Conversations almost never end when both parties want them to: study | Hacker News Reader

Conversations almost never end when both parties want them to: study

scientificamerican.com

125 pointscurmudgeon2272 comments

A married couple was in a car when the wife turned to her husband and asked, "Would you like to stop for a coffee?"

"No, thanks," he answered truthfully. So they didn't stop.

The result? The wife, who had indeed wanted to stop, became annoyed because she felt her preference had not been considered. The husband, seeing his wife was angry, became frustrated. Why didn't she just say what she wanted?

Unfortunately, he failed to see that his wife was asking the question not to get an instant decision, but to begin a negotiation. And the woman didn't realize that when her husband said no, he was just expressing his preference, not making a ruling. When a man and woman interpret the same interchange in such conflicting ways, it's no wonder they can find themselves leveling angry charges of selfishness and obstinacy at each other.

As a specialist in linguistics, I have studied how the conversational styles of men and women differ. We cannot lump all men or all women into fixed categories. But the seemingly senseless misunderstandings that haunt our relationships can in part be explained by the different conversational rules by which men and women play.

-- Deborah Tannen

"Can't We Talk?" (condensed from: You Just Don't Understand)

https://web.archive.org/web/20090707084209/http://raysweb.ne...

> can in part be explained by the different conversational rules by which men and women play

Does the same kind of conversation happen in gay relationships as well? Because I think the 'men are like this and women like that' thing is kinda contrived and I bet that it has less to do with gender, but with some kind of power dynamic and the closeness of romantic relationships.

Edit: As a small experiment: Whenever you read some article about advice for men or women specifically, try to substitute it with a power relationship: the person with more power or the person with less power. I think this makes a lot more sense in many ways. Note though that power can change in an instant depending on the circumstances.

It's about culture, and this kind of miscommunication occurs in any cross-cultural talk. Even within a culture, men and women speak differently, as do old/young, rich/poor, and other discriminators.

So yes, it does happen in gay relationships. Perhaps not quite as frequently in straight ones, because one dimension of difference has been removed, but there are lots of others.

The book cited above is far more scholarly and insightful than the usual run of "Men are like X/Women are like Y" pop-culture books. Dr. Tannen is a linguist at Georgetown specializing in cross-cultural communication. This particular one is targeted at a general audience rather than an academic one, but it avoids a lot of the chauvinist pitfalls that similar books run into.

So it doesn't make sweeping generalizations along the lines of "Women are like that". It does point out that in many white American cultures women are taught to speak more indirectly, as in the example cited above, but it's not trying to impart the lesson that all women speak that way. Rather, it's about recognizing that everybody has different conventions and you need to be looking out for them, because what seems obvious to you will be very different from what seems obvious to them. Gender lines are just one dimension of that.

Dr. Tannen has written a number of books on various cultural speech differences, though this one about men and women in the US was particularly helpful to me.

>the person with more power or the person with less power.

Or more accurately, the hardtalking pushy one full of bravado and the sensitive one that communicates in implications and minute expressions. If you're full enough of bravado, everyone you meet will be comparatively sensitive irrespective of gender. If you're sensitive enough everyone you meet will seem bossy. Just look at those Meyers-Briggs subreddits for the, uhh, I forget which ones correspond to this, but they're full of people complaining about how virtually everyone they meet is trying to steamroll them.

This is also known as 'ask culture' and 'guess culture'

> Does the same kind of conversation happen in gay relationships as well?

Oh, certainly.

I don't think the paragraph quoted was implying that all men and all women converse in this way, merely that in the author's experience they tend to.

Probably if you divided the data further, by sexual orientation and upbringing, cultural background, and power-relationships you could find more nuanced distinctions, although probably recognizing such conversational styles is already so subjective that trying to divide the groups finely would lead to their being no more observable differences.

I think that there are some average conversational differences based on gender, although the bell curves are probably so overlapping that it's almost meaningless to try and apply it to any individual case.

> Whenever you read some article about advice for men or women specifically, try to substitute it with a power relationship: the person with more power or the person with less power.

I don't think this particular example is about the power dynamic. if I ask my boss "do you want...?" I really am just asking what their preference is. if I'm asking for something I want, I will ask "could we ...?" or "do you mind if I...?".

from my perspective, it takes a lot of inference to interpret "do you want...?" as a request rather than a literal query.

This happens enough in my relationship that I’ve got a standard response for it:

Her: “Do you want to stop for coffee?”

Me: “Do YOU want to stop for coffee?”

Not revolutionary or anything, it was one of the first linguistic quirks we discovered.

But don't you already know the answer to that question, since that's how she talks? Seems like you could just say "Yes", "No, but we can get coffee if you want." or "No, I'd rather not stop."

Well, yes, of course. The point is to get her to actually ask.

But why insist that she asks directly? If you already understand that's what she wants?

As a sibling comment suggests, this seems like a power move.

In my case, at least, I try to get more direct statements even when I understand the intent, to hopefully reduce misunderstandings in situations where I fail to pick up on the real intent

By all means, take a different tact in your own marriage. This just works for us.

Yes it is a move of insisting that his wife take more power. I think it is very noble.

The commenter's wife is not a child.

She has communicated her wish in a way which is already clearly understood. I don't understand why that is deemed insufficient communication.

So, she gets a mild reproach if she makes an indirect ask.

I wonder, what reaction does she get whenever she makes a direct ask? (Not necessarily in this situation, but also in other and past experiences in her life)

Not OP, but: When I notice my wife indirectly advocating for something in a way that I barely pick up on, I try to let her know that it would be appreciated if she'd ask more directly.

Why? Because it lightens my cognitive load, and lessens the chances that I'm missing other times that she's expressing a preference. And, besides, she is smart and deserves to be heard, and I know other people (men) are not listening as carefully for these cues as I am.

It's also "hilarious" when things go wrong the other way, and I interpret something that's just meant to be a question about preference as a serious ask to do something.

Can we just agree neither of them are children and they're fine to communicate how they see fit - It's their marriage?

You can't boil other folk's relationships down to your preferences, and what you're expressing here feels a lot more like personal projection than anything that OP said.

This is also indicative of a divide that my family has been trying to work on recognizing in ourselves recently: that between "Ask Culture" and "Guess Culture". This isn't a perfect example of it, but I believe it falls into the category.

"Ask Culture" is all about being direct, straightforward, and generally fairly literal. The husband is demonstrating this when he simply answers the question his wife asks.

"Guess Culture" is exemplified by indirect ways of communicating information, commonly to avoid risking giving offense. The wife is demonstrating it when she attempts to use her question to her husband as a roundabout way of indicating her own desires.

These aren't gendered in any significant way. To some extent, they're regionalized, but in my experience they're also very much a product of one's particular family/friend groups—and, to further confuse the issue, they're not entirely binary, as individuals can be very "ask" in one context but "guess" in another, generally switching subconsciously.

"Ask vs. Guess Culture" is something everyone should read about!

https://www.google.com/search?q=ask+vs+guess+culture

Another thing to notice here is the author being much more lenient on the woman in the story than the man.

The man FAILED, couldn't deliver, while the woman merely didn't realize, made a misunderstanding.

Communication is hard.

Also why didn't she follow up with "well, I do" and see what would happen? Is it better to shut up and blame communication style? Is shutting your mouth and getting angry a communication style?

When the wife believes that you've deliberately declared that no, she can't have coffee, seemingly the only choice available is to escalate to a dispute.

A fairly big part of the population, mostly female, are taught to be unassuming and meek-- to indirectly ask, to accept the decisions of others, not rock the boat, etc. If you spend your youth in this mode, it becomes something that's difficult to overcome as an adult.

Let’s stop training children this way, shall we?

Talk about setting kids up for failure: train them to never actually ask for what they want. And then they can look forward to a lifetime of bad relationships and never earning as much as the people who do ask for what they want.

it's entirely possible to be submissive and literal at the same time. compare "I deserve a bigger raise" with "I do appreciate the raise I was given, but in light of my contributions to XYZ this year, I was expecting a little more. could you please consider increasing it?". the second is still an unmistakable request but is deferential and does not imply that the decision maker was wrong.

As someone who could probably be categorized as a guesser, I would feel incredibly pushy if I answered "well, I do" in this situation.

Askers should take notice. "Would you like to stop for a coffee?" is an entirely different question than "Would you like to stop for a coffee?". I don't see where the confusion is. (/s)

Sadly, yes.

Is it flaming if I point out you're probably not American while being one?

Spot on, I've never been to that side of the pond, mate :P

You might be coloring that one with your own perspective. "Failed to realize" and "Didn't see" both parse with the same emotional connotation for me personally.

This is your own bias.

"Failed to see" and "Didn't realize" are both equivalent statements. The author simply didn't want to repeat the same words twice, because they know how to write.

In linguistics, these kinds of implicatures (e.g. Can you pass the salt?) are called pragmatics. Sometimes people like to play dumb but with rare exception they do understand what is being implied. This can be irritating.

Thanks for this example! It’s interesting to compare these two questions:

- “Can you pass the salt?”

- “Would you like to stop for coffee?”

Neither is explicitly a direct request, but somehow the salt one is more clear than the other —- for me. It just shows how different social conventions and expectations can play into one’s understanding.

> Neither is explicitly a direct request, but somehow the salt one is more clear than the other —- for me. It just shows how different social conventions and expectations can play into one’s understanding.

The difference is that for the second one the literal interpretation is not an unreasonable question whereas for the first, the fact that you can pass the salt should be given.

How can you interpret "No, thanks" as a ruling? Doesn't the thanks part imply you're rejecting an offer, not refusing a request?

I'm amazed that this article fails to consider an obvious explanation for conversations going past when either party wants them to end-- politeness. It happens that I care about the other guy and he may care about me. Therefore, to end a conversation I need to want it to end AND I need to give the other guy a chance to SIGNAL that he wants it to continue. He may or may not give that signal, but I have to provide that opportunity. If he is using the same strategy, then of course the conversation will go beyond the point either of us "wanted" it to go, because both of us are giving the energy time to wind down. But that's not really a problem... it's the outcome of a heuristic for having a polite conversation.

Seems like this article is a covert way of complaining that "hell is other people."

The article seems to me to deliberately avoid coming up with an explanation, it’s mostly about the effect itself. There’s a paragraph at the end about the possibility of studying cultural cues and other such factors which would aim at coming up with an explanation

Maybe not the study, but the article's title is pretty strongly hinting that most people are clueless idiots who ramble without any regard to their surroundings ("don't know when to shut up").

Whereas it's possible you or the other person know exactly when to shut up, but are just trying to politely engage or wind things down.

For example, I don't like most small talk and wish it never existed and people got straight to the point with a shorter conversation. But it's a fact of life and I accept that some time will be wasted since it's a "polite thing to do".

Wow interesting, the initial "strong hint" that I got from the title was that most people are too polite to draw a conversation to a close.

I guess we truly do bring our biases into intepretation of ambiguities!

How did you get "people are polite" from an article titled, "people literally don't know when to shut up"?

Talking has different functions; it's not just a mean to deliver a message.

If we want to be technical, one could imagine small talk as the handshake (and/or the keepalive) of human/social/emotional connection.

I believe that people who display an aversion in line of principle to small talk, have difficulties to communicate with people in general.

small talk is a whole spectrum depending on which society you live in.

what is seen as supportive and caring in one group, may in other societies be read as a pathetic display of insecurity via compulsive constant reassurance that things are still OK.

I have lived among both groups and one of the hardest things was/is the transition from one to the other (every couple of years - I move a lot).

For sake of illustration here is how it effects me (slightly exaggerated for purpose of showing the contrast): When I live among "rude" continental Europeans (or Chinese/Koreans/Singaporeans) I'm outraged at my environment for not constantly being kind to strangers. And when I live in places dominated by "uppety" native-English expats or in English speaking countries the constant fake/inauthentic display of caring for each other makes my skin crawl.

In my case I will always get sick quickly of whatever my current surrounding is and I start missing the other group. I personally think this is a generalization:

> people who display an aversion in line of principle to small talk, have difficulties to communicate with people in general.

Having grown up in a "rude" society I had to work hard to shed this behavior in order to thrive in my new surrounding. When switching back to my origins I end up resenting them for being vile, uncultured or "asocial". It took me a couple of decades and learning not to take either society/customs too personal. But to me it's always more emotional effort to ignore noise than it is to deal with the silence (or lack of manners).

Tries to make massive judgemental claims, doesn't account for basics.

How about relative social position of the 2 people to begin with, where is that taken into account?

CEO talking to a junior employee who do you think decides when the conversation ends and how long it's going to be?

Entrepreneur pitching to a hotshot VC at a packed conference. Who decides when the conversation ends?

Context, power dynamic and bunch of other things determine how long the conversation goes on.

Keeping a conversation on or not is a social signal of interest - it means I am ready to give you my time (or not) - which itself is communication.

There is more nuance than asking 2 parties if the conversation ended at the right time and then proclaiming, "People don't know when to stop talking".

It's extremely context-dependent in other ways as well. For example, I get this with my brother and used to get it with my mother on the phone but not otherwise. They just hate to hang up. And yes, it became truly comical on calls between the two of them. I get a similar thing in online chats with most people. I get it with my wife, in person, on certain topics but not otherwise. If she starts talking about COVID statistics, I know I'm stuck for at least ten minutes unless I'm willing to have her pissed at me the rest of the day for cutting it short. Topic, medium, relationship, and even external context all affect this.

The question I would ask here is: why would we expect people to want to end a conversation at the same time? The article presents this as some sort of failed communication, but maybe an exact match is just naturally unlikely.

> CEO talking to a junior employee who do you think decides when the conversation ends and how long it's going to be?

"glad we talked, but I ought to get back to {work task}." they can overrule you if they still have something important to say, but I haven't met an executive who objected to this one.

True, but, there are only a limited number of specific things the junior can say and not upset the balance.

Whereas the CEO can just casually pickup a call, break conversation and walk away.

Presumably the subjects in the study had no prior relationship so hierarchical structure shouldn’t have played a significant role.

I often find that when talking to other slightly autistic people like me the conversation goes on for far too long and we just can't end it. I often find myself making yet another utterance while there's a voice in my head telling me to shut the fuck up because this is tiring. I can tell the same voice is in the head of my conversation partner too---I know it's time to stop and so do they---but we just keep going. It makes me completely avoid starting conversations with these people after I recognise the problem.

I had a housemate who just couldn't stop. As far as I can tell if he met his clone they would talk until one of them died. Literally the only way to end the conversation is just to walk out of the room and don't stop for any reason whatsoever. I fully believe that he knew it was awkward to keep a conversation going when the other person has physically left the room, is halfway up the stairs and trying to leave, but he just couldn't.

If this sounds like you then try really, really hard to stop it because people will learn to avoid you and that would be a shame.

Had to laugh at this since it resonates with many pointless conversations I seem to feel trapped in. Why can't people just say Hi and keep on moving?

No need to reply, btw. :)

Having had autistic friends for almost my whole life, I learned that it is useful and appropriate to be direct. For example, I have many times said "I'm going to go now" or something to that effect, because it's possible to recognise that conversations do not always have a natural end.

Introduce delays: Let me think a bit. Hmm. Interesting. I will respond tomorrow.

“Psychology is just now waking up to the fact that this is a really interesting and fundamental social behavior.

This hasn't been studied before? Studying turn-taking in conversation is a recognized field of study.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_analysis#Turn-tak...

But what's discussed here isn't turn-taking, but the fact that conversations tend to wrap up usually well after both parties would rather they end, but also sometimes even when both parties would rather see it continue.

Studying turn-taking would include collecting the data needed to study conversation ending, so that should have been analyzed too.

Studying turn taking doesn't mean you asked people whether they'd prefer to talk more, or gave people an open-ended amount of time to talk.

Lots of aspects of human psychology and behaviour are not yet well understood. It's a very complex topic!

I always find it weird that people feel compelled to talk to the very end of a scheduled meeting. 30 minutes or one hour is exactly the amount of time you needed to cover the discussion topic? What a coincidence!

On the other hand, I also get strange reactions when I end meetings early. "Well, that's all I had to say. Talk to you later!"

I'll just keep talking until the person gives up. I usually don't have anything else to do. Your move, bucko.

Yes, I’ve long since accepted my conversation addiction.

I've noticed that some people I communicate with over chat have developed habit of actively scuttling my attempts to end chat conversations by dropping ever increasing clickbait headline / tweet style messages. It pulls me back in for a couple messages, or another 20 minutes of chatting, but it's burning me out on these chat apps.

Interesting, I've never seen that. I'm genuinely curious, do you have an example?

"Ahh yeah sorry nevermind. I can work on this myself. <person known to upset me> will be presenting right before me but I'm pretty sure my presentation will blow theirs out of the water."

This is an overly simplified and contrived example. Like I said it's more likely to occur during a longer conversation, not in a quick ping for help like that. It's also typically much more subtle, and it takes many different shapes and sizes. I noticed it got more extreme the higher my position became.

For it to be effective, it requires a lot of knowledge about a person's likes, dislikes, hot buttons, etc.

Ask HN: how old were you when you started noticing this? It took me far too long to develop meta-conversational awareness. I must have been in my 20s before I picked up on it.

It feels like a superpower in some ways.

Last year I was thinking about this (I am 26). I came up with the term meta-communication for this (I did feel like a genius for moment), and then I googled it, and found out it actually has been studied by others for a long time.

I have been aware of the phenomenon since I was a teenager. I have no idea if I am accurately aware.

I'd be curious to see what the percentage of conversations were where at least one of the interlocutors didn't want to be in it for any duration.

Note the "it went too long" evaluations were retrospective. I wonder what was thought during the conversations?

For illustration, there's a lot of interest around MIT in improving science and engineering education. A cell biology education VR project, obtaining domain expertise by pulling in researchers for interviews, reported a recurring challenge... of getting them to stop and leave. That fits TFA.

But I've had many similar conversations, as I use them for motivation, idea generation and exploration. And in order to reduce harm, I've had to adopt a practice, of asking early on, when do you want to make sure this conversation is over by. Because one interesting richly-interconnected topic easily leads to another. Even as I physically drift myself out the door, and otherwise nudge people towards wrapping up and getting back to their life. Else people risk missing flights, get calls from impatient spouses, and fail to finish work they'd intended to get done. The conversations are wonderful.* But maintaining conversation cost awareness can seemingly be a challenge.

* Before covid... a year ago now. If anyone can think of another setting for such conversations, I'd really love to find one.

I participated in a similar study (same data collection method, results not yet published) and I think I was in one of the 10% of conversations where both participants didn’t want it to end. My only regret is that I didn’t get the other participants number!

Object cause of desire and subjectivity is part of analytic philosophy and if one is interested in this topic Lacan, Hegel, Zupančič, Zizek, Dolar and Agamben are useful and, for example the book Sex and the Failed Absolute (Zizek) is a beautifully structured argument connecting quantum physics (mobius, cross cap, klein bottle) to the incompleteness of human subjectivity and the structure of desire.

I’ve noticed this personally as much more pronounced when online—-chat, text—-where other social clues are not present. I don’t believe this is anything new.

This suggests to me the idea that text based conversations give us the volume of materials to analyze.

But even that can’t be the whole story. So. What else makes this interesting or timely research now?

Clubhouse?

"What am I going to say?...that my wife two times me?"

"Shut up, you're always talking"

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