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jkaufman comments on Ask and Guess - Less Wrong Discussion
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In situations where I suspect multiple people want something but will also all politely say "no, you take it" if asked explicitly I've tried something like "how many ways should we split this piece of cake?" This makes it clear you expect multiple people to indicate they want some, releasing them of some of the politeness burden of hiding their preferences. Chicken, at least chicken on the bone, is indivisible, so this wouldn't work as well here.
That's interesting... what kind of results do you get? I think my Guess-culture roots would insist that the proper response to that question is "oh, I'm fine, no cake for me," much as it is to "would you like the last piece?" but I can see how others might react differently, even given the same upbringing.
I've only tried it maybe twice, but I remember it working. As in, I ended up splitting the last piece with multiple people. But maybe I just ended up splitting with the askier people while the guessier people stayed quiet and thought we were being pushy?
(nods) That makes sense. And sure, that's a possible failure mode.
From field experience as a Korean-American and thus someone closer in many situations to Ask, (or even TELL!) I have found a lot of success on just pretending to be endearingly forthright: making a big show of asking all the other people whether they want the last dumpling a couple of times, asking whether they're sure, etc. The fact that my uncle, my mother, and I are similar in this and that they will often take me up on this to split/outright take the dumpling, showing clearly that I am, indeed, serious about my ask, helps too.