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I wonder what would be a more personal (and interesting) question than: - Describe your relationship with your mother - Describe your relationship with your f
by tony 7y ago
I wonder what would be a more personal (and interesting) question than:
- Describe your relationship with your mother
- Describe your relationship with your father
Completely open-ended, yet, is universal to everyone. Being candid in that area can provide a lot of foundational underpinning to understand someone.
But - would people find it awkward? Would they take offense? Feel pain thinking about the answer?
As for someone's political opinion in a specific area, I'm worried self-presentation pressures and social environment crafts us to more heated (or passive, to not make a stir) for us to conform. In fact, on that subject, Wikipedia's page on this area is amazing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity
The thing is - isn't the interesting thing someone's true hardships, needs, dreams, interpretations of life events, and desires, rather than something stemming from an idealized image they want to portray others, to be "good"? When social pressures of trying to say things the "right way", it's not a good read. Sure, they may be lashing out at others in outrage. Perhaps its very righteous and personal (most of the time?)
But what if, paradoxically, they're doing it out of pressure to be apart of the herd so they themselves are not ostracized? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-monitoring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-monitoring
So I worry that even if we ask sensitive questions, there will be so much splitting, and so many people who are coy on their responses so as to avoid the people who really make a fuss of stuff. Maybe we'd find people are scared to validate their true feelings and needs. What if environment and fear of being an outcast/ridiculed for showing candor has them in a compliance state?
And that'd take us back to psychoanalysts in the 1940's and 50's :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Horney#Theory_of_neurosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Horney#Theory_of_neurosi..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_orientation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_orientation. It's hard to come up with a new idea in this space.
- Mirioron 7y ago>What if environment and fear of being an outcast/ridiculed for showing candor has them in a compliance state? It goes further than being outcast. Having the wrong opinion on things can put your career and sometimes physical safety in jeopardy. With costs like that you will always have people hiding their true thoughts. I think one of the most important things to learn in life (for the individual) is to know how to hide what is not popular in your current company.
- sneak 7y agoLet me tell you about my mother.
- TwoNineFive 7y agoTony, please answer the question. We are waiting on you.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tony 7y agoI wasn't asked a question.
- isoskeles 7y agoYes, sharing anything about my relationship with my parents would cause a certain amount of pain. I wouldn't feel like going through that for just anyone who decides to ask about it.
- filoleg 7y agoThe act of refusing to answer this question is already giving plenty info that the person was seeking by asking it. As long as they don't push it after the refusal, the question has served its purpose, and it is all in good spirit imo. I am absolutely fine with receiving those kinds of sensitive questions, as long as the person asking those is cool about it after hearing "no".
- dulff 7y ago> Describe your relationship with your mother I got this question in a personality test as part of a job interview. I lied.
- TwoNineFive 7y agoYou did the right thing. People want to be lied to and will punish you for not doing so.
- ramblerman 7y ago> Being candid in that area can provide a lot of foundational underpinning to understand someone. I disagree. In a normal process of forming a relationship over a span of time yes, it will give you better insights into your friend. But as an interview question for you to put your psychology 101 to use I think it's pretty invasive and disturbing
- tony 7y agoPut it this way - on the other hand, there are many sensitive questions that can be inflected by an underlying need to gain approval, avoid disapproval, or their own compliance to appear "good" to the interviewer at the moment. If it's a political topic, where someone can get lost in the herd so to speak, they can be partisan/intellectualize as a way to mask themselves as an individual. It's cheap and easy. Are we learning about them, or seeing their environment has them scared straight? I guess with the parental question, there's a motivation to not be candid on that either though. What if the person feels they'd be selfish complaining about their parents or be ridiculed for expressing themselves? If it's a sensitive question, that involves vulnerability of not having feelings validated. If you're hurt by something, and someone scorns you for simply for stating discomfort, that's a pretty difficult situation! Hm - what would be a valuable question to gather insight on someone, that's open ended, but not invasive? Would there be a way to phrase it so there wouldn't be pressure to give a "good" answer / portray an ideal self-image?
- majos 7y agoI like learning about people, but I would only ask “how’s your relationship with your mother/father?” if I already think the person’s unusually open. It’s a pretty direct “therapy”-style question, and some people don’t like feeling analyzed that way. But it’s not that hard to get there a little less directly. If you just ask about people’s days and weekends, their parents will come up at some point. Then you can ask more gradually and organically.