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Ask vs. Guess Culture

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Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#351

Post by matheusmoreira »

deaddodo wrote: post #320
aidenn0 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend from the western US who was explicitly taught by her (white) mother that you always refuse a favor the first time it is offered. There were many months of me never doing any favors for her before we figured that one out...

I'm from a western state and my family is pretty white. I've never heard this. You definitely don't glob onto any/all favors and you shouldn't accept something you wouldn't be willing to reciprocate in the same position, else you're bound to be seen as social baggage eventually. But if you need something and someone offers: sure, take it. There's no social dance to it. Just don't be a leech, but accept help when it's…

> There's no social dance to it.

There is. What constitutes a leech varies from person to person, from culture to culture. Accepting help could easily lead to resentment, it's entirely possible they were offering help to seem generous while simultaneously expecting to be refused. Offering help at all could be offensive because you're in a position of strength while they're in a position of weakness, it implies they need you, ingratiates them with you, puts them in your debt.

Correctly navigating these waters requires instant judgements based on huge amounts of social information like status, reputation, personality, context, non-verbal cues like tone of voice and body language. It is difficult to do this deliberately because during conversations there is not enough time to deeply analyze anything. It's best left to an uncounscious mind honed sharp by repeated practice.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#352

Post by jiggawatts »

RangerScience wrote: post #182
solarmist wrote: post #82

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 (…

Seconding this. Anecdotally, the more multicultural a space is, the more it trends towards "ask".

Unfortunately, this is not my experience. I work with many immigrant software developers, and the vast majority have not realised that they have to switch to an "ask" approach.

They will say "yes" to everything, no matter what, and then never ever ask a followup question.

For example, if assigned a task that I know they cannot possibly complete (i.e.: due to a lack of access), they'll say "yes" and then... I won't hear from them again.

A week later, the conversation will go like this:

"Have you started on the task?"

"Yes."

"How? I haven't seen you log in to the source control system, and thinking about it, I don't think you have access."

"Yes."

"So, do you have access?"

"Yes."

"How? Can you check out the source code successfully?"

"Yes."

"Can you show me what you've done."

"Umm... yes."

"That's an empty folder!"

"Yes, I don't have access, so this is all I can do."

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#353

Post by xyzelement »

noahlt wrote: post #2

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.

I grew up in the guess mode but I disagree with you.

People guess and assume wrongly all the time despite their best intentions. It's not transactional to ask on a long shot - at least it doesn't have to be. Obviously don't be annoying, don't ask people for what you know will put them out or make them feel awkward. But in absence of signal - send your signal and let it play out.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#354

Post by DoreenMichele »

jiggawatts wrote: post #350
DoreenMichele wrote: post #273

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 cu…

A common example of this is the US servicemen that had come back from tours of Iraq or Afghanistan telling stories of how lovely and "welcoming" the locals were. E.g.: the locals would make a token offer to the soldiers, expecting them to politely refuse. The Americans would take that offer at face value and accept, to the surprise of the locals.

Someone from I think maybe Iran told an anecdote once on HN about visiting home with someone and eventually telling people "Don't offer him anything. He doesn't know how to say no."

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#355

Post by rdtsc »

aidenn0 wrote: post #317
rdtsc wrote: post #129

> 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…

If someone tells me I'd be stupid to go visit grandma, and then decides I'm disloyal/unloving because I believed them, that's called lying and it's going to end my relationship with them pretty quickly.

I can see that being manipulative too but it’s also a cultural difference. That’s the crux of the article in a way. Some are of these things seem offensive and annoying but are rather normal for other cultures.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#356

Post by xyzelement »

reddit_clone wrote: post #173
flatline wrote: post #44

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).

I think what you describe in the flip side of this. If I assume guess culture, then you asking me something implies that you reasoned out that I should give it to you. That puts a lot of expectations on me and I feel like I am going to really upset you if I say no.

Meanwhile you may have just asked me on a long shot.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#357

Post by deaddodo »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #351
deaddodo wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from a western state and my family is pretty white. I've never heard this. You definitely don't glob onto any/all favors and you shouldn't accept something you wouldn't be willing to reciprocate in the same position, else you're bound to be seen as social baggage eventually. But if you need something and someone offers: sure, take it. There's no social dance to it. Just don't be a leech, but accept help when it's…

> There's no social dance to it. There is. What constitutes a leech varies from person to person, from culture to culture. Accepting help could easily lead to resentment, it's entirely possible they were offering help to seem generous while simultaneously expecting to be refused. Offering help at all could be offensive because you're in a position of strength while they're in a position of weakness, it implies they n…

Fine. There's no systematic dance, like more socially stoic cultures. New England and Southern cultures being the prime contrast; but you could use the caste system of India as an extreme contrast, if you like.

Every interpersonal relationship has its own dance, no matter where you're from. That's what socializing is.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#358

Post by another-dave »

opportune wrote: post #226
noahlt wrote: post #2

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.

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’…

What you've described sounds like the 'Guess culture' side to me — you're anticipating the impact on me & asking for something that you intuit is nbd.

Let's say though that you felt like a beer. Would you ask for one?

To me, it'd feel quite rude to ask for something like that (what if you don't have any, will it make you feel bad? What if you have some but you were saving them for something or they're very expensive?)

But from what I understand of what the author describes as Ask culture, it'd be seen as nbd for me to ask you for a beer and also no big deal for you to refuse it in turn.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#359

Post by DoreenMichele »

noahlt wrote: post #2

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.

My impression was that Guess culture was viewed more favorably by most people. Ask culture is often viewed by others as rude, crude and socially unacceptable.

But that may be due in part to where I learned the phrasing.

Does anyone know where the phrasing comes from? I know where I first saw it and it was my impression that was the "birth" of the phrase, but I don't actually know if that's true or not.

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