Given the importance of communication style in interpersonal relationships, I am looking to create an OkCupid question to determine if someone is an asker/teller or guesser. I’m having difficulty creating an unbiased question. Any way I’ve written the question makes ask/tell seem obviously better, e.g., here are two possibilities:
When you want someone to do something for you, do you prefer to ask them directly or do you prefer to mention something related and expect that they infer what you want?
Should your partner “just know” what you want without you ever saying so explicitly?
That perception might just be my own bias. Quite a few people I know would probably answer #2 as yes.
Unfortunately, this question probably won’t be answered very often, so it’s also useful to look for a proxy. Vaniver suggested a question about gifts when I mentioned this at a meetup, and I believe he meant the question “How often should your significant other buy you gifts, jewelry, or other things more expensive than, say, dinner, cards, or flowers?” This question is a reasonable proxy because many guessers I know seem to expect people to “just know” what sort of gifts are appropriate for them. Unfortunately, many guessers might not care that someone buys things for them with any regularity.
Another possibility is “Imagine that a friend asks you to read a short story they wrote. Unfortunately, you find it to be very boring. Which is closest to how you might respond when they ask you what you think of it?” I think that indirectly gets to the core of the ask vs. guess issue. Saying negative things is considered inappropriate to most guessers. Any other potential proxy questions?
When you want someone to do something for you, do you prefer to ask them directly or do you prefer to mention something related and expect that they infer what you want?
You’re gonna lose at least 20% of the OKC population and a much larger chunk of the general population with the complexity of your sentence structure and the use of words like “infer”.
When you want something do you
[pollid:614]
And there’s another problem—the real answer will usually be “it depends on the situation”. So an even better question would be
How often do you drop hints about what you want, instead of asking directly?
[pollid:615]
(Even now, my real answer is “it depends on what system I think the person I am talking to uses”. I’m not sure ask/tell is actually a property attributable to individual people...it’s more a mode of group interaction)
You’re gonna lose at least 20% of the OKC population and a much larger chunk of the general population with the complexity of your sentence structure and the use of words like “infer”.
Is there some sort of downside to less educated or less intelligent people understanding the question?
Presumably the point of OKC questions is to find yourself a mate/partner/sex toy/etc. If you can filter out the stupidest part of OKC population right at the beginning, that’s a win.
I would like to gently admonish you for making fun of a disadvantaged out-group...
I see absolutely nothing wrong with making fun of stupid people. And nerds. And a variety of ethnic groups. And pretty much everything.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with making fun of stupid people. And nerds. And a variety of ethnic groups. And pretty much everything.
That’s an odd view. I’m presuming that you would see something wrong with, say, a popular kid in high school who made a habit of beating up disabled kids. But you see absolutely nothing wrong if the same person doesn’t physically assault the kids but instead simply ridicules them publicly for being disabled? In both cases, it seems pretty clear that the bully is doing harm to the kids, although the nature of the harm differs.
Could you clarify what the morally relevant distinction is between these two situations, why causing one form of harm is bad and the other isn’t? It wouldn’t just be a distinction that makes the second option less bad than the first option; it would be a distinction that makes the second option not bad at all, if I take your words literally.
Or maybe I’m misinterpreting what you mean by “making fun”?
Or maybe I’m misinterpreting what you mean by “making fun”?
Yes, you do. I am not talking about power games, or domination/submission, or even simple malice.
The opposite of “making fun of X” is “taking X very, very seriously”. With a serious expression on one’s face, according to the instructions and forms carefully collected in a three-ring binder, while being conscious of one’s self-importance, and certainly not tolerating any deviation from the proper procedure or, God forbid, disrespect (of oneself, the proper procedure, and the three-ring binder).
They’ll still answer the question,..they’ll just answer it incorrectly and you’ll throw noise into your data. OKC has many questions which are more direct proxies for intelligence.
I see absolutely nothing wrong
Which makes sense, since you’re reactionary in your politics, and political correctness is seen as a lefty thing. I think this particular lefty value is fairly easy to defend though:
Humor functions to ease tensions when everyone is in on the joke. Insults directed at an out-group who is not laughing and is hurt raises inter-group tensions. Discouraging members of your in group from insulting members of out groups is just a special case of encouraging cooperation over defection—something which is both pragmatic, and to me. intrinsically moral.
TL:DR it’s bad PR.
Exceptions exist. If you’re giving some sort of constructive criticism to an out-group, and your criticism takes the form of mildly insulting humor, that’s okay—because once again, you’re using humor as an outlet for tension rather than a conduit for it.
I mean, this was just an offhand comment and not really a big deal, but you do really not think there’s something at least a little bit counterproductive about a forum like Lesswrong being disdainful towards members of the general population?
? I was asking if you thought that the propagation of a certain dynamic between two cultures was unproductive. How is that related to whether or not you represent a forum?
counterproductive in pursuit of which goal?
The pursuit of good, humanity getting along together as a cohesive whole and being happy, etc
I don’t hold the general population in high regard.
Why does that matter? You don’t have to hold someone in high regard to care about them.
“High regard” is a relative measure anyway, not an absolute one. It doesn’t make sense to hold the general population in “high regard” because the general population is by definition average, whereas “high regard” is by definition reserved for those who are above average.
Unless you meant “Regard” as “general concern for” …in which case I have no answer, since that’s a moral thing.
How is that related to whether or not you represent a forum?
Because you start with me being disdainful and then switch to the issue of the forum being disdainful.
The pursuit of good, humanity getting along together as a cohesive whole and being happy, etc
That’s pretty meaningless handwaving. Among other things, humanity has never been and does not look likely to become in the foreseeable future “a cohesive whole”. This is a good thing.
Why does that matter? You don’t have to hold someone in high regard to care about them.
Because we are talking about “being disdainful” and “making fun of”. That’s not a discussion about caring, that’s a discussion about holding in high regard or not.
It doesn’t make sense to hold the general population in “high regard”
I’d be interested to hear more about what your political views are. I, too, had gathered the impression from my interactions with you that you were at least reactionary-leaning.
I’d be interested to hear more about what your political views are.
I am not too fond of sticking labels onto myself. It’s probably easier to answer this question in negatives. I’m not a liberal in the contemporary American sense. I am not a conservative. I’m not a neo-reactionary, though I’m sympathetic to and tend to cheer their skewering of sacred cows. On the other hand I have absolutely no desire to return to the imagined past of enlightened monarchy, benevolent aristocracy, and firmly established social order.
I thought that’s what reaction is, essentially?...it seems “reactionary” as generally used refers to someone who counter-argues against prevailing ideas that are new and recently fashionable.
I wasn’t intending to imply that you cluster with moldbug or neo-reactionaries specifically.
I thought that’s what reaction is, essentially?...it seems “reactionary” as generally used refers to someone who counter-argues against prevailing ideas that are new and recently fashionable.
“Reactionary” in the political context is primarily a derogatory term, usually meaning “a conservative I really don’t like”.
Not to mention that sacred cows are skewered by revolutionaries much MUCH more often than by conservatives :-)
I’m not so sure about that. The sacredness of an idea doesn’t come from its longevity, it comes from attachment to memes that make it immune to criticism; if there are already a lot of those memes floating around in a subculture, and if the binding criteria are loose or inconsistently applied, new sacred cows can evolve rather quickly.
Do you have any examples in mind? It may be that we just have different connotations and associations for the words “sacred cow”. I think the being a sacred cow implies more than just the social unacceptability of criticizing it, there must be, basically, a well-established tradition.
I’d rather not get into examples; too many of them are politically charged. But no, “sacred cow” doesn’t necessarily connote long-established tradition to me.
They’re probably more likely in association with long-established traditions, since there you don’t have to deal with a recent history of people challenging them. But an insular culture or a strong ideology can get past that hurdle.
Well, the view that homosexual relationships are just as acceptable as heterosexual relationships and that thus opposing gay marriage is evil, is an idea that has already managed to acquire sacred cow status despite not even being fully implemented yet.
Okay, I should write a script or something preventing me from replying to a comment unless I’ve seen all of its ancestors, because just telling myself not to do so clearly doesn’t work. :-)
And I’d split the “Sometimes” into “Often” and “Rarely”, otherwise a supermajority of people would just pick the middle answer (and also, ISTM that “how often” questions on OKC usually have four possible answers).
Great comment. I think your latter question is excellent, though I’m not sure that “drop hints” is the best way to describe guessing. I’ll think about what might be better.
You could further simplify it to “How often do you directly ask for what you want?” -Almost Never, I hate asking for things, - Sometimes bla bla bla, - Almost always, clear communication bla bla bla
Also, some people take things really literally, so I’d take Luke_A_Somers’ advice and add the “almost” hedges
Possibly insurmountable problem is that loads of people want to think that they are Tell or at least Ask but in practice they are actually Guess and you have no way of filtering for this. In my experience people are extremely bad at knowing “how they are” relative to other people.
Perhaps the questions should give concrete scenarios. Something like
Ann needed to visit Chicago to go to a conference, and asked her friend Beth “Can I stay in your apartment Mon through Wed”. Beth answered, “no, it’s too much trouble to have a houseguest”. Was Beth unreasonable?
and
Your friend Ann send you an email saying, “I need to go to Chicago for a conference, can I stay with you in your apartment Mon through Wed?” Is this an inconsiderate request?
I suspect this works best if you avoid priming the test subjects on what they’re going to be tested on, otherwise I think they will expend effort to seem extra-reasonable contra their natural impulse.
But, yes, good idea, I was way too quick to call it an insurmountable problem.
I would use “Do you prefer to explain everything you want to your partner explicitly, or do you prefer that they infer some of your desires from your implicit suggestions?” as well as “Is it OK to turn down an explicit request by your partner if you’re capable of fulfilling it but you don’t want to?”
I might also use the reversed versions: “Do you prefer to have everything explained to you explicitly, or do you prefer some things be left for you to infer from context?” and “Is it OK for your partner to turn down your explicit request if they’re capable of fulfilling it but don’t want to?”
(nods) That’s why I mentioned them; I think that kind of assymetry is common for a lot of people, especially those who were raised in a high-context (aka “Guess”) culture but then migrated to a low-context (aka “Ask”) culture.
I think you are making assumptions that might be hard justify:
-people have the self-knowledge to answer this question effectively
-people are not gaming the answer to seem appealing
-people can accurately identify their preferences about what type of communication style works for them
Don’t mean to sound like a downer—I’m glad some people take this seriously. I think trying to produce questions like these is a good idea, I’m trying to point out some potential flaws to help.
I appreciate the help. These assumptions can be problematic, but they are problems for all online dating, not my specific question. In my experience, OkCupid question responses are not always accurate, but they are more than accurate enough to be useful.
I think what happens to be guessing depends a lot on the understanding that you have between two people.
I don’t really think in terms of acting in a way that get’s another person to take a specific action. I focus more on giving the person all relevant information and expect the other person to take the action that maximizes utility.
If I ask Alice to dance Salsa and she needs a break I don’t want Alice to come dancing with me. I want Alice to act according to her feelings and take the break. I can ask Carol who might actually want to dance at that moment and ask Alice later. I can also spent some time meditating if there no woman who wants to dance at a particular moment around.
I’m not attached to a particular action of another person.
On the other hand if the person doesn’t engage in an action that maximizes utility to make a point of signaling status or to punish that can annoy me.
Depending on how well I know the position of the other person and how well I know what’s right for myself I might just say what I feel or I might be very explicit about a possible solution.
Shyness can also hold me back from sharing certain information. It can be hard to articulate deep feelings in an environment where that’s not normal behavior. I’m still quite bad at talking about feelings in a Salsa environment where I might ask a woman to dance very directly but rely a lot on nonverbal signs to regulate the level of intimacy of a dance. Openly saying something to an attractive woman like: “It feels a bit strange when you dance closely with me because you are tense and don’t relax the way I would expect you to if you enjoy dancing close.” is very hard.
If you hear me talk with my meditation teacher you probably would not understand what’s said because the conversation heavily relies on implicit assumptions. On the other hand I have a hard time calling it guess culture because we both understand each other perfectly well.
The whole idea of guessing assumes that there’s doubt whether the other person understands the point you want to make.
I think part of having a good intimate relationship with another person is that you have a good idea of what the other person wants without them saying so explicitly. On the other hand having a good intimate relationship also means that you can explicitly communicate your desires in cases where the other person doesn’t pick them up on their own.
I think both of the question you mention tell you something about the other person. The goal of a good question isn’t to be without bias but to provide a clear signal. Someone who says that they prefer to mention something related and expect the other person to infer what they want is a clear guess culture person in every sense of the word.
If you hear me talk with my meditation teacher you probably would not understand what’s said because the conversation heavily relies on implicit assumptions. On the other hand I have a hard time calling it guess culture because we both understand each other perfectly well.
This is more accurately described as the difference between high context and low context cultures. This might actually be some sort of precursor to ask vs. guess culture.
Ask this: “Name some things your partner can do to make you feel appreciated.” If the person answers the question at all and does so in a useful way, that should tell you something about their communication style.
That would be a good way to determine someone’s communication style, but unfortunately that question is too open ended for OkCupid. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the site. “Questions” on there refer to a set of questions with specific answers, exactly like those in this comment.
Given the importance of communication style in interpersonal relationships, I am looking to create an OkCupid question to determine if someone is an asker/teller or guesser. I’m having difficulty creating an unbiased question. Any way I’ve written the question makes ask/tell seem obviously better, e.g., here are two possibilities:
When you want someone to do something for you, do you prefer to ask them directly or do you prefer to mention something related and expect that they infer what you want?
Should your partner “just know” what you want without you ever saying so explicitly?
That perception might just be my own bias. Quite a few people I know would probably answer #2 as yes.
Unfortunately, this question probably won’t be answered very often, so it’s also useful to look for a proxy. Vaniver suggested a question about gifts when I mentioned this at a meetup, and I believe he meant the question “How often should your significant other buy you gifts, jewelry, or other things more expensive than, say, dinner, cards, or flowers?” This question is a reasonable proxy because many guessers I know seem to expect people to “just know” what sort of gifts are appropriate for them. Unfortunately, many guessers might not care that someone buys things for them with any regularity.
Another possibility is “Imagine that a friend asks you to read a short story they wrote. Unfortunately, you find it to be very boring. Which is closest to how you might respond when they ask you what you think of it?” I think that indirectly gets to the core of the ask vs. guess issue. Saying negative things is considered inappropriate to most guessers. Any other potential proxy questions?
You’re gonna lose at least 20% of the OKC population and a much larger chunk of the general population with the complexity of your sentence structure and the use of words like “infer”.
When you want something do you
[pollid:614]
And there’s another problem—the real answer will usually be “it depends on the situation”. So an even better question would be
How often do you drop hints about what you want, instead of asking directly?
[pollid:615]
(Even now, my real answer is “it depends on what system I think the person I am talking to uses”. I’m not sure ask/tell is actually a property attributable to individual people...it’s more a mode of group interaction)
This sounds like a feature, not a bug.
Not if you want the question to actually be accepted for use on the site.
Ah. For some reason I thought it was a freeform question to be put to those potentially interested. (I don’t actually know anything about OKC)
Why do you say that? Is there some sort of downside to less educated or less intelligent people understanding the question?
If you were just kidding, I would like to gently admonish you for making fun of a disadvantaged out-group...
Presumably the point of OKC questions is to find yourself a mate/partner/sex toy/etc. If you can filter out the stupidest part of OKC population right at the beginning, that’s a win.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with making fun of stupid people. And nerds. And a variety of ethnic groups. And pretty much everything.
That’s an odd view. I’m presuming that you would see something wrong with, say, a popular kid in high school who made a habit of beating up disabled kids. But you see absolutely nothing wrong if the same person doesn’t physically assault the kids but instead simply ridicules them publicly for being disabled? In both cases, it seems pretty clear that the bully is doing harm to the kids, although the nature of the harm differs.
Could you clarify what the morally relevant distinction is between these two situations, why causing one form of harm is bad and the other isn’t? It wouldn’t just be a distinction that makes the second option less bad than the first option; it would be a distinction that makes the second option not bad at all, if I take your words literally.
Or maybe I’m misinterpreting what you mean by “making fun”?
Yes, you do. I am not talking about power games, or domination/submission, or even simple malice.
The opposite of “making fun of X” is “taking X very, very seriously”. With a serious expression on one’s face, according to the instructions and forms carefully collected in a three-ring binder, while being conscious of one’s self-importance, and certainly not tolerating any deviation from the proper procedure or, God forbid, disrespect (of oneself, the proper procedure, and the three-ring binder).
They’ll still answer the question,..they’ll just answer it incorrectly and you’ll throw noise into your data. OKC has many questions which are more direct proxies for intelligence.
Which makes sense, since you’re reactionary in your politics, and political correctness is seen as a lefty thing. I think this particular lefty value is fairly easy to defend though:
Humor functions to ease tensions when everyone is in on the joke. Insults directed at an out-group who is not laughing and is hurt raises inter-group tensions. Discouraging members of your in group from insulting members of out groups is just a special case of encouraging cooperation over defection—something which is both pragmatic, and to me. intrinsically moral.
TL:DR it’s bad PR.
Exceptions exist. If you’re giving some sort of constructive criticism to an out-group, and your criticism takes the form of mildly insulting humor, that’s okay—because once again, you’re using humor as an outlet for tension rather than a conduit for it.
8-0 That’s news to me.
I think you’re a bit too hasty to equate humor and insults. They are quite different.
Humor also has more functions than just “ease tensions”.
And why should I care about PR?
I mean, this was just an offhand comment and not really a big deal, but you do really not think there’s something at least a little bit counterproductive about a forum like Lesswrong being disdainful towards members of the general population?
No, I don’t.
First, I am not a forum. Second, counterproductive in pursuit of which goal? And third, I don’t hold the general population in high regard.
? I was asking if you thought that the propagation of a certain dynamic between two cultures was unproductive. How is that related to whether or not you represent a forum?
The pursuit of good, humanity getting along together as a cohesive whole and being happy, etc
Why does that matter? You don’t have to hold someone in high regard to care about them.
“High regard” is a relative measure anyway, not an absolute one. It doesn’t make sense to hold the general population in “high regard” because the general population is by definition average, whereas “high regard” is by definition reserved for those who are above average.
Unless you meant “Regard” as “general concern for” …in which case I have no answer, since that’s a moral thing.
Because you start with me being disdainful and then switch to the issue of the forum being disdainful.
That’s pretty meaningless handwaving. Among other things, humanity has never been and does not look likely to become in the foreseeable future “a cohesive whole”. This is a good thing.
Because we are talking about “being disdainful” and “making fun of”. That’s not a discussion about caring, that’s a discussion about holding in high regard or not.
I am glad we agree :-P
I’d be interested to hear more about what your political views are. I, too, had gathered the impression from my interactions with you that you were at least reactionary-leaning.
I am not too fond of sticking labels onto myself. It’s probably easier to answer this question in negatives. I’m not a liberal in the contemporary American sense. I am not a conservative. I’m not a neo-reactionary, though I’m sympathetic to and tend to cheer their skewering of sacred cows. On the other hand I have absolutely no desire to return to the imagined past of enlightened monarchy, benevolent aristocracy, and firmly established social order.
I thought that’s what reaction is, essentially?...it seems “reactionary” as generally used refers to someone who counter-argues against prevailing ideas that are new and recently fashionable.
I wasn’t intending to imply that you cluster with moldbug or neo-reactionaries specifically.
“Reactionary” in the political context is primarily a derogatory term, usually meaning “a conservative I really don’t like”.
Not to mention that sacred cows are skewered by revolutionaries much MUCH more often than by conservatives :-)
that’s news to me. Reactionaries seem rather more self-consistent compared to conservatives.
It’s a matter of which sacred cows are being skewered—the old, established sacred cows or the young, upcoming, and popular ones.
There is no such thing as a young upcoming sacred cow. If it’s young and upcoming it’s not sacred.
I’m not so sure about that. The sacredness of an idea doesn’t come from its longevity, it comes from attachment to memes that make it immune to criticism; if there are already a lot of those memes floating around in a subculture, and if the binding criteria are loose or inconsistently applied, new sacred cows can evolve rather quickly.
Do you have any examples in mind? It may be that we just have different connotations and associations for the words “sacred cow”. I think the being a sacred cow implies more than just the social unacceptability of criticizing it, there must be, basically, a well-established tradition.
I’d rather not get into examples; too many of them are politically charged. But no, “sacred cow” doesn’t necessarily connote long-established tradition to me.
They’re probably more likely in association with long-established traditions, since there you don’t have to deal with a recent history of people challenging them. But an insular culture or a strong ideology can get past that hurdle.
Well, the view that homosexual relationships are just as acceptable as heterosexual relationships and that thus opposing gay marriage is evil, is an idea that has already managed to acquire sacred cow status despite not even being fully implemented yet.
Many of us have been implementing the acceptability of homosexual relationships for decades.
Um, civil unions, much less gay “marriage”, have only been around for just over a decade.
That’s true.
But in the last few years certain people on the Web have (ahem) reclaimed the term.
Right, but in the grandparent post Ishaan specifically said that moldbuggery is not what she means.
Okay, I should write a script or something preventing me from replying to a comment unless I’ve seen all of its ancestors, because just telling myself not to do so clearly doesn’t work. :-)
(“moldbuggery” is a great word)
I’d hedge in the ‘all the time’ and ‘never’ to include ‘nearly’ variants of each.
And I’d split the “Sometimes” into “Often” and “Rarely”, otherwise a supermajority of people would just pick the middle answer (and also, ISTM that “how often” questions on OKC usually have four possible answers).
Great comment. I think your latter question is excellent, though I’m not sure that “drop hints” is the best way to describe guessing. I’ll think about what might be better.
You could further simplify it to “How often do you directly ask for what you want?” -Almost Never, I hate asking for things, - Sometimes bla bla bla, - Almost always, clear communication bla bla bla
Also, some people take things really literally, so I’d take Luke_A_Somers’ advice and add the “almost” hedges
Possibly insurmountable problem is that loads of people want to think that they are Tell or at least Ask but in practice they are actually Guess and you have no way of filtering for this. In my experience people are extremely bad at knowing “how they are” relative to other people.
Perhaps the questions should give concrete scenarios. Something like
and
I suspect this works best if you avoid priming the test subjects on what they’re going to be tested on, otherwise I think they will expend effort to seem extra-reasonable contra their natural impulse.
But, yes, good idea, I was way too quick to call it an insurmountable problem.
I would use “Do you prefer to explain everything you want to your partner explicitly, or do you prefer that they infer some of your desires from your implicit suggestions?” as well as “Is it OK to turn down an explicit request by your partner if you’re capable of fulfilling it but you don’t want to?”
I might also use the reversed versions: “Do you prefer to have everything explained to you explicitly, or do you prefer some things be left for you to infer from context?” and “Is it OK for your partner to turn down your explicit request if they’re capable of fulfilling it but don’t want to?”
I think you might need both variants because if I were to answer such questions, the response would not necessarily be symmetrical;
Is it OK to turn down an explicit request by your partner if you’re capable of fulfilling it but you don’t want to? - Not at all
Is it OK for your partner to turn down your explicit request if they’re capable of fulfilling it but don’t want to? - Of course
(assuming reasonable requests)
Postel Culture FTW! ;-)
(nods) That’s why I mentioned them; I think that kind of assymetry is common for a lot of people, especially those who were raised in a high-context (aka “Guess”) culture but then migrated to a low-context (aka “Ask”) culture.
I think you are making assumptions that might be hard justify:
-people have the self-knowledge to answer this question effectively -people are not gaming the answer to seem appealing -people can accurately identify their preferences about what type of communication style works for them
Don’t mean to sound like a downer—I’m glad some people take this seriously. I think trying to produce questions like these is a good idea, I’m trying to point out some potential flaws to help.
I appreciate the help. These assumptions can be problematic, but they are problems for all online dating, not my specific question. In my experience, OkCupid question responses are not always accurate, but they are more than accurate enough to be useful.
I think what happens to be guessing depends a lot on the understanding that you have between two people.
I don’t really think in terms of acting in a way that get’s another person to take a specific action. I focus more on giving the person all relevant information and expect the other person to take the action that maximizes utility.
If I ask Alice to dance Salsa and she needs a break I don’t want Alice to come dancing with me. I want Alice to act according to her feelings and take the break. I can ask Carol who might actually want to dance at that moment and ask Alice later. I can also spent some time meditating if there no woman who wants to dance at a particular moment around. I’m not attached to a particular action of another person.
On the other hand if the person doesn’t engage in an action that maximizes utility to make a point of signaling status or to punish that can annoy me.
Depending on how well I know the position of the other person and how well I know what’s right for myself I might just say what I feel or I might be very explicit about a possible solution.
Shyness can also hold me back from sharing certain information. It can be hard to articulate deep feelings in an environment where that’s not normal behavior. I’m still quite bad at talking about feelings in a Salsa environment where I might ask a woman to dance very directly but rely a lot on nonverbal signs to regulate the level of intimacy of a dance. Openly saying something to an attractive woman like: “It feels a bit strange when you dance closely with me because you are tense and don’t relax the way I would expect you to if you enjoy dancing close.” is very hard.
If you hear me talk with my meditation teacher you probably would not understand what’s said because the conversation heavily relies on implicit assumptions. On the other hand I have a hard time calling it guess culture because we both understand each other perfectly well.
The whole idea of guessing assumes that there’s doubt whether the other person understands the point you want to make.
I think part of having a good intimate relationship with another person is that you have a good idea of what the other person wants without them saying so explicitly. On the other hand having a good intimate relationship also means that you can explicitly communicate your desires in cases where the other person doesn’t pick them up on their own.
I think both of the question you mention tell you something about the other person. The goal of a good question isn’t to be without bias but to provide a clear signal. Someone who says that they prefer to mention something related and expect the other person to infer what they want is a clear guess culture person in every sense of the word.
This is more accurately described as the difference between high context and low context cultures. This might actually be some sort of precursor to ask vs. guess culture.
Ask this: “Name some things your partner can do to make you feel appreciated.” If the person answers the question at all and does so in a useful way, that should tell you something about their communication style.
That would be a good way to determine someone’s communication style, but unfortunately that question is too open ended for OkCupid. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the site. “Questions” on there refer to a set of questions with specific answers, exactly like those in this comment.
Ah, I see. So we’re looking for a multiple choice question to test whether someone is willing to volunteer unsolicited information.