The Gauge That's Always Set Too High

Have you ever had a question you wanted to ask someone - and didn't?

Not because you forgot. Not because there wasn't time. But because something inside said: "This will be uncomfortable."

Maybe it was about money someone owed you. Maybe it was a question to a colleague about something that hadn't gone well. Maybe it was a question to a business partner you knew you needed to ask - and didn't dare.

So you stayed silent. And told yourself it was the right call.

But was it?

Researcher Einav Hart and her colleagues studied exactly this [1]. They asked people to pose sensitive questions - about salaries, about failures, about things we normally avoid - and measured how much discomfort the other person actually felt.

The result surprised almost everyone:

The people who were asked the sensitive question felt far less discomfort than the askers had anticipated.

In other words - we are not very accurate at predicting how the other person will actually respond.

We have an internal discomfort gauge. And it is almost always set too high.

We imagine the other person's face. The silence after the question. The damage to the relationship. And we decide - before we've even opened our mouths - that the price is too high.

So we don't ask. And we pay a completely different price. An entirely different one.

This is one of the insights I explore in my talk - "To Ask or Not to Ask? - That Is the Question"

Is there a question you know you should ask - and still haven't?

[1] Hart, E., VanEpps, E. M., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2021). The (better than expected) consequences of asking sensitive questions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 162, 136-154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.10.014