>If you do not show some level of skepticism, you default to a state of belief. Well, no, you default to a neutral state of receiving information, sans judgmen

>If you do not show some level of skepticism, you default to a state of belief. Well, no, you default to a neutral state of receiving information, sans judgment. Also it is not true that if you do not show skepticism, you default to some specific state. You could hold any number of opinions without showing skepticism -- what you are showing the other party is irrelevant. "Showing" or expressing belief is not the same thing as believing. >As in, you believe your colleague at face-value If you are pretending that you believe your colleague while silently reserving judgment or judging disbelief, you do not believe them in any meaningful sense of the word. You are disguising your judgment of what they are saying so as to not cause further conflict -- i.e., acting. That is very different from believing what they say or even 'believing at face value'.