhood trauma"
| but really and honestly I can't think of a single thing
| that was legitimately traumatic._
|
| Let me just copy/paste an older comment of mine:
|
| ---
|
| Imagine you've lived in the same house your entire life.
| There's a big couch taking up half the living room, but one
| of the legs is broken. When you were really little, it
| tipped over when you sat in it, so you just learned to walk
| around the couch over to the not-very-comfortable armchair
| and sit there instead.
|
| This was so long ago that you don't even remember learning
| not to sit in the couch. You don't think about how much
| room that couch is wasting or how much time you spend
| walking around the couch to get to the chair. Sometmies you
| stub your toe on the way around, but everyone trips every
| now and then. You've been doing this so long that it is
| completely unconscious. Hell, you can and do navigate the
| room in the dark.
|
| Friends ask you about your living room furniture and you--
| completely honestly as far as you know--say it's all fine.
| You describe your chair in detail. It's not perfect, but
| it's serviceable. Certainly lots of other people have
| furniture that's in worse shape. At least you don't have
| any of _those_ problems.
|
| Then you sit down with a therapist for a few hours and they
| say, "Hey, what's up with that couch?"
| boppo1 wrote:
| I understood the concept already, thanks.
|
| But thank you for providing readers an example of the
| kind of condescension I was describing.
| ilikecakeandpie wrote:
| > and he can't shut up about "trauma"
|
| The worst thing that's every happened to someone is still
| the worst thing that's ever happened to them. Though it
| might not be something like mental/physical abuse, it's
| still their bottom even if it pales in comparison to
| someone else's. Also, lots of families have secrets and can
| portray a healthy image when in reality we generally see
| people at their "best" in social settings. I think the key
| here is self-awareness without diminishment, which can be
| difficult.
|
| Also, at least with my algorithms, there is just so much
| bombardment from social media about things like trauma,
| mental illness, and neurodivergence where one can get lost
| in what they're being presented and be convinced that just
| because they read the dictionary for fun when they were
| younger that they're neurodivergent instead of possibly
| just being a curious child. If one is in a vulnerable state
| or just worn down from seeing all this, it almost incites a
| FOMO response of "hey, I was traumatized too!"
|
| I do think that normalizing and acting to remove the stigma
| from discussing these things is a net positive overall but
| it can be damaging for sure
| adamweld wrote:
| FWIW the data agrees with you, for milder cases of anxiety
| and depression, which often correlate with interpersonal
| issues, talk therapy (e.g. dissecting childhood trauma) is
| much less effective than cognitive behavioral therapy
| (analyzing behavioral and emotional patterns, trying to
| catch and redirect cycles of thought and action that lead
| to negative outcomes).
| taurath wrote:
| CBT is designed around outcomes that can be easily
| measured. It can also be actually harmful in cases where
| there's actual trauma or neglect underlying the behavior
| or thought patterns. It has a tendency to paper over
| them.
|
| It helps a lot of people, but it't also a trap for those
| who have more deep things to work through, having spend 6
| years stalled out in CBT before coming to grips with the
| deep trauma and neglect, and the dissociation that was so
| prevalent in my life that CBT therapists never even
| bothered screening for. Ask anyone with an emotionally
| neglectful or abusive upbringing what CBT did for them
| and you'll get quite a few nasty answers.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > It has a tendency to paper over them.
|
| Yeah. That's one of the dangers the book I had talked
| about. CBT is a tool for rewiring the brain. If you have
| deep things to work out and don't recognize it, CBT will
| do exactly what it says on the tin and rewire around
| things that need to be explored.
|
| That's very not good.
|
| I'm bipolar and use CBT a lot. Identifying if the problem
| is logic-based is key to its application. Logic cannot
| override depression or mania, which means CBT doesn't
| work and alternative strategies are needed. Usually I
| switch to some variant of DBT techniques. (It's so
| automatic at this point it's hard to identify all of what
| I'm doing.)
|
| In my experience, learning when to apply CBT is much
| harder than learning CBT.
| EGreg wrote:
| I sometimes like to say the facts out loud and challenge
| people so here it goes.
|
| We live in the safest, least racist, least sexist, least
| antisemitic generation in history. At the same time,
| automation and productivity has reduced demand for human
| labor, and people increasingly can't afford the rent.
| Perhaps the answer to many disparities isn't systemic
| sexism, racism etc. but economic factors. Whatever you are
| worried about, your grandparents had it much worse.
|
| Also, let's improve our systems to stop polluting the
| environment and destroying ecosystems for corporate profit
| at the expense of future generations. That's the major
| issue of our day, far bigger than climate change.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| > At the same time, automation and productivity has
| reduced demand for human labor
|
| We have approximately the lowest unemployment rate in
| modern history.
| EGreg wrote:
| That's only a tiny slice of the story.
|
| It doesn't count the people who have opted out of the
| workforce.
|
| It doesn't count the job insecuroty of the gig economy.
| Or the people with terrible conditions.
|
| It actually underscores the fact that both sexes flooded
| the labor pool in the last few decades, automation
| increased and wages got depressed due to all these
| factors.
|
| USSR also had near-total employment, for men and women,
| way earlier than USA did. And ironically, the rent cost a
| ton less. But people overall couldn't afford that much.
|
| Your grandfather could have supported an entire family on
| one man's paycheck, and paid for an entire house. Today,
| millennials onwards can't afford any of that. The
| generation of adults with the least savings in probably a
| century.
|
| But, as I said, we still have it amaing. Medical
| advances, technology like air conditioning, electricity
| and so on. The Internet spreads so much knowledge around
| the world. I'm just saying that the remaining problems
| are often rooted in economic issues, more than a rise in
| "systemic X ism"
| dustincoates wrote:
| > It doesn't count the people who have opted out of the
| workforce.
|
| Not the headline number, but in the US you certainly can
| find this data if you want it, in the U4, U5, and U6
| rates:
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U4RATE
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U5RATE
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE
|
| It only goes back to 1994, but these measures are
| currently all at or near the lows over the that period.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Agree with all that. I disagree only that demand for
| labor has decreased, and near-full employment is my
| evidence for that. Many jobs are shitty, but someone is
| demanding the labor.
| EGreg wrote:
| Well, I guess what I am trying to say is that more people
| are asked to do work, but less work, and paid less for it
| too, adjusted for inflation.
|
| Gig economy and short stints at jobs are an example of
| how little employers really value their labor force, as
| opposed to the "company man" who worked for decades and
| got a pension.
| travem wrote:
| > At the same time, automation and productivity has
| reduced demand for human labor, and people increasingly
| can't afford the rent
|
| Given the juxtaposition of the claims above, I think it
| is useful to note that demand for labor is still
| relatively high (unemployment rate at ~3.5% in the US).
| The reason for unaffordable rents is driven more by the
| supply of housing not growing along with demand IMO.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| And demand being artifically inflated by investors
| (ranging from boomers / gen-X ers who have extra money to
| Saudi oil barons) who buy up houses with the intent to
| rent them out or whatever.
| h4l wrote:
| I think it's relative to our own experiences. If you drive
| on a perfect road, even a small bump is noticeable. But I
| don't think that means people's perception of problems is
| not legitimate. There's always someone worse off,
| especially if you compare now to historical times.
|
| If there's a sure-fire way to create a mental health
| problem, it's to tell yourself you don't deserve to have a
| problem because other people have worse problems.
| brazzledazzle wrote:
| I think trauma is also a bit relative. If you grew up
| with bad physical and emotional abuse from one parent the
| emotional distance and isolation from another might not
| even be a blip on your radar, at least until you've
| worked through the other stuff. And on the flip side if
| you had a great childhood with stable housing, plenty of
| food/money then hitting rock bottom in adulthood might be
| pretty traumatic since you never had to develop the
| mental tools required to handle serious adversity.
| Obviously some trauma is objectively worse but competing
| over trauma severity is pointless.
| watwut wrote:
| The thing is, kids who grew up in those good families are
| in fact more resilient then abused kids.
|
| Kids with bad childhood will not categorize semi bad
| childhood as trauma, but have worst interpersonal
| relationships, worst stress handling, abuse drugs or
| alcohol more often and display whole range of at risk
| behaviors
|
| It is simply not true that being poor or abused or
| neglected makes people resilient.
| brazzledazzle wrote:
| That's an excellent and fair point. Perhaps "resilience"
| is the wrong term for abused folks and it could be said
| as "ability to continue functioning at their usual level
| of dysfunction". I've seen enough examples of ostensibly
| well raised (typically younger) adults being hit really
| hard by adversity that I think there's something to it.
| Maybe confirmation bias or perhaps those individuals had
| overprotective parents that shielded them from developing
| a lot of skills. That sort of dysfunctional parenting can
| be harder to recognize in adults.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| I always think of this SMBC strip.
|
| https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-07-22
| h4l wrote:
| I love it, thanks!
| pjerem wrote:
| idk
|
| I also had Good ChildhoodTM by your definition.
|
| Still I'm pretty sure I have been traumatized by the two
| big moves of my childhood, loosing my childhood friendships
| twice.
|
| It doesn't look big, I am ok at socializing so I have
| friends but I know that when shit hits the fan, it happens
| that I dream of my first childhood friend and I'm pretty
| convinced that this is why I sometimes feel alone even when
| I'm well surrounded.
|
| The point wasn't to tell my life but to say that you can't
| really judge other's "traumas". It's highly personal how
| you feel about something and when someone doesn't have
| something you have (in my case childhood friends) it's easy
| to feel like it's not important (maybe you can't understand
| because your own childhood friendship eroded normally and
| you don't feel like it's an issue)
| huijzer wrote:
| I've gone through a ton of comments below and see a lot of
| contradicting evidence to your thoughtful suggestion. Also my
| girlfriend and I are both from north Europe and I notice a
| similar difference. Maybe the difference is mostly
|
| > she had been brought up to feel extreme insecurity
|
| This reminds me of a quote from Buffett from about 40 years
| ago. He said something along the lines of "when women are
| raised, they hear and see a million reasons why they cannot do
| things whereas men see and hear a million reasons why they can
| do things". If I would be convinced by the world that I am not
| good, then sure I would treat guests amazingly well. If I would
| be convinced by the world I'm amazing, then why bother treating
| guests well? They can say it if they need anything.
|
| I'm happy to hear counterarguments if you have them
| nonethewiser wrote:
| The American south has a very distinct attitude towards
| guests. Very hospitable. That's the difference in his case.
| mabbo wrote:
| > Deciding what to eat for dinner with guess-culture people isn't
| as simple as asking people what they want to eat for dinner,
| because they will not tell you what they actually want to want to
| eat for dinner.
|
| This was nearly a deal-breaking problem early in my relationship
| with my wife. I am "ask", she is "guess". We just want to figure
| out what we're going to order for dinner, why on earth is this
| turning into a fight?
|
| What we came up with was a simple system.
|
| Person A presents three options, all of which they like. Person B
| picks from those three options. If they don't like any of the
| three, swap roles, and person B presents three options. If person
| A doesn't like any of those three options, give up and just go
| get dinner separately (this has never actually happened, yet).
|
| Everyone is getting their preference in some way. No one has to
| guess what the other person wants. Fights are avoided.
| dahfizz wrote:
| I feel you. Some "guess" people are unable to just state what
| they want because they think it places a burden on the other
| person. But keeping your desires hidden creates an even larger
| burden! Just tell me what you want for dinner!
|
| I play a similar game with my wife. Whenever we have a hard
| time choosing something, I present 5+ options, and we take
| turns eliminating one option until only one is left.
| breischl wrote:
| That solution is a bit like the game theory solution of "I cut,
| you choose". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_choose
| solarmist wrote:
| Yup. It works well for both types of people as well.
| jacobkg wrote:
| I remember when I first heard about this concept and found it
| explained a big difference between my brother and I that I had
| struggled to articulate (he is an asker and I am a guesser)
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Interesting, because you were presumably raised in the same
| culture?
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| There is another interesting dichotomy between people who
| phase questions as statements, and those who don't?
| maypop wrote:
| It's often two staged.
|
| First drop hints in hopes the other party will catch on.
|
| If that fails and you really want or still need it - you ask.
| forinti wrote:
| > It's rude to put someone in a position where they have to say
| no to you
|
| This made me think about a small aspect of Brazilian culture. If
| someone is selling something expensive like a house or a car,
| they will probably get mad at you for offering to pay a value
| much lower (or maybe not even that much lower) than what was
| advertised.
| aden1ne wrote:
| I think the author is conflating American culture with Western
| culture at large.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| I belong to a don't ask or guess culture where i would rather
| just lift a mountain myself than ask my friends for help just so
| I don't inconvenience anybody, or be in their debt on a favor.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Something I noticed with my ex was how we differed in asking for
| help. I guess I am an asker and she is a guesser.
|
| Me: if I need help I will ask for help. I do NOT want you to
| offer help unless I ask and I especially do NOT want you to just
| join in and help if it looks like I'm struggling. I feel entitled
| to the satisfaction of having done it myself, if I can.
|
| Her: if she needs help she won't ask for it but hopes her
| frustration is apparent and help will come. Finds it very
| uncomfortable to watch people struggling and feels compelled to
| offer help or just join in and help. Feels annoyed if help
| doesn't come when she needs it.
|
| As you can imagine this caused quite a bit of conflict between
| us, at least until I understood what was going on.
|
| But I think in every other respect I'm a guesser.
| poopsmithe wrote:
| I'm having trouble understanding the following sentence.
|
| > People say yes to requests that you truly feel good about, say
| no to ones they don't
|
| Is this perhaps a typo? I can understand the sentence if I
| substitute 'you' with 'they'.
| grammers wrote:
| People really should learn to say what they want - and also say
| no. Otherwise they'll just end up being unhappy because, whether
| they like it or not, there will always be people that are
| ignorant (and most of the times it won't even be on purpose).
| patmcc wrote:
| This always strikes me as funny, because I think the default
| interpretation (and the one shared in the article) is that it's
| largely a Western/Eastern divide - Americans are 'ask' and Asians
| are 'guess' - but from where I am in Canada I generally see
| exactly the opposite. I don't know if that's specific to my
| circles though.
|
| My friends who are immigrants (or children of immigrants) from
| Hong Kong, Taiwan, India are all 'askers', whereas those of us
| with families who've been here 2+ generations are 'guessers'.
|
| Is Canada a 'guess' culture more than America?
|
| Another funny thing from the article - "A squeaky wheel gets the
| grease" - I've always understood that to be true, but _shameful_.
| Like yes, you can put up a fuss and often get what you want, but
| only by being "squeaky" - annoying, brash, offputting.
| tonystubblebine wrote:
| Jean! Cross post this please!
| keiferski wrote:
| I feel like this should be directly correlated with how much
| "tradition" plays a role in local culture. The more tradition,
| the more you're expected to "just get it" and guess the other
| person's thoughts via cultural context. The less tradition, the
| less rules there are to follow, and therefore the less connection
| you have to the other person.
|
| An extreme example being: the interactions between two foreign
| cultures are (or at least ought to be) almost entirely ask-based,
| as they have no prior understanding of how the reciprocal
| cultures work.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > This all seemed ridiculous to us, so instead we drove the two
| hours, keeping our plan secret until we pulled up into our
| grandma's driveway, so that no one could resist and thwart our
| plan. We had a lovely visit, and my mom later thanked us for
| making the drive. [...] This is guess culture -- and it's a lot
| of saying not really what you actually want, and it's a lot of
| reading between the lines to try to figure out what people want.
|
| Guess culture here also functions as a test of love or loyalty.
| They are nice, so they'll say "nah, you don't have to see
| grandma, it's a long drive..." but in their heart they hope you
| will make the effort because you love your grandma. If they tell
| you to see your grandma, your visit in their view (and your
| perception too) won't have quite the same meaning. There is
| suspicion you saw her because you were told, not because you
| really wanted to.
| RangerScience wrote:
| A friend of mine (we're all pretty solidly "Ask", but ofc there's
| a mix) pointed out that a really important _unspoken_ part of an
| "Ask" culture is _what you are allowed to ask about_ - thankfully
| (and anecdotally) you can generally just straight-up ask "what
| can I ask for?".
|
| Still. Important realization, and definitely something I've
| failed at before.
| SirMaster wrote:
| I'm firmly in the ask culture I guess.
|
| Life's too short to guess. I'd rather everyone be direct, say
| what they want.
|
| If it offends someone, well, sorry but too bad I guess.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| I think this is a bunch of over complication to explain away
| spinelessness when faced with the prospect of telling someone
| "no." Say no to people, it's empowering!
|
| There are cultural norms in places about courtesy, hospitality,
| when it's appropriate to ask for certain favors, but that's not
| what the article is about. It's about telling people no vs making
| excuses. It's about being afraid to say what's on your mind.
| There's no culture associated with that, only confidence,
| competence and bring the arbiter of your own life.
|
| It's pretty simple: don't hit people up for money unless your
| absolutely have no choice, be good to guests you've invited into
| your home, and say no to things you don't want to do without
| making up excuses.
| stefanpie wrote:
| Interestingly, I went into this article thinking that "guess
| culture" would mean something along the lines of guessing what
| others want or what the right thing to do is, executing it, and
| revising after the fact based on feedback. Essentially, "It's
| easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." I guess
| you can call this "do" culture. However, the article talks about
| guess culture as something else.
|
| One of the most valuable skills I've learned in grad school is
| how to get good at using all three: guess, ask, and "do" culture.
| You really need all three in an environment like that to navigate
| complex admin tasks, raise money, pursue ideas, and be a normal,
| friendly, empathetic person to work and collaborate with.
| msla wrote:
| > Interestingly, I went into this article thinking that "guess
| culture" would mean something along the lines of guessing what
| others want or what the right thing to do is, executing it, and
| revising after the fact based on feedback. Essentially, "It's
| easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." I
| guess you can call this "do" culture. However, the article
| talks about guess culture as something else.
|
| Yeah, a more intuitive name would be "Just Ask" vs "Guess If
| You Can Ask" which emphasizes the difference: Someone from a
| Just Ask culture wouldn't understand having to guess if you can
| ask someone something.
| drc500free wrote:
| I always enjoy the discussion around this concept.
|
| I do agree that the Guess label is a little off. That's a bit
| like saying a quarterback is only "guessing" that their receiver
| will break off their option route where they are expecting. It's
| really only Guess culture to an outsider who doesn't know the
| expectations (as you see when a new WR keeps getting the read
| wrong, leading to turnovers).
|
| And as others have said, everything is on a continuum. There are
| very few "ask" cultures where you can just ask someone if you can
| sleep with their wife and expect no negative repercussions at
| all. And I doubt that you can get a "no" from someone 25 requests
| in a row and have neither party question the relationship a
| little bit.
|
| And there's some unspoken aspects to every request; if you ask
| someone if you can grab some food from the fridge and they say
| yes, even in an ask culture they probably have some assumption of
| how much food you are reasonably going to take. If they come back
| to an empty fridge, you won't assuage their anger by saying "well
| I asked and you said yes."
|
| In a new situation, I try to interpret requests like an Asker and
| make requests like a Guesser (without being offended if I get a
| no), until there's some shared understanding. That's taken a lot
| of work, since I'm naturally a Guesser through-and-through.
| tempestn wrote:
| These concepts don't generally apply universally to all things.
| There are things that are perfectly reasonable to ask for
| directly. "Could I have a glass of water?" "Could I use your
| bathroom?" There are other things that create an uncomfortable
| obligation. "Could I borrow $5000?" "Could you pick me up from
| the airport at 4am?" There's no point in beating around the bush
| about the first set, but it is polite in most cultures I'm
| familiar with to give a person an "out" of the second.
|
| So instead of directly asking in those cases, you could instead
| mention your need, without directly asking. "The vet bill's going
| to be $5k and I have no idea where we're going to come up with
| it." "Ugh, the flight gets in in the middle of the night; going
| to have to see if I can get a cab or something at 4am." You give
| them a chance to _offer_ help, but don't create an expectation.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| The formal terms for this difference are high context culture and
| low context culture.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-context_c...
|
| "Guess" culture would correspond to high context culture. You
| need to have a lot of shared context -- or be able to read a lot
| of clues to the context -- to infer what was really meant as a
| means to be adequately polite.
|
| "Ask" culture would correspond to low context culture. It is
| often characterized as "rude" by outsiders but is also pro-
| diversity, such as New York City and American military culture.
|
| Some people can navigate either type of culture, assuming they
| know what type of culture they are dealing with. Others assume
| the world works one way or the other and default to whichever one
| they grew up with, most likely.
| outsidetheparty wrote:
| The original MetaFilter comment lays the idea out in a much more
| balanced way than this article does, imo. The discussion of the
| idea here looks to be well on its way to mirroring that on
| MetaFilter (Ask vs Guess became a major part of that site's
| culture, it came up in quite a few threads over time.)
|
| https://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle-ground-bet...
|
| (To me the most interesting thing about the concept is that you
| can immediately tell from people's reaction to it which category
| they personally fall into.)
| JadeNB wrote:
| > (To me the most interesting thing about the concept is that
| you can immediately tell from people's reaction to it which
| category they personally fall into.)
|
| It reveals things about other people, but also about oneself.
| For example, I always assumed that people were just _afraid_ to
| ask and answer questions honestly; until I read that post, I
| was not aware that there was any cultural choice being made.
| And so I learned that, partly through upbringing and partly
| through choice, I was an Asker; but that people who were
| Guessers were operating on an equally sound footing to mine,
| just from very different assumptions.
| outsidetheparty wrote:
| Definitely!
|
| The original post and discussion was an eye-opener for me;
| before that I never understood why some people would say
| "yes" to a request but then act put upon anyway, or would act
| vaguely like they wanted something but never actually come
| out and say so. I just thought they expected everyone to be a
| mind-reader.
|
| Once I understood they were basing things on the premise that
| putting someone in a position of having to say "no" was rude,
| it all made a lot more sense, and I was able to adjust my own
| behavior and expectations to better fit theirs.
| jancsika wrote:
| One distinction: "guess culture" isn't easy to discern from low-
| self-esteem culture. But "ask culture" isn't easy to discern from
| narcissist culture.
|
| Service people have to cater to the lowest common denominator.
| Serving low-self-esteem culture just means doing the same kind of
| customer service one would do anyway: be clear, assure and
| reassure, be positive, listen closely, be understanding,
| consistent, etc.
|
| Serving a narcissist is a completely different category: predict
| bad faith misinterpretations of your positive statements and
| sensible responses to them, low-key reject 2nd and 3rd attempts
| at bad faith misinterpretations, ignore ad hominem attacks,
| intuit whether their friends acknowledge the narcissism, know
| when to (quickly) turn them over to a manager, etc.
|
| Consequently, some members of the "ask" group preface everything
| they ask with politeness or some other obvious tell to
| distinguish themselves. But the rest are jerks, IMO. They want to
| pretend that randomly requesting a free desert at an Applebee's
| is just a case of, "If you don't ask you won't know." But at the
| _moment_ of asking, the server has to assume they are a
| narcissist and up their stress level accordingly. At least in
| America, there 's no way you can be adult age without having
| witnessed narcissists making rando requests so that they can take
| out their stress/anger on service people. Given that knowledge,
| it's not a matter of culture-- it's just plain stubbornness and
| selfishness.
| Tronno wrote:
| I disagree with the way these behaviors are portrayed as a
| cultural dichotomy. To me, the author's examples all fall under
| ineffective communication.
|
| Their example of "ask culture" involves stoking resentment by
| making unreasonable requests. This can be avoided by practicing a
| little empathy. Ask questions, provide some basic context, and
| offer an escape hatch: "What are you busy with? I need X because
| Y. It's fine if you can't, I can also get it from Z".
|
| Their example of "guess culture" sounds like mind-reading and
| ambiguous non-verbal signaling, maybe even to the point of being
| passive aggressive. Again, use empathy. Volunteer information
| that others might want to know. Be genuinely curious, ask
| questions. _Communicate_.
|
| Make sure both parties know enough to make informed decisions.
| caminante wrote:
| As posted above, the dichotomy is "popsci" fiction with little
| substantiation.[0]
|
| Yet, I think it's useful for awareness.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-
| context...
| silisili wrote:
| I tend to agree. I'm very much in the 'guess' camp by
| description, personally. I would never ask for something unless
| I found it reasonable and not difficult for the other.
|
| However, when someone asks me something I don't want to do, I
| just say no, and don't think much more about it.
| posterboy wrote:
| One could argue that guessing _correctly_ does minimize the
| inefficient communication.
|
| I'm not sure this joke is appropriate: Man and wife sleep in
| separate beds, the wife says. A friend asks, so how do you ...
| you know? If he wants to, he whistles. And if you want to?
| Well, I go over and ask if he whistled.
| samus wrote:
| > Ask questions, provide some basic context, and offer an
| escape hatch: "What are you busy with? I need X because Y. It's
| fine if you can't, I can also get it from Z".
|
| The escape hatch could also just be a mere formality,
| especially when there is a difference in power dynamics or
| social rank. This is amplified in cultures where, for example,
| the opinions and needs of elders rank higher.
| visitect wrote:
| This makes sense to me. I appreciate when somebody communicates
| their needs in a straightforward way, but also demonstrates an
| understanding that I might not be able (or willing) to
| accommodate them. I try to practice this when asking for help.
| Be clear, but empathetic. And I don't get angry if folks can't
| help, and remember that everybody has far more going in their
| lives than what I can see.
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| Would someone explain the difference between codependency and
| "guess culture"?
| prewett wrote:
| Codependency is when one person gets value for solving other
| people's problems for them ("saving" them), and the other
| person gets value out of having their problems being solved by
| other people (having a "savior").
|
| Guess Culture is more of a strong value on considering the
| needs of others. It _could_ be unhealthy: considering the needs
| of others and neglecting your own, but it could also be
| courteous consideration ( "they just got over being sick, I
| won't ask them to help me move").
|
| I suppose Guess Culture unhealthiness tends to be more
| neglecting your own needs and desires (and the your resulting
| hurt and anger that the other person needs to deal with), while
| Ask Culture unhealthiness tends more towards lack of
| consideration (ridiculous asks) or demanding (asks that have a
| question mark but are not really questions).
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| No one will guess for you what your needs or reasons for doing
| something are. You have to let them know.
|
| The hard part is knowing when and how to ask your question.
| darchws wrote:
| As someone coming from a 'guess culture' and having a manager
| from an 'ask culture,' one major problem I am having is not being
| able to say 'no' to my manager. My manager always emphasizes the
| importance of asking things around rather than expecting people
| to just know how to help you. I know he also just asks me with
| the expectation that I could say no, but I always feel like
| letting him down if I say no. Therefore, I tend to overcommit to
| things and work overtime. This looks good on performance (I
| always got good feedback), but I'll probably burn out at some
| point if I cannot get this communication right.
| sikkolata wrote:
| Life is already too hard, let's not bother ourselves by being
| have to "guess" something.
| EdgeExplorer wrote:
| I think awareness is the main point here.
|
| At some level, it doesn't actually matter if these labels are
| correct or generalize a culture or anything else. It does matter
| if people genuinely feel the things described and if other people
| are genuinely unaware of those feelings.
|
| We are each inherently limited in our perspective by being an
| individual. It's helpful to be exposed to other ways of thinking,
| and it's helpful to have ways of conceptualizing differences in
| thinking for future reference.
|
| "Ask/guess" doesn't have to be *true*, it just has to be useful
| as a heuristic.
| nostrademons wrote:
| I've also heard of "Tell" culture. To use the moving example:
|
| You call up your best friend and say, "Hey, I'm moving on
| Saturday, come over and help me." Your friend either says "Sure,
| I'd love to" or "Sorry, got a hot date, catch you at your
| housewarming party."
|
| Ironically, Ask culture is usually used in transactional settings
| where you barely know someone, Guess culture is usually used in
| smaller community settings where you have a lot of personal
| context, but Tell culture (which is a level beyond Ask in
| directness) is usually used _in intimate settings where you have
| a strong bond with someone_ - either family or very close
| friends. At that level of intimacy, it 's expected that someone
| can say no to a direct request without hurting the relationship.
| It's the same reason close friends frequently make fun of each
| other or horse around in mock physical combat - it demonstrates
| that your relationship is strong enough that insult doesn't hurt
| it.
| hosh wrote:
| Also, in certain groups, people will deliberately troll each
| other in order suss out how they'd act under pressure... and
| whether they can be trusted to perform as part of a team under
| pressure.
| gottorf wrote:
| Hazing is the term.
| watwut wrote:
| Hazing is about proving your lack of boundaries and proving
| you are easy to make do what told. It is about picking
| people who won't tell "no" and will act as enablers when
| needed.
|
| Which is why well run organizations do not engage in
| hazing. While organizations that do it tend to be the ones
| engaged in bullying in general - whether internal or
| external.
| watwut wrote:
| None of that is about seeing a person under pressure, because
| they do nothing useful with the information. At best,
| information is ignored and at worst, used to pick bullying
| targets.
| snapetom wrote:
| Wow, this strongly resonates with me, especially the tieback to
| Asian cultures. I was both told many times, and shown by example
| many times, that it was rude to put someone in awkward positions.
| I still carry that to this day in personal relationships, and my
| wife (white, US-born) doesn't understand why I don't just ask for
| things from our families/friends, often going to great lengths to
| avoid questions.
|
| However, at work, I am definitely an "ask" person. I'm in
| engineer that has spent a lot of time with sales people. "Make
| them say no" is a mantra I use at work. It's more forward, more
| aggressive, and American corporate culture, often necessary.
| g9yuayon wrote:
| I grew up in China and the guess culture was predominant there.
| It was quite a culture shock after I came to the US. In a
| training session back when I was in IBM, the VP of marketing told
| us a story about the ask culture: he was an American-born
| Japanese. When Lou Gerstner asked him what he wanted, he
| instinctively tried to be humble. Lou cut him off and said: I
| can't help you if you don't tell me what you want. Come back in X
| months when you know the answer. The next time they met, the VP
| told Lou that he wanted to be an executive, and he got promoted
| soon. Another thing I learned in the training session was that
| leaders have different styles but all the executives demonstrated
| only one of the four key styles: direct and decisive.
|
| As time went by, I found it was much easier to adapt to the ask
| culture. I also found consistency matters more than the styles.
| When I consistently ask with good intention, people would not
| take offense.
| chasing wrote:
| I don't really care for the "Ask vs. Guess" framing.
|
| More like "make demands without considering the other person at
| all vs. think for a second about not imposing yourself on other
| people unnecessarily."
|
| But mostly this article is about the virtues of being a clear
| communicator and having decent interpersonal skills, which is
| neither an "ask" nor a "guess" thing.
| aqme28 wrote:
| I disagree with that framing even more. "Asking" is not "making
| demands." Guess culture people only _think_ that asking is a
| demand, because that 's Guess culture.
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| It may be that both are thinking in terms of considering the
| other person. People use their self as a reference point. When
| you try to model in your head how someone will take your
| request, you may be thinking in terms of how another _asker_
| would take being asked a request. In that case, you would think
| that the other person would be fine with it, since they 're
| just as comfortable with asking for things that have a low
| chance of being granted.
| smeej wrote:
| It's telling to me that I can't tell from your reframing which
| side is which.
|
| From my experience, I would assume the one not considering the
| other person is the one in guess culture, assuming the other
| person can and ought to read their mind, and the one trying not
| to impose is the one who actually asks the other person for
| their opinion or consent, but I can equally see it the other
| way around, and think the opposite might actually be how you
| meant it.
| v3gas wrote:
| You're clearly a Guess :)
| chasing wrote:
| I consider myself a staunch centrist on the "ask" vs. "guess"
| scale. :-)
|
| I ask all the time! And I'm totally comfortable with "no."
| But I try to consider the other person first because I think
| making unreasonable requests _repeatedly_ , which is the
| subtext of their description of an "asker," blows social
| capital and just bugs people.
| skeaker wrote:
| I think that's a given that needn't be mentioned in the
| article. The author isn't stupid, and clearly wouldn't
| advocate for making outlandish or completely unreasonable
| requests even for the "askers" mindset.
| cogman10 wrote:
| No I'm a purple personality with IRWNVDEIS+ tendencies.
| yaky wrote:
| Having just re-read Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness, it
| seems that the guess culture from the arricle would apply to
| shifgrethor, a "game" of social status, where a lot is said by
| omission, and giving advice is viewed as an ultimate insult.
| chromoblob wrote:
| Guess in an intimate relationship / communication context, Ask
| anywhere else.
| ImPleadThe5th wrote:
| Yeah I was kinda thinking both are useful and necessary in
| different contexts. Seems strange to prefer one.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I strongly feel this article misses the point and ends up at a
| harmful framing instead.
|
| Consider the example in the article: "all the family members
| insisted we don't drive up to visit our grandmother and see the
| city instead, we did it anyway, everyone was glad we did".
|
| Or the next example: "with guess-culture people isn't as simple
| as asking people what they want to eat for dinner, because they
| will not tell you what they actually want to want to eat for
| dinner."
|
| This person, imo, deeply does not understand what is happening in
| these situations. They have a model of other people as "wanting
| something but not being willing to say it", and then they solve
| the puzzle of figuring out what it was, and the other person
| appreciates it. But, IMO, those people didn't strongly want
| something one way or the other. They're resisting an unhealthy
| dynamic: that the writer just wants to know what someone _else_
| wants for dinner, but doesn 't even want something for dinner
| themselves.
|
| What others are doing by not being willing to explicitly state
| desires is they're refusing to play this game of telling you what
| to do. They're doing this because it really doesn't _feel good_
| for someone to repeatedly ask you what they should do. The asker
| degrades themselves by pawning their agency off on someone else,
| and spending time with them begins to feel like hanging out with
| a robot: soulless, scripted, perfunctory.
|
| That is: when you ask for permission to visit your grandmother
| and then do it because people said to, or don't do it because
| they didn't, you haven't demonstrated respect or kindness or
| love; you haven't acted _human_ at all. You 've just performed a
| mindless duty. Whereas if you decide to do it _yourself_ ,
| because _you_ chose to, then you 've demonstrated something.
|
| People are shirking at telling you what to do because they don't
| want to be part of an icky transaction where somebody constantly
| hands away their agency. They don't want you "guess", they want
| you to stop asking for their permission to exist.
|
| edit: I realized there's more in the article about the workplace
| and it's wrong too! This is not healthy at work, but not for the
| reasons the article thinks.
|
| A person who goes around trying to get somebody else to tell them
| clearly what to do, and never gets that and therefore thinks
| they're having trouble with "ask culture", is a drain on the
| organization, because the amount of work that gets done is often
| proportional to _willpower_. Or call it "initiative" or
| something.
|
| If you're leeching off other people's agency to do anything, then
| you're draining their willpower and not helping much at all.
| Likely they're totally exhausted of it and don't want to tell you
| what to do anymore. Whereas if you start injecting willpower and
| agency into the system the whole organization will pick up and
| run with whatever you do (or course-correct if it's wrong, etc).
| bjornlouser wrote:
| > This person, imo, deeply does not understand what is
| happening in these situations.
|
| "... But all of the older relatives insisted we did not,
| suggesting that instead we see the sights in San Diego, that we
| take the kids to Sea World ..."
|
| I think you're right. Her relatives were hoping she would guess
| that they didn't want her to bring the kids.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Disagree; I just think this model of "guess culture" is
| totally wrong.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Very interesting. I think it's accurate, and I hadn't seen that
| perspective before.
|
| I personally operate mostly in the ask culture. But if I meet
| you, I don't know if you're in the ask or the guess culture. And
| it seems to me that I kind of have to operate in the mode of the
| guess culture in order to find out which you are.
| duxup wrote:
| My guess culture in laws will not say where they want to go for
| dinner, but they will raise endless hypotheticals about where
| other people might want to go, even if other people didn't say
| it.
|
| That way the discussion never ends and we end up somewhere nobody
| wants to go....
| guy4242 wrote:
| I'm from a guess culture. Then I went to an ask culture area for
| work (Coastal California). I had an under-powered, slow computer
| that I had to work on. When my manager found out, he was mad that
| I never said anything and that I never complained about it. I was
| shocked that he was mad. In the more rural area I was from, it
| would have been rude to complain about the tools that the company
| provided for you. You were told to just "suck it up", be quiet,
| and quit complaining. Those who complained too much were usually
| the first to get laid-off.
| draw_down wrote:
| [dead]
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| I always liked explaining this concept in terms of Christmas.
|
| There are people who value getting the right gifts, tell others
| verbally what they are interested in, and those people then buy
| those gifts. There is very little mindreading and magic, but the
| gifts almost assuredly are useful and loved.
|
| There are people who value the magic of Christmas gifting.
| Telling others what to buy is nonsense because the point isn't
| the gifts themselves but the act of gifting. The joy is in seeing
| who got you a gift and what the gift says of your relationship
| dynamic.
|
| Neither of these are wrong ways to approach Christmas, but you're
| kind of a jerk if you think your vision of Christmas is the only
| way.
| overgard wrote:
| Hmm, I know it's frowned upon generally to say one culture is
| better than another, but I grew up in guess culture and I tend to
| gravitate towards that naturally, but a lot of my maturing as an
| adult has come from adopting more of ask culture and being more
| direct.
|
| Guess culture sounds exhausting _because it is_. I can 't count
| the number of times I've had a resentment towards someone for
| something they inadvertently did without even realizing. And the
| converse is just as annoying, when someone is upset at you and
| you have to play 20 questions to figure it out.
|
| I think if you're high in agreeableness saying no to someone can
| be hard, which is where guess culture comes from IMO; but on the
| other hand, that's just a super important life skill even if you
| are highly agreeable.
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| I'd like to ask a question if I may, how can you get excited
| about a culture that asks to ask?
| sneak wrote:
| > _Deciding what to eat for dinner with guess-culture people
| isn't as simple as asking people what they want to eat for
| dinner, because they will not tell you what they actually want to
| want to eat for dinner. They will say "oh, whatever you want," or
| "whatever is easiest." And when you insist that you really really
| want to know what they want to eat for dinner, and if it's too
| much work, you'll do something else instead, the response you
| receive will already be a compromised version of what they want,
| taking into account the preferences of everyone else in the
| house, what the kids will eat, and the leftovers in the fridge._
|
| Man, people are so bad at communicating.
|
| I have found that a lot of communication from americans includes
| hidden unsaid statements, which are frequently expected by the
| speaker to be automatically inferred by the listener.
|
| Alternately, plain speaking is heard by the american listener to
| imply things that may not be intended at all.
|
| It's somewhat baffling to me, so much so that I wrote a whole
| article about it.
|
| https://sneak.berlin/20191201/american-communication/
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Man, people are so bad at communicating.
|
| I don't mean to say anything about you, but, as a saying with a
| different word in it goes, if you meet one person who's bad at
| communicating, then they're bad at communicating; but if
| everyone you meet is bad at communicating ....
|
| (I also wish people would communicate more clearly, but I have
| to admit that what I _really_ want is that people would
| communicate _in the way that 's easy for me_--I am not
| operating from some absolute, logical standard. I also may be
| coming from an unusual perspective because, as an academic, a
| lot of my colleagues were not born in the US, so that cultural
| backgrounds, and also the sometime preference in the sciences
| for speaking that is direct to the point of abruptness, may
| mean that I don't see the worst of what you do.)
| pseudalopex wrote:
| > I don't mean to say anything about you, but, as a saying
| with a different word in it goes, if you meet one person
| who's bad at communicating, then they're bad at
| communicating; but if everyone you meet is bad at
| communicating ....
|
| Someone told him whenever someone makes a point, he seems to
| react to a very specific, narrow, and marginal interpretation
| of that point. And he reacted to a very specific, narrow, and
| marginal interpretation of that point.
| [deleted]
| gsuuon wrote:
| Really interesting to see the other side - I wonder if
| sometimes the perception of 'high context' vs 'low context' is
| really just 'not my familiar context' vs 'my familiar context'.
|
| > Excuse me, ma'am. It seems to me that you're in a hurry. I
| don't know how long this line will take, however, I am
| reasonably certain that it will take the same amount of time
| for you to reach the head of it whether you stand 5, 1, or zero
| meters away from my bag, so I must request that you please stop
| touching it.
|
| This does seem a _bit_ aggro though, a friendlier way could 've
| been to assume that she wasn't aware of the bumping and so
| wasn't doing it on purpose. In the US if there's a gap in a
| line and folks aren't closing it, that itself can be seen as
| rude and not paying attention (whether it makes sense or not is
| another matter). My personal guess is it comes from being
| stopped at green lights where cars in front stay parked and
| then you end up catching the red.
| daotoad wrote:
| Speaking as an American the bit that seems over the top is
| the ""5, 1, or 0 meters" bit. It comes off as condescending.
| At least from another American. I've known a few Germans and
| this sort of comment seems much more acceptable to them. I
| think it's seen as "this is my reasoning, with it you can
| better evaluate the validity of my request".
|
| Simply saying "please stop touching my luggage" is what I
| would expect. Adding any reasoning or explanation increases
| the emotional stakes and gives more places for people to
| infer subtext.
|
| I appreciate the directness of simply backing your request
| with clear assertions as to why it is reasonable. Despite
| this, it does feel a bit odd to hear.
| harrylove wrote:
| I love seeing the world through new frames like this. I think
| it's refreshing, and forces a rethink of what I think I know.
|
| At the same time, without a critical examination of the idea,
| these things have a nasty habit of becoming the next
| pseudoscience, like Myers-Briggs, learning styles, growth
| mindset, and the like.
|
| Identifying yourself or someone else as an Asker vs. Guesser to
| explain behavior is about as helpful as identifying yourself as a
| Sagittarius or Capricorn. Fun to think about occasionally, but no
| basis in fact.
| protastus wrote:
| Very interesting framing for tension I experience as a manager,
| but never saw formalized.
|
| At work, ask culture puts higher burden on managers. Especially
| when requests cross the line into unreasonable territory, and the
| manager has to study the problem with objectivity, and politely
| articulate why the request cannot be granted.
|
| Example: request for time off overlaps with important
| deliverables due by the requester. In guess culture, the
| requester studies their schedule and does not make a request if
| there's a conflict. In ask culture, the requester asks anyway and
| if the manager approves, they have now entangled the manager into
| what could be a bad business decision.
| darkwater wrote:
| How questions/requests work in the Mediterranean Europe:
|
| - Hey can you do $WHATEVER for me? - Sure! - Really? Can you
| really do this for me? - Well, actually I'm busy tonight so I
| can't do it, sorry
|
| Not answering "sure" the first time? Rude. Not asking for
| confirmation? Rude.
| mvnuweucxqokii wrote:
| I think I default more to guess culture? I certainly don't ask
| for help much--almost never--but I think that might be because
| I'm very independent. My personal problem with ask culture is
| when the relationship becomes very asymmetrical. Some ask culture
| people that I know will freely make requests all the time. In
| their minds, I assume, they'll get me back _when I ask for it_.
| The problem is that I don 't ask for help, so instead I will help
| them out a dozen times in a row, my frustration building all the
| time, my opinion of them tending toward "freeloader".
|
| My relationships that work well have a very strong unstated
| premise of turn-taking. If my friend paid for lunch last time, of
| course I'm getting it this time, and vice-versa--to me that's
| just obvious. If I stay at someone's house while traveling, it
| goes without saying that I will host them at my house (or return
| the favor in some other way of equivalent value) before imposing
| on them again.
| sourcepluck wrote:
| Did no-one else cringe at the gargantuan oversimplifications
| necessary to keep this alleged cultural distinction afloat?
|
| Was no-one else a little queasy seeing a U.S. person talk about
| the entire continent of Asia - pushing towards 4.8 billion people
| - as if they were an easily generalisable singular entity?
|
| Seems utterly nuts to me. Perhaps it's related to the feeling
| U.S. people sometimes seem to have that they aren't just the
| centre of the world, but actually in some sense literally the
| whole world. Or something else, I don't know.
| charlieroth wrote:
| As a person from the US who recently moved to Sweden, this
| article has finally given me some words to explain the cultural
| "clash" I experience at work that I could never quite explain to
| myself or others.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| I felt this a lot as an Australian living in Germany. It's really
| refreshing knowing someone will tell you what they honestly want,
| and takes a while to get used to saying "no". Once you realise
| it's not offensive to say no in "ask culture", I actually think
| it's preferable, but I don't think I'll ever be completely
| comfortable doing the "asking".
| rconti wrote:
| > Western society is very much ask culture.
|
| I want to push back on this, but since I was raised in the US, I
| don't feel like I have a leg to stand on. Perhaps it's _more_ ask
| culture than the Japanese, but I still feel like it 's very
| heavily on the Guess side.
|
| This all resonates with me, though, because I haven't grown up
| saying "no". My parents didn't ask much of me, but it didn't
| cross my mind to say no to any request.
|
| I have an in-law who feels extremely free to ask for unreasonable
| things, and it's extremely hard to manage.
|
| I think the comments in this piece about how the business world
| works are the most insightful to me here. A good read.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| My family is American. My mom is "guess culture" and my dad is
| "ask culture", both to an extreme. They were both born and
| raised in the same town and have nearly identical ethnic and
| socioeconomic backgrounds.
|
| Not sure what goes on in other countries, but it's dealers
| choice here in the States imo.
| bb123 wrote:
| I feel like British politeness is a huge counterpoint to this.
| kdmccormick wrote:
| To be completely anecdotal: I grew up, live, and work in
| northeastern US, which according to this comment section seems
| to be as ask-culture as it gets, but when I work with Europeans
| I feel like _I 'm_ the one bumbling around with assumptions and
| implicit context, whereas they are more comfortable plainly
| asking for what they need and politely saying no.
|
| (Or maybe it's function of who I work with from each continent?
| I work with a range of seniority levels in the US, but the
| European engineers I get to work with tend to be on the more
| senior side, and I imagine western business experience and ask-
| culture-adeptness are corollated).
| samus wrote:
| As an American interacting with Europeans in the US, you are
| more in tune with the local culture than them. They are
| probably aware that things are different from what they are
| used to, thus Europeans (really, most outsiders) are more
| likely to be up front when communicating with Americans.
| jzb wrote:
| I think "western society" is way too broad a brush. Within the
| U.S. there's extremes between ask and guess, IME. (Some of that
| is breaking down due to mobility... regional differences are
| much less pronounced these days, I think, especially in cities,
| since there's so much cross-pollination.)
| bityard wrote:
| Yeah, I feel like the point of the article was to recognize
| that there are two sides to the framework with strong traits
| on each end, but that most social interactions do (and
| should) happen somewhere in the middle. The trouble tends to
| crop up when two people who both away from the center in
| opposite directions try to interact. (which can happen even
| in well-established relationships.)
| bee_rider wrote:
| We've got some regional variation in the US, maybe this could
| be one thing that varies?
|
| New Englanders are famously less-chatty, but also quite direct,
| so I'm not sure exactly how to map it to this ask/guess thing.
| I think specifically the Yankee subculture tends toward guess.
| munificent wrote:
| I don't think you can make many country-wide generalizations
| about this. My experience is that it varies widely by:
|
| * Region
|
| * Socioeconomic status
|
| * Invidual psychology
|
| The strongest "ask culture" people I've seen are poor people
| with good self esteem who grew up in historically poor areas
| like the South and stayed there. These people have a natural
| sense of "we have to take care of each other", a long-term
| commitment to their community, and an automatic understanding
| that they have helped many others before and thus deserve help
| in return.
|
| The strongest "guess culture" people I've seen are wealthy
| insecure people that have moved around a bunch. They are
| financially secure enough to not need help most of the time,
| and expect others to also take care of themselves. They don't
| have the kind of long-term roots that make reciprocity feel
| natural. At the same time, they do want connection and
| community, so they work hard to try to understand the implicit
| needs and desires of the other guess culture people around them
| so that they can be helpful.
|
| I'm definitely very far onto the guess culture side, but I know
| that I would be healthier if I could be more ask culture.
| ecairns wrote:
| This seems very insightful to me. I think I'm another data
| point that mostly fits your observations.
|
| Individual psychology definitely plays a huge role with me
| personally being on the far side of guess culture. I have
| pretty extreme social anxiety and the idea of asking someone
| for something fills me with dread every single time. Not
| because it shows weakness (I think), but because I don't want
| to impose on others. Asking someone I don't know for
| something is almost impossible. I can barely do it in a
| context where it's expected, like customer service.
|
| I'm not wealthy, but I have moved around a bunch, especially
| as a child. I'd absolutely help out anyone who asked for it,
| but also try anticipate the needs of others.
| candybar wrote:
| I would go even further - it's complete nonsense. I'm going to
| guess the author never wondered why Americans feel
| uncomfortable asking for a discount at a store and would rather
| just not buy when they would've happily bought it at half the
| price, whereas in many parts of Asia, it's common for customers
| to ask for what seem like outrageous discounts to a westerner.
| Norms are highly contextual - in every culture there are things
| you can ask for and there are things you can't - and there's
| huge individual variation in the willingness to adhere to norms
| and the willingness to make others uncomfortable to get what
| you want.
|
| > [Because of something something Asian culture] My parents
| rarely had to make explicit asks of me,
|
| It baffles me how anyone with any kind of awareness could write
| this.
| hgsgm wrote:
| Why do people reblog old tropw essays, and why do they get
| upvoted?
|
| Such a waste of energy to prop up someone's attempt to build a
| personal brand.
|
| Cite your sources and contribute something new, or just share the
| more original link.
| gkoberger wrote:
| This is one of those things that when I read it the first time
| years ago, it genuinely changed my life. It made me understand
| half the population. The way the two types interact is so
| poignant.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Isn't it always better to try to guess how others might feel
| about your request, and not make it if you think there is a
| chance it would make people not answer your phone-call the next
| time?
|
| It feels especially bad when I think somebody may be trying to
| take advantage of me being a nice person.
|
| Confidence men - isn't that what this is all about? Somebody
| wanting to gain your confidence (that they will somehow pay yo8u
| back) so then they can take advantage of you?
| [deleted]
| lairv wrote:
| The article make it look binary when in reality everyone is
| guessing to a certain degree. No one has ever come up to me in
| the street and asked for $1000. Everyone is guessing up to a
| point, but when there's too much incertitude, some decide to ask
| while others think it's better not to
| jzb wrote:
| "It's rude to put someone in a position where they have to say no
| to you"
|
| I feel this in my bones. When I was a kid my dad _went off_ on me
| after we visited someone 's house and I saw cake on the counter
| and asked for a slice. That was just unacceptable. (Context: He
| was raised by people who lived through the depression. Food
| scarcity was a real thing in living memory.)
|
| Even though his reaction was way overboard, I still believe this.
| Let people offer things, don't ask. (With a lot of caveats
| depending on context...)
| wccrawford wrote:
| While I was studying Japanese, I learned that they go out of
| their way to make it so the other person doesn't have to refuse
| with a "no". For instance, they'll ask, "Do you not have X?"
| instead of "Do you have X?" The person can answer "Yes, we
| don't have it" or "It's over here".
|
| I actually made this mistake, asking for a product directly
| instead of negatively, when I was in Tokyo. The clerk took me
| to the aisle and said, "If we had it, it'd be here." And there
| was no space for it. Took me a couple times to realize what had
| happened.
| alexjm wrote:
| I've heard that the "do you not have" phrasing was used in
| polite Soviet-era Russian, leading to a joke about a customer
| who walks into a shop and sees all the shelves are empty:
|
| - Excuse me, do you not have any bread? - Sorry, this is a
| butcher's shop. We don't have any meat. The bakery is across
| the road. They're the shop that doesn't have any bread.
| sircastor wrote:
| There may be an obvious language barrier here, but the
| coupling of a positive with a negative response feels very
| odd to me in English. I'm reminded of the old song (it was
| used for an advertising jingle for a product or company I
| can't remember) "Yes, we have no bananas!"
|
| Adjacently, I really dislike the courtroom phrasing "Isn't it
| true?" that is sometimes depicted in legal dramas.
| reddit_clone wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| >"Do you not have X?"
|
| In my head it sounds belligerent and accusatory. While the
| other form sounds polite.
|
| This negative phrasing to induce a positive response, may
| be a Japan only thing?
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| It's interesting, it somehow means you are agreeing with
| them if they don't have it, so they don't have to feel so
| bad about not having it.
| contravariant wrote:
| It's probably more like "You wouldn't happen to have any
| X?". I assume the idea is that you put the emphasis on
| the asker being the one to ask a silly question if they
| indeed don't have it.
|
| Maybe it also helps that all the sentence markers that
| make a sentence polite, negative, interrogative all get
| added on to the end (to the verb) in japanese, which
| probably makes the construction slightly less awkward. In
| this case it may go something like motsu (to have) ->
| mochimasu (to have, polite) -> mochimasen (to not have,
| polite) -> mochimasenka (to not have, polite,
| interrogative).
|
| I'm making a lot of assumptions here though, I don't know
| if this is anywhere close to correct.
| pulsarmx wrote:
| "Do you guys not have phones?"
| tempestn wrote:
| And a polite way to do this is to suggest the thing you want,
| rather than directly asking for it. You could complement the
| cake - oh, that looks delicious; what's the occasion? Or, "I'm
| moving next weekend - looking forward to the new place, but
| it's going to be a big job!" It is uncomfortable being asked
| something that you have to say no to, but that doesn't mean we
| have to just hope people will guess our needs unassisted.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| In "guess culture" they can't offer you help unless they're
| certain you won't decline the offer. So they'd have to figure
| out first if you're hiring movers, and if not ascertain
| whether you already have enough friends helping you, and if
| not _then_ they'd offer to help you.
|
| I agree with the other commenters who say that guess culture
| is exhausting.
| tempestn wrote:
| Maybe that's how it works somewhere, but it's hard for me
| to imagine. It can definitely be an imposition to _ask_
| someone directly for help moving, as indeed they might feel
| obligated to agree. But it seems much less likely in a
| real-world context that offering someone your help would
| oblige them to accept. It's perfectly reasonable to explain
| that you have it worked out already, so you appreciate the
| offer but it's not necessary.
|
| "Guess culture" could certainly be exhausting if you over-
| complicate it like that, but it's not necessary.
| njharman wrote:
| I'm not spending game night constantly asking all my guests all
| the possible things (water, caffeine, booze, food, bathroom,
| chair, cushion, warmer, colder, more light, less light, music,
| different music, louder music, quieter music, pet my dog, etc,
| etc, fucking etc). If you want something, YOU ask for it, which
| is polite.
| chromoblob wrote:
| And miss out a lot...
| jzb wrote:
| I can honestly say I don't regret a policy of not asking
| people for things in general. If somebody wants me to have
| some of their cake, or whatever, then I'm usually happy to
| accept. But I can't think of a time when I am like "gee, I
| missed out by not asking for that thing."
| ddbb33 wrote:
| The cake could also be asking for a raise, or a discount,
| really any other any opportunity that's not as low-stakes
| as an item of food
| voxl wrote:
| I suppose different people will have different tastes, but I
| will never agree that this is rude and that you should not ask.
| You should not be upset when declined, but that is another
| matter.
| jzb wrote:
| The problem is that people _do_ get upset. Basically, you 're
| forcing someone else to be the asshole by saying no or
| justify why they don't want to share or do something.
|
| Rudeness is, of course, a subjective thing. Some people think
| it's rude to wear shoes indoors, some people think it's rude
| to make specific gestures that are either OK or meaningless
| to me.
|
| My wife is an asker. It's a definite challenge at times...
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| The rude thing is to not offer any reward in return for
| you, if you agree to their request.
|
| It's just saying they want to take advantage of you if you
| fall for it. Making such a request means that they are
| happy to take advantage of you as long as you let them. Is
| that unethical?
|
| Think of it this way: You own a truly valuable stamp but
| you don't know its value. Then somebody who knows its value
| offers to exchange it for their stamp of much lesser value,
| without telling you what they know about its value.
|
| It may not be unethical, businesses are based on such
| behavior. Buy low and sell high to make a profit. But when
| you see such behavior by your friends or neighbors or
| colleagues, be aware. They are the kind of people who are
| happy to take advantage of you.
| [deleted]
| retrac wrote:
| That may work relatively well with consumables like food. But
| it extends in many directions. I have fans and a space heater
| and extra blankets and etc. All of them are available for a
| houseguest to use. Many of them are stored in the guest room.
|
| I've had "guess culture" people stay over. Really, in my mind
| they don't even need to ask. They're already welcome to take an
| extra blanket. But they won't even ask, and they certainly
| wouldn't presume. They are indeed waiting on me to say "oh, if
| you're warm the fan can be plugged in, and there's some extra
| blankets in the closet if you want". Though in my mind, I don't
| need to say that. And if I don't say it they may go very
| uncomfortable.
|
| I'm most used to giving such reassurances to children, and to
| give them to adults seems a little infantilizing. But that's my
| relatively "ask culture" background in action, probably.
| jzb wrote:
| Well, exactly - it's about things like consumables where
| you're asking to take something. For example, "may I have a
| glass of water?" would have been fine with my dad. (And it
| was drummed into me it's rude _not_ to offer somebody at
| least a glass of water when they 're in your house!)
|
| Basic comfort items where you're not using up someone's
| limited resources == no problem.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| That's a great example. Unfortunately it's also not super
| helpful to dichotomize the difference, because most people
| are a mix of both in different ways.
|
| For example, under extreme stress or illness, a lot of "ask"
| people will turn into "guess what I want or life hates me"
| people.
|
| And it's not exactly unheard of for guessers to turn into
| power-trippers under stress and become over-direct when just
| a little bit of directness is a better idea.
|
| Sometimes guessers even use this entire us-them concept as a
| way to subtly preach to askers, but really it's a two-way
| street. If you've ever lived or worked under an unethical or
| abusive guesser, you may have developed a very strong sense
| of the hypocrisy of the "askers are blunt and mean"
| comparison which often comes out in discussions with
| guessers.
|
| Fortunately though there is a lot of nuance to work with on
| both sides in most cases. (And again, dichotomizing this is
| not great in so many ways)
| robotresearcher wrote:
| > to give them to adults seems a little infantilizing
|
| The 'mi casa es su casa / make yourself at home' concept is
| perfectly normal and won't cause offense to anyone, surely?
| 9dev wrote:
| I don't think that concept in itself causes offense, but
| the fact that guests often don't dare to actually live by
| it and prefer to be a little cold over an extra blanket...
| linuxdude314 wrote:
| Are they supposed to just know the blankets are in your
| closet?
| dahfizz wrote:
| They're supposed to ask
| dack wrote:
| I think someone could say they are cold and ask for more
| blankets, and the owner could say they don't have any more
| blankets
| bena wrote:
| First, you should let people know, that if they need
| anything, they can ask.
|
| Then, there are levels. If it's just on the edge of being
| colder than I'd like, I might not say anything because the
| effort isn't worth it. It's 65 instead of 70, I'll live. But
| if you ask me tomorrow how was it, I'll tell you, "Slightly
| cooler than I'm used to, but no problem". And people will
| make a fuss and say "Well, why didn't you _aaaassssk_ "
| Because, like I also said, it wasn't a problem.
| [deleted]
| williamdclt wrote:
| At the end of the day, if you're firmly on either end of the
| spectrum it comes down to the same thing: you're putting all
| responsibility of the social interaction on the other person.
| Because your position is fixed and theirs is (possibly) not,
| you're making it their fault if the communication style doesn't
| work. It leads to much frustration on both sides.
|
| In your example, if you have a fixed position of << Let people
| offer things, don't ask >>, you're putting all responsibility
| on the other person: they have to adapt to your style or
| they'll be the bad guy. Even though the other end of the
| spectrum (<< express your desires, don't make people guess >>)
| is just as self-consistent and valid.
|
| Camping at either end of the spectrum is putting yourself as a
| victim, it's using the other person's brain rather than your
| own to make the interaction pleasant. As in most things:
| extremes and inflexibility don't work with the subtleties of
| reality
| trailingComma wrote:
| It's rude to expect other people to be able guess what you
| want.
|
| If you want something, ask me. I don't have crippling
| confidence issues so saying no is not a problem for me.
| sneak wrote:
| All good and meaningful relationships involve give and take,
| and sometimes saying no, so this reduces to "it's rude to have
| close human relationships with people" (because close human
| relationships necessarily involve sometimes saying no).
|
| There is an argument that such a worldview is slightly
| pathological.
| jzb wrote:
| As I said upthread - lots of caveats and it's context
| dependent. For one thing, this usually assumed there _was
| not_ a "close human relationship" but social situations
| where you aren't that close.
|
| It has to be _OK_ to say no. In many scenarios or cultures it
| is considered rude to say no. So if you 're not able to
| gracefully say no without being considered rude, it's
| correspondingly rude to _ask_ because you 're basically
| saying "do this for me or else you're rude."
|
| It's not an ask at that point, it's a demand. If I'm the
| asshole if I say no, then I don't want to be asked the
| question in the first place.
| samus wrote:
| There are ways around that, by phrasing questions in a
| different way so the other person does not have to respond
| with a hard "no". Yes, this requires prior acquaintance with
| that communication culture, and integration by relative
| outsiders can be difficult.
| wrboyce wrote:
| Sorry but this is bullshit and putting the onus on the
| wrong person. "No" is a complete sentence and I don't see
| the problem with using it, if you do (after say, I've asked
| for you a slice of cake) but can't think of another
| phrasing ("I'm afraid not", "maybe after you dinner", "ask
| your father"; there are endless possibilities - especially
| when dealing with children) then the issue is your
| vocabulary, and not my failure to bend over backwards
| phrasing the question so do you don't have to say the,
| apparently dreaded, word "no".
| samus wrote:
| I guess that is your background from a more "ask"-like
| culture speaking, where things are put out more
| explicitly. Meanwhile "guess"-like cultures value
| "getting along" more highly and try to avoid the hard
| "no". Yes, this often stems from different underlying
| value systems that we might perceive as toxic.
| gopher_space wrote:
| My grandmother said you'd offer food to guests because you knew
| they were hungry and they'd refuse because they knew you didn't
| have enough for yourself. If you actually had enough food for a
| meal you needed to convince your houseguest.
| NeoTar wrote:
| Isn't this just a manifestation of high-context versus low-
| context cultures? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| context_and_low-context...
| jedberg wrote:
| Yes, it's just another name for that.
|
| But this article paints high-context as bad and low-context as
| good, when they're really just different (and opposite ends of
| a spectrum, not a black or white one or another).
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Does it? That's not what I got from the article at all.
|
| The author is from a "guess" culture trying to operate in an
| "ask" culture world. She's adapting, but not because any
| particular culture is better than the other, but because
| "when in Rome, do as the Romans do".
| jedberg wrote:
| Multiple times it mentions that "guess culture" is
| frustrating and difficult, and that she and her brother
| prefer ask culture because it's easier.
| samus wrote:
| "Ask" culture is prevalent in places where people come
| from diverse backgrounds. Cultures might also not be
| uniformely "ask" or "guess" across all topics. Therefore,
| when people with different value systems and
| communication cultures meet, "guess" culture simply
| doesn't work because other person's needs and intentions
| are often unexpected.
| xeromal wrote:
| This comment is astute. Homogenous vs heterogenous
| cultures. What flies in Los Angeles will not fly in
| Tokyo.
| IshKebab wrote:
| It's definitely bad in a work context where clear and
| effective communication is important.
|
| You're probably thinking "but implicit communication is just
| as effective!" but it definitely isn't. It's all about hints
| and guessing motivations which is inevitably unreliable.
| caminante wrote:
| These are always fun "pop-sci" discussions, but the wiki
| says this whole dichotomy has been debunked [0].
|
| I can't think of any company that doesn't have some low-
| context interfaces. It can be expensive for top executives
| to constantly address every question with "clear and
| effective communication." Some people make it look easy,
| but it's hard!
|
| [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-
| context...
| harrisi wrote:
| Your link doesn't say "this whole dichotomy has been
| debunked." From one of the sources: But
| the fact that contexting has not been empirically
| validated should not necessarily be construed as a
| failure of the theory. ... Nonetheless, the contexting
| model simply cannot be described as an empirically
| validated model.
|
| Which explicitly does not debunk it, but states that it's
| not empirically validated. That doesn't mean it's
| incorrect, although it could be.
| caminante wrote:
| Good point on nuance on a technical level, i.e., debunked
| != failure to support relationship.
|
| However, on a practical level, people throw this around
| as if it were empirically supported (which doesn't seem
| to be the case). If there have been hundreds of studies
| failing to make the connection, I won't take the bet that
| it will eventually get validated.
|
| On a meta-level, that's also a weird quote.
|
| _> But the fact that contexting has not been empirically
| validated should not necessarily be construed as a
| failure of the theory_
|
| Pick any theory. If you can't validate it, and plenty of
| people have tried to validate it, then that's a failure
| of the theory, right?
| IshKebab wrote:
| > Pick any theory. If you can't validate it, then that's
| a failure of the theory, right?
|
| Definitely not. There are a ton of theories that are very
| difficult to validate because you simply can't run the
| experiment due to practical or ethical reasons. That
| doesn't mean they are invalid.
|
| For example my theory that UBI is unworkable. Basically
| impossible to prove because it's just too expensive to
| ever run a _real_ UBI experiment.
|
| Or the theory that eugenics would decrease genetic
| illnesses. Good luck testing that!
|
| Even a lot of basic and fairly self evident stuff is
| difficult to actually prove when it involves people. Are
| the gender biases of children (toy preferences etc)
| innate? They definitely are but it's very difficult to
| actually test.
| caminante wrote:
| _> There are a ton of theories that are very difficult to
| validate because you simply can 't run the experiment due
| to practical or ethical reasons._
|
| But they HAVE run high/low context experiments.
|
| _> For example my theory that UBI is unworkable.
| Basically impossible to prove because it 's just too
| expensive to ever run a real UBI experiment._
|
| Are you referring to Universal Basic Income? If so,
| countless experiments have been run. [0]
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income_p
| ilots#...
| carabiner wrote:
| I worked at an Indian tech consulting firm. Even though
| India is considered a high context culture, our working
| environment felt fully low context with endless meetings
| trying to get all stakeholders on the same page, clearing
| out assumptions, nailing down timelines and aligning
| resources. When I moved to a normal US company it felt
| like downright mind reading how we got shit done much
| faster because we did have a much larger shared context.
| So it's all relative and I bet American culture feels
| like high context to others, and those guys are
| astonished we can work without more hashing out than we
| do.
| caminante wrote:
| I agree.
|
| I was critiquing the parent and indirectly asking for an
| example of a firm that has *ONLY* "high context." Things
| become very abstract with unwritten rules as you move up
| the org chart.
| opportune wrote:
| I think what makes the topic complicated is that the high
| vs low context dichotomy is actually split across
| multiple dimensions rather than being an overarching
| single dimension.
|
| For example, in educated coastal-liberal California
| asking for favors or for hospitality (eg can I get a
| glass of water) is low context but certain topics like
| religion or most politically controversial things are
| generally off limits. Conversely in the South,
| hospitality has a decent number of high context
| expectations, but religion or political discussion are
| more acceptable for discussion. And of course every
| culture has common cultural/historical references that
| are implicitly known and sometimes implicitly referenced
| without explicitly making the reference or expanding on
| all the details.
|
| That's why I think a lot of cultures see themselves as
| low context compared to others, except perhaps the most
| pathologically high context ones (Japan), because we all
| have blind spots about where we're actually high context.
| opportune wrote:
| Mm, not necessarily all work contexts IMO, I just think
| it's particularly helpful in software because software
| itself is highly semantic and software teams tend to not
| all come from the same exact background.
|
| If you were doing something like sales, where both all your
| salesmen and clients were locals with the same social
| expectations on how to communicate implicitly, there
| wouldn't be any direct benefits to trying to communicate
| explicitly, and doing so may come across as rude or
| offensive.
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