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The author misses the point. People are avoiding sensitive questions not because it impacts opinion on average, but because of the rare outliers that ruin it fo
by sandoooo 7y ago
The author misses the point. People are avoiding sensitive questions not because it impacts opinion on average, but because of the rare outliers that ruin it for everybody.
It takes just a single asshole reporting you to HR to ruin your life.
- smadge 7y agoI only read the abstract and the first few pages, so my opinion is uninformed. However my first thought was similar to yours. Asking sensitive questions may be moderately positive on average, but occasionally extremely negative.
- loopz 7y agoUntil you get to know people, it requires some tact and restraint. The negative reaction indicates the person is yet to know and respect you as peer. A few such apples are to be avoided until the time they see your light.
- georgewsinger 7y agoYep -- a classic "Expected Value is not the only thing that matters, but also one's Risk of Ruin" situation. The counter-argument is this: do we still overestimate our true risk of ruin when it comes to asking sensitive questions? Are we actually going to get fired (or whatever horrendous thing) for not asking that question? I bet the answer is that we still overrate our true probability of ruin when it comes to these things.
- naniwaduni 7y agoIt is much safer to overestimate risk than underestimate it!
- sandoooo 7y agothe true risk of any given question is a nebulous thing depending on many unknowns and your very specifc circumstances, and it varies from day to day. Working it out is a cognitive load that doesn't seem to be worth the effort. Plus you don't even get much for braving this danger, on average. From the organization's perspective, though, this is a cancerous growth that kills your employees' motivation and innovation and foments a culture of distrust, siloing and paranoia. Too bad there's no easy way to align the incentives there, since the corps are hella scared of being on the wrong side of political winds, too.
- arvinsim 7y ago> Are we actually going to get fired (or whatever horrendous thing) for not asking that question? What's worse than being fired is to be stuck on a job where the environment/culture has gone bad. Not everyone has the economic and social mobility to change jobs on the fly.
- hanniabu 7y agoOr where you're effectively in a dead end job because that incident with HR causes you to get passed up for any promotions or lateral shifts.
- malnourish 7y agoI'm not sure there's anything one could say that would unjustifiably lead to that.
- vanniv 7y agoTrue, though it seems like asking sensitive questions is a moderate risk, whereas answering them is the real high-risk activity.
- crimsonalucard 7y agoI don't think it's that simple. You pose the issue as if it's a rational decision. There is no rational decision in your brains choice to make you fear public speaking or fear heights. I think avoiding sensitive questions is largely the same thing. Many people have an irrational fear and their excuse (while semi legitimate) is to try to rationalize the whole thing as you have.
- asdf21 7y agoAnd certain "sensitive" questions are just straight up illegal to ask in an interview / the workplace, and there are tons that are in a gray area depending on context: - Do you have any medical conditions / health issues? - Do you plan on having more children? - What religion are you?
- authoritarian 7y agoNone of the examples of the "sensitive" questions I've read are anything that HR would discipline someone for (at least where I work). If the environment was so toxic that people were reporting each other for questions like these, and HR was actually acting on it, it wouldn't be a place I would want to work anyway. Either way, it certainly wouldn't "ruin your life"