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Ask vs. Guess Culture

jeanhsu.substack.com

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Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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).

People Pleaser

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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...

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.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

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

A true friend stabs you in the chest. - Oscar Wilde

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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...

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.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#235
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

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 ne…

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.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#236
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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?

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…

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#237
post #11

> 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 reques…

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.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#238
post #7

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 blithe…

> 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.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#239
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.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#240
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hazing is the term.

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.

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