In interacting and communicating with other people we make a lot of assumptions about the other person. Sure, we have to make some assumptions to even begin to communicate (for instance that the other person can understand our language); if we didn’t we would have to start every conversation by asking a complete set of detailed questions – so many we would end up never communicating anything. But making too many, and too deep, assumptions, and not testing those we must make, is highly dangerous. Along with not listening to what the other person actually says, is in my experience the root cause of the majority of misunderstandings.
So I decided to set out those things which it seems to me we assume about the other person or the situation at our peril:
- Any one person speaks for everyone
- Anyone is right about anything
- “Culture” or “society” is the same everywhere and for everybody
- Someone else’s ethics and morals are the same as yours
- How young or old or young the person is
- Someone else is of a given race or nationality
- What someone else’s religion or spiritual belief system is
- What someone else’s first language or nationality is
- What someone else’s politics are
- What someone else’s personal values are
- What someone else’s economic class is
- What someone else’s financial situation is
- What someone else’s level of education is
- What someone else’s level of intelligence is
- What someone else’s experiences or background are
- What someone else’s life history is
- What the person’s family or home background is
- What someone else’s sexuality is or that someone else’s sexual ideals or ethics are the same as yours
- Someone else has the same body or beauty ideals you do
- Someone else has the same values, desires, interests, likes and dislikes as you
- All things have the same effect on all people
- Anything is universally yucky or universally yummy
- What someone else’s skills and aptitudes are
- What you find easy or hard they will also find easy or hard
- What worked for you will work for anyone else
- Someone else is better, worse, the same or different to you
- Any given word means the same thing to everyone
- One kind of learning works for everyone
- Your logic is someone else’s logic
- What they think is the same as you think
- Someone else’s common sense is the same as your common sense
- What is right for you is right for anyone else, and vice versa
- Anything is possible or impossible
Yes we often can (and do) make pretty good guesses at many of these and we base our initial communications on them, but we’d better be prepared to test our guesses and change our position accordingly. I’m sure we’ve all been in situations where we’ve made an assumption about (say) someone’s education only to find we’re totally wrong – haven’t we all come across someone with a doctorate doing a job we wouldn’t expect (driving a taxi or a bus, dealing in second-hand books, selling insurance). Or we’ve spoken to a colleague on the phone and then been surprised on meeting them to find they’re a Sikh, a Muslim or Afro-Caribbean.
Beware quicksands! … Orator caveo.
