Questions in humans often involve some kind of status interaction. A question is not only (or even always) a request for information but often also represents an offer to trade status for information.
(I realise that this is focusing on a very narrow sub-field of the question asked but you did ask for unusual framings!)
In a canonical case of requesting unknown information, the asker is lowering his status relative to the askee in trade for the information. The act of asking implies that, at least in this area, the askee has superior knowledge to the asker, thus increasing the askee’s prestige. In doing so it provides a trade to the askee for an answer.
This status transfer is often the reason that questions go unasked. The common refrain “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” is there to try to overcome this reluctance to ask by lowering the status tax on question asking. I often tell new starts at my work to ask as many questions as possible in the first 6 months because you’ll feel less silly during this period (i.e. the status tax is lower as expectations of your knowledge are lower). Asking questions after that will be necessary but it will be emotionally more costly as time goes on. One weighs up (not necessarily consciously) whether the information required justifies the expenditure of status.
One obvious result is a preference to ask questions in a smaller group so that the asker’s status is lowered in fewer people’s opinions. Of course this is reversed if the question is really an excuse to show off one’s own intelligence!
Similarly, one is tempted to search for information without making it obvious that you are asking a question thereby maintaining plausible deniability.
Questions generally being low status can be used to your advantage. In general you won’t tell your boss if he’s wrong but you might ask a question obliquely which might make him consider for himself that he might be wrong. If this works then you can correct his mistake without threatening his status (Caution: use with care!).
A manager might also use questions to correct an employee in order to be less status threatening to the employee.
I feel like questions in humans can’t be fully understood without some form of status interaction.
Meta Note
Having the question feature on LessWrong is interesting as it emphasizes that question asking is not a low status activity on the site. The potential issue is that askees might not feel like spending the time to answer a question provides sufficient reward. If this is overcome then I think the Q&A feature would count as a positive sum status interaction (at least on a status adaptation level).
I think responders need to be careful to avoid putting the status tax back on asking questions (e.g. by implying the question is stupid or the answer is obvious). I realise the need to distinguish good and bad questions (for clarity, I would include this question in the former) but I would prefer this to be done via moderation policy.
The issue with the status tax is that it optimises for whether an individual needs the information rather than whether it is a generally good question. For example, if a question is something that alot of people are interested in but no individual really desperately needs to know then the status tax makes it less likely to be asked. A good moderation policy should be able to encourage such questions.
(I’ve often had the experience that when someone finally overcomes their reluctance to pay the status tax and asks a question suddenly everyone says that they were wanting to ask that too—I wonder how often such questions just don’t get asked).
Questions in humans often involve some kind of status interaction. A question is not only (or even always) a request for information but often also represents an offer to trade status for information.
(I realise that this is focusing on a very narrow sub-field of the question asked but you did ask for unusual framings!)
In a canonical case of requesting unknown information, the asker is lowering his status relative to the askee in trade for the information. The act of asking implies that, at least in this area, the askee has superior knowledge to the asker, thus increasing the askee’s prestige. In doing so it provides a trade to the askee for an answer.
This status transfer is often the reason that questions go unasked. The common refrain “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” is there to try to overcome this reluctance to ask by lowering the status tax on question asking. I often tell new starts at my work to ask as many questions as possible in the first 6 months because you’ll feel less silly during this period (i.e. the status tax is lower as expectations of your knowledge are lower). Asking questions after that will be necessary but it will be emotionally more costly as time goes on. One weighs up (not necessarily consciously) whether the information required justifies the expenditure of status.
One obvious result is a preference to ask questions in a smaller group so that the asker’s status is lowered in fewer people’s opinions. Of course this is reversed if the question is really an excuse to show off one’s own intelligence!
Similarly, one is tempted to search for information without making it obvious that you are asking a question thereby maintaining plausible deniability.
Questions generally being low status can be used to your advantage. In general you won’t tell your boss if he’s wrong but you might ask a question obliquely which might make him consider for himself that he might be wrong. If this works then you can correct his mistake without threatening his status (Caution: use with care!).
A manager might also use questions to correct an employee in order to be less status threatening to the employee.
I feel like questions in humans can’t be fully understood without some form of status interaction.
Meta Note
Having the question feature on LessWrong is interesting as it emphasizes that question asking is not a low status activity on the site. The potential issue is that askees might not feel like spending the time to answer a question provides sufficient reward. If this is overcome then I think the Q&A feature would count as a positive sum status interaction (at least on a status adaptation level).
I think responders need to be careful to avoid putting the status tax back on asking questions (e.g. by implying the question is stupid or the answer is obvious). I realise the need to distinguish good and bad questions (for clarity, I would include this question in the former) but I would prefer this to be done via moderation policy.
The issue with the status tax is that it optimises for whether an individual needs the information rather than whether it is a generally good question. For example, if a question is something that alot of people are interested in but no individual really desperately needs to know then the status tax makes it less likely to be asked. A good moderation policy should be able to encourage such questions.
(I’ve often had the experience that when someone finally overcomes their reluctance to pay the status tax and asks a question suddenly everyone says that they were wanting to ask that too—I wonder how often such questions just don’t get asked).