I was relaxing at the beach with a handful of other tourists watching the sunset. There was a guy nearby, busking, playing the guitar with incredible skill. He was so good I kept glancing at him. After he finished, I just had to go there to thank him for the performance. He looked at me, surprised, “So you liked it? It was my first time busking. I was so nervous when I saw you looking my way, and I thought that you must think my performance sucked. Thank you so much for coming over!”
Have you ever been in a similar situation, but on the other end? Did you think that you knew what another person was going through, but it turned out that you had a completely wrong idea of what was really going on? To take another example, imagine your coworker didn’t get a promotion she was in line for. You instantly think that she must be feeling devastated and disappointed, so you invite her for a coffee. When you two meet and talk about the promotion, you expect her to express sadness, but instead, she is relieved—it turns out she didn’t even want the promotion because she was perfectly happy with the responsibilities of the current job position.
Every person is unique and has a unique point of view. It’s human nature to assume much too easily that we understand what others think and feel when actually we are wrong most of the time. Studies have shown that when we take the perspective of others, we often do a poor job. Especially, the less time we have to paint a clear picture of how the other person is feeling, the more this picture will be egocentric—we rely too heavily on our perspective of things.
This idea suggests that, for instance, you think your significant other is very happy and feels all your love because you feel that you’re giving him or her all the love in the world. However, you are just assuming, and in reality, it may not be true.
By thinking your emotions are clear to your partner, you’re making another mistake. Research shows that we often believe our feelings are more apparent than they actually are.
There are two different assumptions you need to counter. First, that you probably don’t know how others feel and think, and second, that you possibly don’t show your feelings and thoughts to others as clearly as you think you do. We know ourselves only from the inside and others only from the outside. That is why you must learn how to communicate effectively. Try to be present in the moment. Believe it or not, one of Hemingway’s pieces of advice to aspiring authors was, “Listen now. When people talk, listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say.”
Another technique you can use is to continue the conversation by asking questions, which will help you thoroughly analyze the situation. For instance, you can ask the other person, “When did you start feeling like this? What can I do to get you in a better mood?”
There are two types of questions we can use to ask for more details. Open questions (like in the example above) will give you more accurate information but less overall detail than specific closed questions, which allow the receiver to select between two answers, like yes and no (e.g., Do you feel this way all the time?). If you really want to understand the other person, start with open questions to more accurately understand the situation, and then follow up with more specific closed questions to clarify what is yet unknown. Don’t just assume what the other person thinks, but listen and ask to obtain a fuller picture instead.
References:
Hargie, O. (2006). The handbook of communication skills. (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Nickerson, R. S. (1999). How we know—and sometimes misjudge—what others know: Imputing one’s own knowledge to others. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 737–759.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.125.6.737
Studies have shown that when we take: Epley, N., Keysar, B., Van Boven, L., & Gilovich, T. (2004). Perspective taking as egocentric anchoring and adjustment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(3), 327–339. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.3.327
Research shows that we often believe: Gilovich, T., Savitsky, K., & Medvec, V. H. (1998). The illusion of transparency: Biased assessments of others’ ability to read one’s emotional states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(2), 332–346.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.2.332
“Listen now. When people talk…”: Hemingway, E. and Phillips, L. (2002). Ernest Hemingway on writing. Scribner.