I wonder how much it's about individual family background and not strongly regional?
I said this down the thread but my experience (grew up in the south) has always been that Southerners are very up-front about trying to meet your needs before you can even ask for them. That was always how I was taught to host, anyway.
And I think that weirdly, that's more aligned with Guess culture: the person who needs something should never have to ask for it.
As a southerner, I don't agree. It's split by the directionality of the request. And I think that's what makes southern culture distinct.
We'd never "ask" when we're the guest, only when we're the host. "Ask"-y guests are considered rude. "Guess"-y hosts are considered unwelcoming and inhospitable.
You can "ask" a stranger how they're doing or if they need anything, but you don't impose upon them. It's often common to strike up conversations this way.
It's a directionality. "Ask" when you're the giver, "guess" when you're the receiver.
You always hold the door. You don't ask for someone to do it for you, but you probably feel miffed if they don't, because it's expected that everyone extends each other courtesy.
"Southern hospitality".
Just a guess but could be that attitude has lots more to do with how many are poor or not and how many generations they've been poor, or lived in cities, like a lag time sorta thing. Nothing I really know about just sharing because it might be interesting even if wrong
"yall doin okay?"
Speaking as a Southerner, this sentence is so on point.
This is jarring to people who cannot receive a no, or who cannot articulate one.
This is abstract, but stay with me here
I'm also Southern, and I think that the inclination towards that kind of belligerent helpfulness comes from trying to figure out what your guests want, and making sure they don't have to ask you for anything.
in my experience the response is "we're all good out here, but thank you!" -- which is classic Guess culture
In my own experience, I once had an obnoxious colleague who asked "How was your weekend?". I didn't like the question because one, I don't like to talk about what I do / did in my spare time, and two, it was leading because the guy was really really eager to talk about HIS weekend, but... I didn't care, or else I would've asked.
If it's said as a greeting, "how y'all doing?" usually means "how are your family?," which also tends to be meant very genuinely.
Even outside of a host-guest dynamic, I do think Southerners tend to care more about pleasantries; when they ask about your weekend, they're a little more likely to really want to know.
Of course, this is all very broad strokes based on anecdotal experience. Plenty of cold/self-aggrandizing jerks in the South, too!
The upper classes of the Deep South, where people are very religious and often call folks "Mr./Mizz. First Name" as a mark of both respect and familiarity at the same time, seem to skew Guess culture. But then the upper classes generally seem to skew Guess culture.
The South is also a place where people are more likely to own guns and join the military. Military culture is mostly Ask culture. They tend to be very direct and some people find this refreshing/no BS and others find it rude, crude and socially unacceptable if you are influenced by that.
Working class stiffs in the South may be more influenced by the very direct Ask culture of the American military.
So it's probably a lot more complex than regional cultures.
Just that there are variances across the region and those are some influences I know of.