alt Hacker News'Askers' vs. 'Guessers' (2010)
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I'm pretty sure Japanese are guessers (would love to hear counter examples)
To them, the etiquette is that if you ask you've put the other person in a bind. Even if they want to say no, they feel pressure to say yes. You putting then in that situation is considered bad. So, don't ask, at least not directly. You can say "Guess what, I'll be in town next week!" and see if out of the blue they offer a place to stay. But even then there is subtly of reading between the lines, of do they actually want you to stay or are they just being polite but hope you'll read between the lines and not take them up on the offer. Generally you're supposed to refuse "Naw, I couldn't possibly stay and get in your way" and then they can come back and say "No really, it'd be great" if they really want you to stay and you might have to do this dance once or twice more to really verify it's ok.
One aspect of that which is interesting is that what the article calls "Guess culture" is fundamentally exclusionary. If you aren't initiated into how the signalling system works by an insider or in a position of sufficient stability to fail socially many times there isn't a good way to break in. That gives the culture a lot of interesting properties that promote its ability to identify and coordinate against out-groups (which to the people involved would manifest as a "these barbarians just don't know how to be polite and we can't work with them"). One of those adaptions that is a bit crazy in the micro (could just ask for what they want, geeze) but makes a lot of sense in the macro.
I found a good discussion that I keep referring to on Jean Hsu's blog: https://jeanhsu.substack.com/p/ask-vs-guess-culture and https://jeanhsu.substack.com/p/bridging-the-ask-vs-guess-cul...
It's been quite illuminating for people in multicultural teams...
I think this has a lot of truth to it, but I think it is ultimately an oversimplification or even a false dichotomy.
I was in a relationship that was constantly strained by something similar to this. My partner would never ask for help with anything and would just get frustrated when I didn't pick up on her struggling and jump in to help. Conversely, I only ask for help when I really need it but she would see me struggling and jump in, which would annoy me because I didn't ask for help.
But I'm not an asker in the sense of this article. I would never randomly ask someone to stay at someone's house, for example. This strikes me as like a child constantly testing their boundaries. I know where the boundaries are.
But, there is still some truth to it. I've often found that non-native speakers in my country tend to be askers. This can come across as quite shocking and lead one to believe, as I had, that this is actually part of their culture. But I have another theory: to be successful as a non-native you have to be an asker, because you will find it difficult or impossible to be a guesser. So it's a survivorship bias, essentially.
By the title I also thought this was going to be about another phenomenon: when given a task, some people will continue to ask for confirmation until they're confident they get it, while others will just "fill in the blanks" and deliver something, even if it's wrong. LLMs, of course, being the ultimate "guesser" in this sense.
Discussed (in a singleton sort of way) at the time:
Askers vs. Guessers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1956778 - Dec 2010 (1 comment)
Edit: plus this!
Ask vs. Guess Culture - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37176703 - Aug 2023 (479 comments)
Here is my personal observation. Humans start by default as “Askers,” but society shapes them into either the “Askers” or “Guessers.” Kids don’t guess, they ask.
I have also observed that Eastern countries/regions are generally “Guessers,” while Westerners are generally “Askers.”
Growing up as an introvert, I remember many times when my guardians (uncles, aunties, grandparents, and parents) would interpret things differently than I thought they were. “My friend’s mom told me to come, play, and eat at their place today.” “No, they don’t. You need to come back after a while, not spend the whole day there.”
I learnt a lot of Guesses in school and social settings: Yes, that meant No, and Nos that were weirdly Yes, etc.
When I started working in the early 2000s, I worked with almost all US (and some UK and Australians) Companies and customers, from teachers and physicians to founders and businesspeople. Things were straightforward, “cut to the chase”, “get to the point real fast”, and the like.
Eventually, I have also worked with many Indian companies and teams. We are mostly Guessers. My colleagues and bosses have called me aside to explain the interpretation of quite a few interactions, which I thought I was doing the right thing, but I should not have (even when the clients agreed). I’ve also worked with the Japanese, and they were all Guessers to a degree, and I would love to, hopefully, take the time and effort to learn the culture a lot more.
I'm going out on a limb and say that pretty much all human cultures are guess cultures. What if every woman was sexually propositioned thousands of times per day? Maybe I should ask every person I ever see if they'll give me $1,000, maybe some will say yes. And then I'll expand my horizons, since my normal day routine doesn't take me by enough potential benefactors. Spam is essentially an ask-culture failure.
I can think of birthdays when even the most diehard asker turns into a guesser - they would never go out of their way and ask to be coddled on their birthday but still don't mind bit of a fuss being made on their behalf.
I am timid: I conduct myself like a Guesser, and treat others' requests as though they are Askers.
I don't necessarily think it is how you were brought up, and probably more to do with personality. As an introvert, I don't have the talk time to continuously put out feelers, I just gotta ask.
I think it requires emotional intelligence to know if you should ask or guess.
I've encountered a few people that just won't stop asking for unreasonable things, and it destroys the relationship very quickly, because they just won't take no for an answer. I also have one child that I used to have to firmly say "stop asking for things" once it would get out of hand.
But those are extremes in ask vs guess.
This has been posted like 20x: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=asker+guesser
Edit: this whole theory seems to come from some internet forum comment! I know a lot of people here are seduced (I was a bit too) but basing your social interactions and how you see others and yourself on this stuff might not be the best thing to do!
Original comment below for posterity and because there are answers.
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I'm not sure this stuff is really that helpful. You might be tempted to put people into these categories, but you might have a somewhat caricatural and also wrong image of both which could worsen interactions.
By the way, that article doesn't cite any studies!
It's probably helpful to know people are more or less at ease asking direct questions or saying no or receiving a no, but it's all scales and subtleties. It could also depend on the mood, or even who one interacts with or on the specific topic).
The article touches this a bit (the "not black and white" paragraph).
We human beings love categories but categories of people are often traps. It's even more tempting when it's easy to identity to one of the depicted groups!
I wonder if this asker-guesser thing is in the same pseudoscience territory as the MBTI.
In the end, I suppose there's no good way around getting to know someone and paying attention for good interactions.
What is the benefit, ultimately, of being a Guesser? How is it not better in every way for every one to choose to be an Asker?
... Explicit is better than implicit. Simple is better than complex ...
You probably know the rest
This is really interesting to me because I don’t think I fall into either category, but I can easily place a majority of people in my life into these two categories pretty solidly.
> Your boss, asking for a project to be finished early, may be an overdemanding boor – or just an Asker, who's assuming you might decline.
I don't pay for the Atlantic and thus am limited by paywall, but this ignores power dynamics.
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I found this 10+ years ago, and it was one of the most important things I ever read. As a consummate Guesser, it reframed my perspective completely. I started to be much happier and understanding with Askers.
I also realized how frustrating, as a Guesser, I could be to Askers, and shifted more toward being clear about what I want or need.