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Ask vs. Guess Culture

jeanhsu.substack.com

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Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#361

Post by szhu »

nostrademons wrote: post #89

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…

I think that's actually just an example of either ask culture or guess culture, depending on the context.

If the friend should only say yes if they really want to, then that's ask culture.

If the friend should feel obligated to say yes, then that's guess culture.

The only difference here is that the request is worded differently (as a statement rather than as a question), which is simply close friends adopting their own language conventions, a slightly-related but independent concept.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#362

Post by throwawaymaths »

aidenn0 wrote: post #312
quacked wrote: 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 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...

Get this: in Japanese culture, you are expected to refuse three times.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#363

Post by earthboundkid »

xxEightyxx wrote: post #305
quacked wrote: 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 can relate to this. I am a 3rd generation American, family immigrated over from Norway and Sweden and our heritage and traditions are still very strongly observed. We are protestant as well and live in the northern U.S. My family is a bit on the extreme of guessing culture to the point where we won't say anything and often folks find us very cold. I am made acutely aware of this everyday - from romantic partners, f…

My grandfather’s parents were Swedish, and that attitude certainly describes their side of the family: don’t talk about how you feel, don’t complain, don’t express emotions hot or cold.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#364

Post by leemcalilly »

huijzer wrote: post #293
quacked wrote: 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‘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…

Do you not see how that attitude is totally selfish, and in practice comes across that way no matter where you’re from.

Treat everyone, no matter who they are, like someone you admire and you can’t go wrong anywhere in the world.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#365

Post by earthboundkid »

lillecarl wrote: post #310
crazygringo wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's the international part, if there's such a difference between west, east, south and north it just doesn't seem necessary to say where you Mr grandma's from Edit: I want to move to the Netherlands, if I have kids there they'll be Dutch

They’ll be Dutch when they’re in America, and American when they’re in the Netherlands. So it goes.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#366

Post by another-dave »

second_brekkie wrote: post #321

Being from the UK, I feel its a generalisation to say the west is an ask culture. I really feel like there's more of a guess culture outside of close friendship in the UK, especially the higher up the social strata you go. Also the further south you go the more guess culture it will get. The more north you go people will be more friendly but also tell you what they think. As a general rule of thumb. In the workplace…

Yeah completely agree. Think the article was good read but talking about "Western society" as one bucket for something like this is _far_ too broad a brush.

What counts as Western society, California to Greece?

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#367

Post by earthboundkid »

ttepasse wrote: post #282
quacked wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

You can’t experience a culture until you leave it. When you’re in it, it’s just water. That’s why travel is interesting.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#368

Post by Galacta7 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #354
jiggawatts wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ."

Sounds like he lost his Persian sense of Tarof, lol. https://youtu.be/XAvzW1WZsN4

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#369

Post by jzb »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #286
tempestn wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unas…

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.

That’s not the case. Offering help is just fine.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#370

Post by Galacta7 »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #216
jzb wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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…

Hmm, I see a problem with this analogy in that the person selling the stamp is at an unfair disadvantage due to that information asymmetry. It's actually unethical and sometimes even illegal to do this in the stock market, especially if the knowledge wasn't publicly available.

I think askers sometimes feel put off by guessers, because you can't inherently know what the other person thinks is a fair request -- unless you're in a high context environment (which most askers won't be as familiar with). So from their perspective, guessers are doing a bit of insider trading ... only they know what's of value to them. It's frustrating from the askers POV because the counterparty seems less than transparent about their true intentions.

Of course, from the other side of the coin, the asker is ignoring a million cues that are obvious to the guesser but meaningless to the asker who doesn't even know to notice them.

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