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Emile comments on Ask and Guess - Less Wrong Discussion
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Guesser culture affords much more signaling of how well you understand people. People who correctly guess will come off as more intelligent, observant and understanding. It's like the difference between offering money and offering carefully chosen presents; money may be more efficient, but efficiency isn't the only factor coming into account.
Interestingly, Chinese culture seems much more guess-based than American culture, but in China gifts are usually in cash, not in presents. Maybe societies all need a way to signal understanding and social suaveness, but choose different mechanisms.
Bingo. Furthermore, asking in certain contexts makes you look unsocialized or under-confident. For instance, "would you like to come to my party on Friday?" sounds strange. Instead, it's more common to say "come to my party on Friday." This way is both "asking" an implicit question, and making a "guess" about the answer.
"Would you like to come to my party on Friday?" = "I am requesting that you come to my party but I only believe that there is a <50% chance that you will want to come"
"Come to my party on Friday" = "I am requesting that you come to my party but I believe that there is a >50% chance that you will want to come"
If/how you ask/guess signals your belief about your legitimacy in desiring a certain outcome, and also signals your estimated probability that the other person will also desire that outcome.
This is because sheer confidence and pushiness also work, to an extent. Just behaving enough like a leader is enough to get people to follow you. To encourage repeat following, be sure to deliver.
Upside: people do in fact go along more often than not. It's somewhat disquieting how well it can work. Downside: you get a reputation as a pushy sod, which may be problematic later.
(I have specifically warned the staff at my daughter's nursery to keep an eye out for her dominating the other kids too much and directly encouraging her to play cooperatively where feasible. She's 3 1/2 and she successfully pushes the 5yo's around and makes them play her games with her. Her pantomime theatresports variation of hide and seek - where you pretend to hide and pretend to seek, and the game is to be as creatively theatrical in the hiding and seeking as possible - particularly confuses them.)
Awwwwwwww.
She invented the pretending bit, I blatantly encouraged the creatively theatrical bit. I want her to learn what truth and pretend are, because I like Henson's "whopper" theory. She's doing okay I think at discerning truth, fiction and falsity.
Her mother plays too. It's possible we just like having an appreciative audience, even if the audience is three years old.
I wonder if the other kids will take to pretend hide and seek.
Yeah, I think that's true. Among communities that identify as smart, for example, I find it's common to obfuscate speech or explicitly set out puzzles for one another, and I think that serves a similar role... even though such communities (like most communities whose membership changes quickly) tend to be "Ask" subcultures.