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Lumifer comments on Open thread, Mar. 16 - Mar. 22, 2015 - Less Wrong
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That's pretty classical passive-aggressive behaviour. I don't think it has much to do with guess-vs-ask cultures.
But I agree that there is probably some gender correlation.
It seems plausible that Hint cultures lead to passive aggression-- if you can't be just plain aggressive, what have you got left?
I think power imbalance leads to passive aggression much more than the Hint or Ask character of the culture.
Hint and Ask are basically preferred communication protocols and most Hint people I know will adjust if the hints are clearly not working. But there is a big difference between
and
But that is largely the same thing. The classical boss-subordinate relationship is ask (order) down, guess up. Passive-aggression is extreme (angry, upset) guess, active aggression is extreme (angry, upset) ask/order.
When whole cultures are all-ask or all-guess that is probably a sign of egalitarianism - within that subset.
It's more complicated. Ask/tell is simpler, faster, and more efficient so in the workplace (where status and power relationships are largely formalized) it tends to dominate anyway.
Also, as anecdata, I know a girl who is a very pronounced Hint/Guess person, but she's a manager and has underlings. She quite successfully manages them mostly on the Hint/Guess basis (within reason, of course).
Yes, but passive-aggression is what guess-people do when upset, and active-aggression is what ask-people do when upset.
I don't know if I am willing to accept it as a such tight relation. For one thing, being passive-aggressive is usually not one particular action, an outburst when upset, it's more like a an attitude, a continuous inclination/slant/flavour.
I think that passive vs. active aggression depends much more on power, status, and specific circumstances rather than on usually preferred communication styles.
The idea that there's a gender correlation, whether for cultural or biological reasons certainly is something I've seen a fair bit when this comes up as a subject. See for example here. This one where cultural distinctions are going to be very difficult since some cultures (e.g. China) are so heavily on one side. It would I think be very interesting to see if the obvious gender trend in the West still is true in those extreme examples- it would be pretty strong evidence of a biological basis.
In a way the gender aspect could be seen as a micro culture thing as women operating in their own social circles build up these sub-protocols (influenced due to power structures of ourse).