My own approach: if I can afford the status-hit, I ask about stuff in a guess culture, and I explicitly answer questions there. In some cases I volunteer explicit explanations even when questions weren’t asked, although I’m careful about this, because it can cause a status-hit for the person I’m talking to as well.
Some additional notes:
I was raised in two different guess cultures simultaneously, then transferred to an ask culture in my adolescence, and I’m fairly socially adept. This caused me to think explicitly about this stuff rather a lot, even before I had words for it. That said, I strongly suspect that there’s much clearer understandings of this stuff available in research literature, and a good scholar would be invaluable if you were serious about this as a project.
Talking about “affording the status-hit” is oversimplifying to the point of being misleading, since I live in the intersection of multiple cultures and being seen in culture A as deliberately making a status-lowering move in culture B can be a status-raising move in A. Depending on how much I value A-status and B-status, “taking a hit” in B might not be a sacrifice at all. (Of course, being seen that way in A without actually making such a move in B… for example, pretending to my A friends that I am seen as a rebel in B while in fact being no such thing… is potentially a more valuable move, albeit a risky one. As well as a dishonest one, to the extent that that matters.)
The terms “ask culture” and “guess culture” are misleading as well; it’s more precise to think in terms of topics for which a given culture takes an “ask” stance, and topics for which it takes a “guess” stance. It’s even clearer to think in terms of preferred levels of directness and indirectness when trying to find something out, since successful people don’t actually guess about topics for which their culture takes a “guess” stance, they investigate indirectly. But, having said all that, I’m willing to keep talking about “ask” and “guess” culture for convenience as long as we understand the limits of the labels.
A downside of asking for things in a guess culture is that people have to give you the things. (Unless you’re demanding so much they’d rather refuse and lose you as an ally.) Imposing this cost on people hurts them, as well as lowers your status.
Note that I wrote “asking about”, not “asking for”.
I agree that turning down requests in a guess culture has social costs, which is one reason the distinction between appropriate and inappropriate requests is considered so important.
Imposing costs on others by making demands of them doesn’t necessarily lower my status.
My own approach: if I can afford the status-hit, I ask about stuff in a guess culture, and I explicitly answer questions there. In some cases I volunteer explicit explanations even when questions weren’t asked, although I’m careful about this, because it can cause a status-hit for the person I’m talking to as well.
Some additional notes:
I was raised in two different guess cultures simultaneously, then transferred to an ask culture in my adolescence, and I’m fairly socially adept. This caused me to think explicitly about this stuff rather a lot, even before I had words for it. That said, I strongly suspect that there’s much clearer understandings of this stuff available in research literature, and a good scholar would be invaluable if you were serious about this as a project.
Talking about “affording the status-hit” is oversimplifying to the point of being misleading, since I live in the intersection of multiple cultures and being seen in culture A as deliberately making a status-lowering move in culture B can be a status-raising move in A. Depending on how much I value A-status and B-status, “taking a hit” in B might not be a sacrifice at all. (Of course, being seen that way in A without actually making such a move in B… for example, pretending to my A friends that I am seen as a rebel in B while in fact being no such thing… is potentially a more valuable move, albeit a risky one. As well as a dishonest one, to the extent that that matters.)
The terms “ask culture” and “guess culture” are misleading as well; it’s more precise to think in terms of topics for which a given culture takes an “ask” stance, and topics for which it takes a “guess” stance. It’s even clearer to think in terms of preferred levels of directness and indirectness when trying to find something out, since successful people don’t actually guess about topics for which their culture takes a “guess” stance, they investigate indirectly. But, having said all that, I’m willing to keep talking about “ask” and “guess” culture for convenience as long as we understand the limits of the labels.
A downside of asking for things in a guess culture is that people have to give you the things. (Unless you’re demanding so much they’d rather refuse and lose you as an ally.) Imposing this cost on people hurts them, as well as lowers your status.
Note that I wrote “asking about”, not “asking for”.
I agree that turning down requests in a guess culture has social costs, which is one reason the distinction between appropriate and inappropriate requests is considered so important.
Imposing costs on others by making demands of them doesn’t necessarily lower my status.
Where “doesn’t necessarily” for most intents and purposes could mean “does the reverse of”!
Yes. But now you’ve gone and ruined my guess-culture use of understatement with your ask-culture explicitness! Hrumph.