Individuals avoid asking sensitive questions due to concerns about others’ discomfort and about impression management, overestimating the interpersonal costs of asking such questions (a forecasting error)

The (better than expected) consequences of asking sensitive questions. Einav Hart, Eric M. Van Epps, Maurice E. Schweitzer. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Volume 162, January 2021, Pages 136-154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.10.014

Ungated iteration, from 2019: Hart, Einav and VanEpps, Eric and Schweitzer, Maurice E., I Didn’t Want to Offend You: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions (June 24, 2019). SSRN. https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2019/09/we-avoid-asking-sensitive-questions-we.html

Rolf Degen's take: https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1352186061036904448

Highlights

• Individuals avoid asking sensitive questions in both face-to-face and computer-mediated conversations.

• Individuals avoid asking sensitive questions due to concerns about others’ discomfort and about impression management.

• Askers significantly overestimate the interpersonal costs of asking sensitive questions.

• Reticence to asking sensitive questions reflects conversational forecasting errors.

Abstract: Within a conversation, individuals balance competing objectives, such as the motive to gather information and the motive to create a favorable impression. Across five experimental studies (N = 1427), we show that individuals avoid asking sensitive questions because they believe that asking sensitive questions will make their conversational partners uncomfortable and cause them to form negative perceptions. We introduce the Communication Motives and Expectations Model and we demonstrate that the aversion to asking sensitive questions is often misguided. Question askers systematically overestimate the impression management and interpersonal costs of asking sensitive questions. In conversations with friends and with strangers and in both face-to-face and computer-mediated conversations, respondents formed similarly favorable impressions of conversational partners who asked sensitive questions (e.g., “How much is your salary?”) as they did of conversational partners who asked non-sensitive questions (e.g., “How do you get to work?”). We assert that individuals make a potentially costly mistake when they avoid asking sensitive questions, as they overestimate the interpersonal costs of asking sensitive questions.

Keywords: ConversationQuestionsStrategic information exchangesImpression managementCommunication Motives and Expectations Model