If you offend people by making requests or asking questions that they respond poorly to, you stand to lose social capital. It’s advantageous not to be offended by others’ requests or questions, but not necessarily to assume that others will be receptive to yours.
So you’re suggesting one should always use ask culture in response to questions, but being careful about which culture you use when asking questions?
That sounds like a decent strategy overall. However, from the descriptions people have been giving it seems to me that you aren’t supposed to refuse requests in guess culture (that’s why it’s offensive to make a request someone doesn’t want to agree to).
Now, I’m probably both biased personally against guess culture and being influenced by other people who are more on the ask side describing it here, but it seems to me that guess culture is sustained solely by forcing all participants to participate in all phases. Rather like the hypothetical society where one rule is that everyone has to cooperate to kill anyone who breaks a rule, including this one. As far as I can tell the only way to contribute to breaking it would be to either think carefully about which one you’re in at all times, or explain the concept to everyone who you interact with so you can ask them about it.
I’m not seeing how that relates to “accidental defections”.
From my perspective the gains I’ve obtained by asking for what I wanted, instead of waiting for others to guess what I wanted (and losing through not asking), have largely outweighed the social losses (that I’ve been able to perceive) from the occasions where my request was received poorly.
A guesser is not limited to waiting for others to guess what they want, but they will not ask until they have guessed that the request would be well received.
The relative advantages of each depend on the culture in which they’re operating. If you’re in a strongly guess-oriented culture, being an asker would be very disadvantageous, whereas in an ask-oriented culture, it would be disadvantageous to be a guesser.
in an ask-oriented culture, it would be disadvantageous to be a guesser.
It would be disadvantageous to “be a guesser” in the sense of feeling obligated to guess instead of ask, but applying some guessing can be advantageous in an ask culture. By avoiding asking people questions when the answers would make them uncomfortable (no I don’t want to pick you up at the airport, no you can’t come to the party) you are more pleasant to be around.
If you offend people by making requests or asking questions that they respond poorly to, you stand to lose social capital. It’s advantageous not to be offended by others’ requests or questions, but not necessarily to assume that others will be receptive to yours.
So you’re suggesting one should always use ask culture in response to questions, but being careful about which culture you use when asking questions? That sounds like a decent strategy overall. However, from the descriptions people have been giving it seems to me that you aren’t supposed to refuse requests in guess culture (that’s why it’s offensive to make a request someone doesn’t want to agree to).
Now, I’m probably both biased personally against guess culture and being influenced by other people who are more on the ask side describing it here, but it seems to me that guess culture is sustained solely by forcing all participants to participate in all phases. Rather like the hypothetical society where one rule is that everyone has to cooperate to kill anyone who breaks a rule, including this one. As far as I can tell the only way to contribute to breaking it would be to either think carefully about which one you’re in at all times, or explain the concept to everyone who you interact with so you can ask them about it.
I’m not seeing how that relates to “accidental defections”.
From my perspective the gains I’ve obtained by asking for what I wanted, instead of waiting for others to guess what I wanted (and losing through not asking), have largely outweighed the social losses (that I’ve been able to perceive) from the occasions where my request was received poorly.
A guesser is not limited to waiting for others to guess what they want, but they will not ask until they have guessed that the request would be well received.
The relative advantages of each depend on the culture in which they’re operating. If you’re in a strongly guess-oriented culture, being an asker would be very disadvantageous, whereas in an ask-oriented culture, it would be disadvantageous to be a guesser.
It would be disadvantageous to “be a guesser” in the sense of feeling obligated to guess instead of ask, but applying some guessing can be advantageous in an ask culture. By avoiding asking people questions when the answers would make them uncomfortable (no I don’t want to pick you up at the airport, no you can’t come to the party) you are more pleasant to be around.