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.
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.
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
> I‘ve gone through a ton of comments below and see a lot of contradicting evidence to your thoughtful suggestion.
When you make a huge generalization like "the northern states I'm from primarily developed their culture from Scandinavia and Germany and tend to be more 'ask' than 'guess'", it's possible to immediately find tons of counterexamples. It tends to make people feel good to find flaws with generalizations, but they then argue too far the other way. "Since there are many counterexamples, your claim that the North is mostly 'ask' and the South is mostly 'guess' doesn't hold water."
But what exactly are they saying? The Northern US and the Southern US are exactly the same? There's no possible generalization to make about the cultures from either place?
Instead, at every possible delineation people have made in their counterarguments (poor vs. rich, urban vs. rural, man vs. woman), I find the same generalizations mostly apply. A poor northerner is likely more "ask" than a poor southerner, based on who I've met. Northern men are generally more "ask" than southern men. My wife's father is certainly less intensely curious about my needs than my own mother, but he's far, far more curious about my needs than my father, and almost every other northern father I've met. I've met a great many people, and lived all around the US, so I'm not just shooting from the hip here.
I generally agree. A lot of contradictory statements and I would only add to that. I feel like people tend to pigeonhole each region in the US, the US itself, and indeed any other country into what “people act like”. There might be a common thread that is statistical but it’s not monolithic in any sense. Micro cultures exist and interplay with the macro culture especially in a networked world.
This and other comments here resonate a lot. My SO is unlikely to ask for anything if there's even a small chance of getting a negative answer, and I'm basically the opposite. If this difference really is common, wouldn't it explain a large part of the salary and position discrepancies between the sexes? That is, someone who asks for an improvement to their contract once they are 50% sure of getting it versus someone who only asks when they are at least 80% sure are going to have very different careers, right? Especially if their superiors are usually of the same background.
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.
Definitely true, and this also applies to getting things without asking.
As a somewhat tongue in cheek example -- if you have guests over you should offer coffee three times. They may refuse the first two and accept the third time. But if you do not offer thrice, they'll go home and complain that you were too stingy to even provide coffee.
You should read the manner of refusal in these kinds of cases, and offer more profusely if the situation demands.
I am built this way. It's weird to admit, but not only I will not ask directly; I am very hesitant to accept things even when offered. Definitely very high on the guess culture scale, and I know that's incompatible with how some other cultures operate, so I'm trying to be mindful about it and behave more directly when situation demands.
Northern European countries are, I believe, generally considered low context countries. High context countries include Japan, India, several Middle Eastern countries, France etc
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.
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 needed and don't offer help unless you're genuinely willing to give it.
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.
This is pretty frustrating as 90s-kid who had a Good Childhood™ and struggles with interpersonal issues. I have a close friend from childhood who also had quite a Good Childhood™ 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™. 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.
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?
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?
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.
> 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.
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
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
I grew up in the South. Daddy was a Hoosier and spent a lot of years in the army and retired in Georgia. Mom is a German immigrant.
The upper classes of the Deep South, where people are very religious and often call folks "Mr./Mizz. First Name" as a mark of both respect and familiarity at the same time, seem to skew Guess culture. But then the upper classes generally seem to skew Guess culture.
The South is also a place where people are more likely to own guns and join the military. Military culture is mostly Ask culture. They tend to be very direct and some people find this refreshing/no BS and others find it rude, crude and socially unacceptable if you are influenced by that.
Working class stiffs in the South may be more influenced by the very direct Ask culture of the American military.
So it's probably a lot more complex than regional cultures.
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, friends, and even strangers. My siblings and I were simply raised this way and it's all but impossible to change my behavior.
When we visit family in both Norway and Sweden it's almost like "whew" we can relax and breathe and everything feels very comfortable because the pace of society is slower, at restaurants and during normal activities out and about in the towns, you generally do not have to worry about folks approaching you.
My current partner is also a 3rd generation American, her family on both sides is Irish. They are incredibly social and outgoing and just 10 minutes she informed me we are having our neighbors over (he is a 2nd generation American of Irish descent and his partner is a 2nd generation Dutch). They are all very social and won't hesitate to offer a beer or help or anything really, which I certainly appreciate it but I'm uncomfortable accepting anything.
An even more extreme example is my older brother. I almost look like a social butterfly in comparison because I won't hesitate to complain about the weather, work, anything really. Whereas he is very stoic and quiet.
We were in the construction industry with our father and we all would mostly work in silence building homes and apartment buildings, and when we expanded and hired new folks it made them really uncomfortable.
Once, my brother fell off a roof and he just laid there in a daze. I rushed down to him and by the time I got to him (no more than 20 seconds) he was already getting back up on the roof and just said "I'm fine". Another time his lung collapsed and he didn't tell anyone until his 5th day in the hospital! It's really disappointing sometimes.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
I grew up in Southern California, and neither of your descriptors really apply to the general culture there. Social conventions in the area are far less structured nor regimentalized, so if you needed something serious (a loan from a family, help moving, a ride to work, etc) you should probably ask. If you had some minor issue, most people would keep it to themselves; not necessarily hoping for someone to "guess", but would respond pretty openly if you did probe/"guess".
I will say, the general lack of structure/formality in general social interactions is probably the biggest contrast between West Coast (especially SoCal) and either your New England or your wive's Southern upbringing. At least, this is my experience with transplants from those regions and their biggest complaints ("why don't people RSVP", "why are they wearing business casual to a fancy event", "why don't people bring gifts to get-togethers", etc).
Southern California is great (I live there) but its not exactly Western. My family is from Northern California, by way of the gold rush and very waspy, hence very guess culture. "I wonder if someone should open a window?"
So cal is in the west but most of the people didn't come over during western expansion or work on a farm or ranch. A lot came from the mid-west. So its sort of more like Arizona or even parts of Texas.
I have similar situation at home. I am from guess culture and always think about what the guests might need and offer them ahead. But my wife expects them to ask and doesn't bother much or ignores them. I see people from guess culture tend to be more empathetic as they think from others POV but the downside is they have anxiety of what others might judge and be more stressed. Ask culture people tend to be more situationally unaware and don't bother much and are relaxed.
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.
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.
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
"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...)
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think there's a misunderstanding somewhere because in Japan "do you have X" and "do you not have X" would elicit the same response in the negative case (something like "I'm sorry, we're out of stock"). There's no reason for the speaker to say "no" either way.
First, in shops people clearly ask for whether they have something.
It's super common for clothes and shoes stores to have more sizes in the back. I might ask the negative form when I think it's likely they don't have the size for a reason, e.g. if the same shirt in a different color is laid out in my size. "You don't have this one in XS (like that other one here)?"
In situations where you expect a product to be stocked right there in its usual place but it's not there it's natural to ask in the negative. Ex: bakery that usually has a full tray of croissants has an empty one / or none at all. If you can guess it it's also natural to ask specifically if they sold out.
In situations where it's not clear if a shop even has a certain product / size or if you cannot find one and you are looking, it's definitely not unexpected to ask positively. Ex: Asking whether a different option is available, or a different flavour than the one you see in front of you, or "do you have this particular vinyl from ...?" (it would be super odd to ask negatively in that last case).
Often actually both work and choosing the negative form IMO is harder to get right.
There isn't really an inappropriateness component, and frankly the clerk in your example either was rude or they simply said "if it's not on this shelf, we unfortunately don't have it". And to be honest, I don't see how their response would have been different if you had asked negatively.
Maybe if you said "You don't have this, right?" the clerk would have said "that's right", but in general, if you ask "do you have" vs. "do you not have" should almost always result in the same apology that unfortunately they don't.
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
I didn't understand the article until I read your comment!
I'd never point at someone's cake in someone's house and ask for a slice.
Except for a really good friend, but I'd simply point to his cake and tell him I'm going to eat it. He would either say yes or tell me why I couldn't and neither of us would take offence either way.
I've learnt to shoot down inappropriate ask request right away. Lending you money? No, I don't lent out money.
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.
That's the reason, I avoid going to relatives home as guests. They would compel and force me to eat something that I don't prefer. I won't be able to politely decline them as I'm from guess culture.
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.
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.
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.
But.....if you have an incredibly expensive or special, unopened bottle of wine sitting off in a corner and your guest asks if he can open it.....that is grounds to be excommunicated off the earth. Don't do that, it's incredibly tacky, reeks of entitlement and puts your host in a awkward position.
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.
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...
Therein lies the problem. "Ask" people force someone to say no and saying no is considered rude. "Guess" people are then forced to be rude when they don't want to be rude, and knowing this, are forced to be polite and give in to your demand. Obviously there is nothing sinister going on here, but unwittingly, "Ask" people are creating a uncomfortable situation for people who consider it rude to decline a request.
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.
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.
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.
How does that work in dating? If you are afraid of making people uncomfortable by asking them out, escalating things and putting them in situations where they have to say no to you, you may just end up being single for life.
Not at all related to dating, but this makes me think of the Curb Your Enthusiasm scene where Larry David's mother died while he was in New York on vacation and his father didn't want to "inconvenience" Larry out of respect for her dying wishes: "don't bother Larry".
Great scene and tangentially related to your premise.
Clearly that isn’t the case, given that ask culture has perpetuated itself.
Something like this: “I was thinking of seeing New Movie” “Oh, I’ve been wanting to see that” “I’m going Friday after work. You could join me if that sounds good.” “I’d like that!”
It’s not hard. You establish if someone is open to a date and it’s okay to ask if you’re getting the encouragement to do so. If you’re not, you drop it and save both parties the awkwardness of saying no.
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."
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
"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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
Exactly. "Asking" is about communicating, and "Guessing" is about understanding.
Being aware of other people's needs matters. Expressing your own needs matters. Both are important skills, and if you completely refuse responsibility for one of them you're going to be in for a hard time.
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.
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.
I think it’s more guess versus know - if you don’t ask, you can only guess, you can’t know. If you ask, then you know. That’s all there is to it. You can pay all the attention you like and still get it wrong - but if you ask, you can’t get it wrong, because you’ll have been told what’s right.
If your goal is to get it right, then you need to ask, guessing isn’t good enough.
I read it this way, too. In fact, I found the whole thing to be an apology for the continued expansion of asking for more than is reasonable among those who refuse to learn concern for others, or worse, social cues in a given culture.
The "culture" of making truly unreasonable requests of others is, by my reading, culture-less.
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.
But most askers can still implement some level of guessing, and fall back to asking to clear up any misunderstandings. Guesser CANNOT. Asking is superior.
And it is guessing, because at some point it requires mind reading to accommodate. Again, most askers still understand, they are just sane enough to understand that mind reading is impossible.
"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.
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."
The world does work one way; you ask for what you want. Even the “guessers” are asking for what they want eventually, when they’re sufficiently embarrassed…
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).
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".
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.
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.
Mixed feelings on this. Tell culture allows people to express their feelings directly without prompting, but can also be used manipulatively when insisted on as a behavioral standard by someone who's overbearing relative to the people they're around.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It seems the Ask culture's norm is more favorable in welcoming new members whereas the Guess culture's norm is more favorable in building loyalties to the community among members. IMO curiosity and fear are underlying factors of the cultural differences.
An interesting thought exercise is when Ask people somehow happen to live in a Guess culture. It's like all the guess culture members are working with their own cryptography that's not allowed to the newcomer, and when the new person asks for the code, no one can clearly give the code to the newcomer. The code has to be learned by spending enough time with the community members.
Language is one such barrier -- unless you learn it at an early age, it is sometimes almost impossible to master the intricacies of a language. There are also other numerous cultural aspects that take time and effort to learn, which helps the coherence and integrity of the "guess" culture members.
But even in those Guess cultures, there are also people with curiosity and willingness to learn new cultures, which could move the cultures toward the Ask cultures. That's at least what I learned while I studied the 19th and 20th century history of Korea and Japan. They are not always successful in making changes and progresses within the society, but when they do or when the changes come, they are those thriving, by asking questions about the new world and the new norms. IMO this curiosity is the catalyst for the change from a more Guess culture toward a more Ask culture.
On the other hand, there's fear, the fear of the newcomers. IMO that's what drives the Guess culture, and also another powerful motivation that moves a culture toward more "Guess" culture. In US or European politics, you see all these nationalistic movements. As one of the comments said, even in US, the Guess culture is more predominant in the locations where the fear against other ethnic groups is dominant. It's just the correlations, but IMO there's some feedback loop between the fear and the Guess cultures.
In the end, it's easy to see why the Ask cultures would become more dominant: Ask cultures can easily talk to each other and learn from each other, while Guess cultures are exclusive even among themselves, which make them more difficult to learn from others.
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."
Readit News
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.
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.
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> 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
When you make a huge generalization like "the northern states I'm from primarily developed their culture from Scandinavia and Germany and tend to be more 'ask' than 'guess'", it's possible to immediately find tons of counterexamples. It tends to make people feel good to find flaws with generalizations, but they then argue too far the other way. "Since there are many counterexamples, your claim that the North is mostly 'ask' and the South is mostly 'guess' doesn't hold water."
But what exactly are they saying? The Northern US and the Southern US are exactly the same? There's no possible generalization to make about the cultures from either place?
Instead, at every possible delineation people have made in their counterarguments (poor vs. rich, urban vs. rural, man vs. woman), I find the same generalizations mostly apply. A poor northerner is likely more "ask" than a poor southerner, based on who I've met. Northern men are generally more "ask" than southern men. My wife's father is certainly less intensely curious about my needs than my own mother, but he's far, far more curious about my needs than my father, and almost every other northern father I've met. I've met a great many people, and lived all around the US, so I'm not just shooting from the hip here.
Treat everyone, no matter who they are, like someone you admire and you can’t go wrong anywhere in the world.
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.
As a somewhat tongue in cheek example -- if you have guests over you should offer coffee three times. They may refuse the first two and accept the third time. But if you do not offer thrice, they'll go home and complain that you were too stingy to even provide coffee.
You should read the manner of refusal in these kinds of cases, and offer more profusely if the situation demands.
I am built this way. It's weird to admit, but not only I will not ask directly; I am very hesitant to accept things even when offered. Definitely very high on the guess culture scale, and I know that's incompatible with how some other cultures operate, so I'm trying to be mindful about it and behave more directly when situation demands.
To quote Jerad/Donald at Silicon Valley:
“I like when people yell at me, at least I know where I stand”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-40748918
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.
There's no social dance to it. Just don't be a leech, but accept help when it's needed and don't offer help unless you're genuinely willing to give it.
This is pretty frustrating as 90s-kid who had a Good Childhood™ and struggles with interpersonal issues. I have a close friend from childhood who also had quite a Good Childhood™ 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™. 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.
I wonder how much it's about individual family background and not strongly regional?
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.
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".
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
"yall doin okay?"
The upper classes of the Deep South, where people are very religious and often call folks "Mr./Mizz. First Name" as a mark of both respect and familiarity at the same time, seem to skew Guess culture. But then the upper classes generally seem to skew Guess culture.
The South is also a place where people are more likely to own guns and join the military. Military culture is mostly Ask culture. They tend to be very direct and some people find this refreshing/no BS and others find it rude, crude and socially unacceptable if you are influenced by that.
Working class stiffs in the South may be more influenced by the very direct Ask culture of the American military.
So it's probably a lot more complex than regional cultures.
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, friends, and even strangers. My siblings and I were simply raised this way and it's all but impossible to change my behavior.
When we visit family in both Norway and Sweden it's almost like "whew" we can relax and breathe and everything feels very comfortable because the pace of society is slower, at restaurants and during normal activities out and about in the towns, you generally do not have to worry about folks approaching you.
My current partner is also a 3rd generation American, her family on both sides is Irish. They are incredibly social and outgoing and just 10 minutes she informed me we are having our neighbors over (he is a 2nd generation American of Irish descent and his partner is a 2nd generation Dutch). They are all very social and won't hesitate to offer a beer or help or anything really, which I certainly appreciate it but I'm uncomfortable accepting anything.
An even more extreme example is my older brother. I almost look like a social butterfly in comparison because I won't hesitate to complain about the weather, work, anything really. Whereas he is very stoic and quiet. We were in the construction industry with our father and we all would mostly work in silence building homes and apartment buildings, and when we expanded and hired new folks it made them really uncomfortable.
Once, my brother fell off a roof and he just laid there in a daze. I rushed down to him and by the time I got to him (no more than 20 seconds) he was already getting back up on the roof and just said "I'm fine". Another time his lung collapsed and he didn't tell anyone until his 5th day in the hospital! It's really disappointing sometimes.
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.
I will say, the general lack of structure/formality in general social interactions is probably the biggest contrast between West Coast (especially SoCal) and either your New England or your wive's Southern upbringing. At least, this is my experience with transplants from those regions and their biggest complaints ("why don't people RSVP", "why are they wearing business casual to a fancy event", "why don't people bring gifts to get-togethers", etc).
So cal is in the west but most of the people didn't come over during western expansion or work on a farm or ranch. A lot came from the mid-west. So its sort of more like Arizona or even parts of Texas.
- Ben Franklin
I think it boils down to people mistaking being polite to being nice.
I think you mean reluctant.
You're American, your wife is American.
Do you think American doesn't have cultural differences within? Or that those cultures don't correlate at all with geography? Or with ancestry?
The US is the opposite of a monolithic culture.
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.
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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...)
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.
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)
Basic comfort items where you're not using up someone's limited resources == no problem.
The 'mi casa es su casa / make yourself at home' concept is perfectly normal and won't cause offense to anyone, surely?
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.
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.
- 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.
Adjacently, I really dislike the courtroom phrasing "Isn't it true?" that is sometimes depicted in legal dramas.
I think there's a misunderstanding somewhere because in Japan "do you have X" and "do you not have X" would elicit the same response in the negative case (something like "I'm sorry, we're out of stock"). There's no reason for the speaker to say "no" either way.
First, in shops people clearly ask for whether they have something.
It's super common for clothes and shoes stores to have more sizes in the back. I might ask the negative form when I think it's likely they don't have the size for a reason, e.g. if the same shirt in a different color is laid out in my size. "You don't have this one in XS (like that other one here)?"
In situations where you expect a product to be stocked right there in its usual place but it's not there it's natural to ask in the negative. Ex: bakery that usually has a full tray of croissants has an empty one / or none at all. If you can guess it it's also natural to ask specifically if they sold out.
In situations where it's not clear if a shop even has a certain product / size or if you cannot find one and you are looking, it's definitely not unexpected to ask positively. Ex: Asking whether a different option is available, or a different flavour than the one you see in front of you, or "do you have this particular vinyl from ...?" (it would be super odd to ask negatively in that last case).
Often actually both work and choosing the negative form IMO is harder to get right.
There isn't really an inappropriateness component, and frankly the clerk in your example either was rude or they simply said "if it's not on this shelf, we unfortunately don't have it". And to be honest, I don't see how their response would have been different if you had asked negatively.
Maybe if you said "You don't have this, right?" the clerk would have said "that's right", but in general, if you ask "do you have" vs. "do you not have" should almost always result in the same apology that unfortunately they don't.
Isn't this just the standard response when the clerk is not sure? Bring you to the relevant section and let you look for yourself.
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
I'd never point at someone's cake in someone's house and ask for a slice.
Except for a really good friend, but I'd simply point to his cake and tell him I'm going to eat it. He would either say yes or tell me why I couldn't and neither of us would take offence either way.
I've learnt to shoot down inappropriate ask request right away. Lending you money? No, I don't lent out money.
Life pro tip: never tell people you have money.
I agree with the other commenters who say that guess culture is exhausting.
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...
If you want something, ask me. I don't have crippling confidence issues so saying no is not a problem for me.
There is an argument that such a worldview is slightly pathological.
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.
Great scene and tangentially related to your premise.
Something like this: “I was thinking of seeing New Movie” “Oh, I’ve been wanting to see that” “I’m going Friday after work. You could join me if that sounds good.” “I’d like that!”
It’s not hard. You establish if someone is open to a date and it’s okay to ask if you’re getting the encouragement to do so. If you’re not, you drop it and save both parties the awkwardness of saying no.
"This is a beautiful cake. What's it for? Is there a celebration?"
If you are not offered a slice after that, assume you can't have one.
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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'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.
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.
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.
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.
Ah, I see you’ve met my dad.
IME this person is always a women dominating her family. Idk why.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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".
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.
Being aware of other people's needs matters. Expressing your own needs matters. Both are important skills, and if you completely refuse responsibility for one of them you're going to be in for a hard time.
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.
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.
If your goal is to get it right, then you need to ask, guessing isn’t good enough.
The "culture" of making truly unreasonable requests of others is, by my reading, culture-less.
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.
Clearer communication is always better.
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And it is guessing, because at some point it requires mind reading to accommodate. Again, most askers still understand, they are just sane enough to understand that mind reading is impossible.
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.
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.
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).
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".
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.
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.
For further reading, here's the blog post that named the concept: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rEBXN3x6kXgD4pLxs/tell-cultu...
And further discussion within the same community: https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/against-tell-...
There were a bunch of tumblr posts on this as well which are more work than it's worth to go recover.
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.
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.
“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.
An interesting thought exercise is when Ask people somehow happen to live in a Guess culture. It's like all the guess culture members are working with their own cryptography that's not allowed to the newcomer, and when the new person asks for the code, no one can clearly give the code to the newcomer. The code has to be learned by spending enough time with the community members.
Language is one such barrier -- unless you learn it at an early age, it is sometimes almost impossible to master the intricacies of a language. There are also other numerous cultural aspects that take time and effort to learn, which helps the coherence and integrity of the "guess" culture members.
But even in those Guess cultures, there are also people with curiosity and willingness to learn new cultures, which could move the cultures toward the Ask cultures. That's at least what I learned while I studied the 19th and 20th century history of Korea and Japan. They are not always successful in making changes and progresses within the society, but when they do or when the changes come, they are those thriving, by asking questions about the new world and the new norms. IMO this curiosity is the catalyst for the change from a more Guess culture toward a more Ask culture.
On the other hand, there's fear, the fear of the newcomers. IMO that's what drives the Guess culture, and also another powerful motivation that moves a culture toward more "Guess" culture. In US or European politics, you see all these nationalistic movements. As one of the comments said, even in US, the Guess culture is more predominant in the locations where the fear against other ethnic groups is dominant. It's just the correlations, but IMO there's some feedback loop between the fear and the Guess cultures.
In the end, it's easy to see why the Ask cultures would become more dominant: Ask cultures can easily talk to each other and learn from each other, while Guess cultures are exclusive even among themselves, which make them more difficult to learn from others.
It goes deep too. All the way down to the fear of hearing a ‘no’ answer. So it’s self reinforcing all the way down.
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."