Conversations form the basis of communication and therefore, also, miscommunication. There is a lingering feeling after a conversation didn’t go the way you wanted it to, a kind of doubt as to whether the other party heard you or whether they understood what you were saying. Sometimes, we can see the conversation falling apart but can’t seem to do anything to put it back together. As someone who constantly reviews their conversations to make sure the ideas got across, I have been fascinated by why some conversations go sideways and others don’t.
There is more to communicating than just the words we use. Beneath the surface of the words lies a world of assumptions, bias, body language cues, cultural expectations, and preferred conversational styles. It’s a wonder that human beings can have successful conversations at all; just thinking about all the ways a conversation could go wrong is enough to make you not want to talk to anyone.
Direct vs indirect
The way we use language is conditioned as children. As adults, we naively assume that everyone has been conditioned the same way.
Take the following conversation as an example:
“Do you need help with the dishes?”
“No, thanks. I’ll take care of it.”
When someone is communicating with a direct communication style, the conversation is finite and the speaker does not intend to leave any room for interpretation. Let’s assume that both parties are using a direct communication style. In this conversation, the person doing the dishes assumes that the person asking is using a direct communication style because that’s what they would have done. They do not want help doing the dishes. They probably really like to do the dishes alone or maybe they have a certain way of doing dishes that is more efficient without other people or maybe that’s how it was always done when they were a child. There’s no way for the person asking the question to know the motives of the other person, so they take the words at face value because that’s how they asked the question and how they would have responded. Both people end the conversation having understood each other perfectly.
The indirect communication style is kind of a misnomer. The word indirect is misleading. It’s widely believed using an indirect style denotes that people don’t mean what they say they mean. Using an indirect style entails taking into account the message [actual words of the conversation] AND the meta-message [what it means that the words were said in a certain way, in a certain context].
Let’s take the same conversation and now, assume that both people are using an indirect communication style. The context matters here; the same conversation can lead to different outcomes if it’s between two roommates compared to if it was between husband and wife. Here’s the way this conversation would go with both people speaking and perceiving indirect styles: the person asking the question would help with the dishes anyway and the person doing the dishes would thank them after. They both understood each other because their styles matched.
A mismatch in communication styles leads to animosity or awkwardness. In the example, for instance, it could be that the person asking the question feels hurt because they were denied the opportunity to show that they care. Maybe the person doing the dishes thinks, ‘why would they even have to ask?’
We often attribute a direct or indirect communication style to the person, as if the style is an inherent attribute of a person. However, this is not the case. People can use both indirect and direct communication styles simultaneously. It varies with the situation, the people, the time of day, the state of mind, etc. They may have a preference for one over the other and default to their preferred style under stress.¹
Often, the choice of whether to use a direct or an indirect style is ingrained as children. It’s very difficult to become aware, in the midst of a conversation, what style one is making use of. One way to observe your own style is to record yourself in candid conversations and listen back to them.
The length of a pause
In her book, Conversational Styles, Deborah Tannen analyzes a six-person conversation over Thanksgiving dinner. One conversational feature, in particular, stands out among the rest: the length of a pause. We simultaneously use pauses between sentences and assess how long of a pause is necessary between sentences. The length of a pause is the determining factor as to whether someone is talking along with or talking over someone. Talking along with someone is a way of showing your enthusiasm for what they have to say, a way to agree with them. In contrast, talking over someone shows disregard for what they have to say.
The amount of time that we think is adequate for a pause is conditioned in our speech based on cultural patterns. People in different parts of the world, even different regions in the same country, will have different ideas about what they think an adequate pause is.
If you’re talking with someone who has a shorter pause than you do, you’re going to feel like you can’t get a word in. You might be left feeling like the other person didn’t hear you because they did not wait, what according to you is, the appropriate length of a pause. Conversely, if you’re speaking with someone who has a naturally longer pause between sentences, you’re going to start wondering if they actually understand what you’re saying because it seems like it’s taking a while for your sentence to register in their brains. This happens on such a subconscious level that we are not aware of it.
The key thing to do here is not to let the conversational misunderstandings fester. Something as simple as what is considered the natural length of a pause can cause serious misunderstandings.
“Well, obviously!”
We fail to notice when we know something that others don’t. This is perhaps the most interesting way for miscommunication to occur. This is termed the curse of knowledge. It’s a form of cognitive bias where a person incorrectly assumes that the other people in the conversation have the background to understand.
It was first noticed in the 1980s by economists who noted that some car salesmen could stand to make more money on the cars they sold. They were keenly aware of all the strengths and flaws of their cars and they assumed that their customers were just as well informed. It turned out that most customers were not aware of the flaws. The car salesman would have been able to sell the car for a higher price had he not succumbed to the ‘curse of knowledge.’ Since then, psychologists and behaviorists have been studying the effect of the curse of knowledge. People who are more experienced almost always tend to underestimate the difficulty of a task. In the field of education, this has become particularly important. It’s extremely difficult to see things from the perspective of the new learner, to imagine not knowing what we now know, once we have learned it. It is also difficult to share this knowledge with the new learner because we cannot easily recreate the moment of not knowing.
Is it better to be ignorant? It doesn’t sound okay to be ignorant but in some cases, ignorance can be beneficial.
In fact, almost anytime you are explaining an idea to a less informed person, a dash of ignorance will help you to judge their knowledge and abilities more accurately — from a business presentation to an anecdote in the pub.²
The word to be cautious of here is obviously. When we use the word obviously, it should trigger us to stop and think, “Obvious to whom? Is it really obvious to everyone?” The second thing that will definitely help is to be willing to admit that we don’t know. The world we live in today reveres experts, making it difficult to admit that we don’t know something. However, the more that we are willing to admit ignorance, the more we will be able to learn.
Code-switching
I would be remiss if I did not address code-switching in this article. Code-switching is a linguistics process often used in bilingual communities and by people who speak two or more languages. It involves making use of words from different languages or dialects in the context of the conversation and in doing so switching from one language code to another. Here’s an example of a child switching between three languages in the same context.
Code-switching is often used as a tool used to effectively communicate ideas across. Things are sometimes easier said or explained with words from another language because they convey the sentiment more completely. Multilingual speakers use code-switching naturally and may not even know that they’re doing it. Habitual expressions in a certain style can often show up in a conversation through code-switching. It can also be strategically employed to advance goals in one’s career or social life.
What does code-switching have to do with conversations going sideways? One of the consequences of code-switching is that people can be included or excluded from the conversation. When the participants in the conversation respond well to each other’s code-switching, the conversation goes well. Sometimes, the use of code-switching backfires when people in the conversation use a dominant language and those that struggle to use the dominant language are unfairly punished for code-switching.
