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Behavior can be seen. Thoughts cannot.
The Assumption Dilemma
It’s Wednesday, October 25th, and today we’re talking about a human phenomenon that you must learn to navigate well.
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Behavior can be seen. Thoughts cannot.
I once read a book called “You Are a Circle” by Guillaume Wolf: a compilation of small, creative meditations. One in particular has stayed with me; loosely paraphrased, we’re instructed to look at strangers while we’re out and about. Really look at them. To think about all that they are: a complex past, rich desires, and deep fears. The idea is to develop empathy for the “other”. To imagine the feel of their shirt fabric on our skin, the experience of being in their shoes and living their day-to-day existence.
I still do this, particularly on the subway in New York. It often brings me to tears. (But like, only little ones because I’m not trying to look like the subway weirdo of the day).
Most of us will encounter a thousand people over the course of this year, and what we’ll see is just the surface. We’ll observe their actions, reactions, and behaviors, but what lies beneath the visible are the intricate, often unspoken, realms of thought and internal dialogue.
This discrepancy—the gap between what we see and what we can't—is a phenomenon deeply rooted in human psychology, and it’s an inseparable part of community. Virtual or in-person, members weave in and out of misunderstanding and alignment. Often they make choices simply because others are making them, with no real connection to their internal reasoning.
Today, I beg you to read on and understand:
The assumption dilemma
Three ways community dynamics are especially perilous
Four upskills every community builder should actively work on
Behavior is visible. Thoughts are not. And therein starts the problem.
The visible part of the human experience is what we present to the world. It’s our actions, words, expressions, and reactions. It's the part of us that is out in the open, on full display for anyone to see. And most of the time, it’s highly curated.
The Asch Conformity Experiment
In the 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch conducted a study where participants were asked to judge the length of lines. What the subjects didn't know was that most of the people in the room were actually instructed to give intentionally incorrect answers. As a result, many participants went along with the group, even when it was clear that the group was wrong.
This experiment illustrates how individuals often conform to the behavior of a group, even when they privately know it's incorrect.
From the outside, it appears that these participants genuinely believed the incorrect answers, but their internal thoughts were quite different. This discrepancy between behavior and thought—driven by the desire to fit in or avoid conflict—is a powerful example of how what we see doesn't always reflect what's happening inside.
There are a vast number of social experiments we can explore, but I don't think that many of us would disagree with the basic premise here:
Our thoughts are the raw material of our inner lives: unspoken monologues. How we behave in social situations is often primed by what we see others do, not what we feel.
The Assumption Dilemma
Now, we come to a critical point. Our tendency to assume that we understand what's going on in someone else's mind, based solely on their behavior, is the most common cause of misjudgments. We often default to thinking that if someone is acting a certain way, it reflects their true thoughts and feelings. It’s a dangerous assumption for a few reasons:
Complexity of Motivation: People's behavior is driven by a multitude of factors, not just their innermost thoughts. Social pressure, cultural norms, and situational context all play a role.
Masking True Feelings: People are skilled at concealing their true emotions, especially in social situations. This can create a stark contrast between behavior and thoughts.
Cognitive Dissonance: Some individuals may act in ways that contradict their true thoughts due to cognitive dissonance, where they're trying to reconcile conflicting beliefs.
Adaptive Behavior: In many cases, people adapt their behavior to achieve specific goals or to avoid negative consequences, even if it doesn't align with their inner thoughts.
Community dynamics are especially perilous
Inside of our communal experience, there are three possible complications:
1. Actions speak louder than words, but they don’t speak louder than thoughts
At face value, it makes perfect sense, and most of us agree with this sentiment. After all, if your best friends is late over and over to every social outing, despite swearing they’ll do better, their promising words will feel a little emptier every time.
I would propose that thoughts speak louder than actions, but we don’t have easy access to them.
In my early 20s, I was a very special kind of mess. I was emancipated from foster care at 17 and already had a one-year-old by then. I had almost no self-awareness, existed in survival mode, and lived in constant fear of rejection. I was scraping a living together by working through a temp agency.
A common theme would emerge: they’d find me a job, and I’d lose it within weeks. Commonly, it was car issues. Once, it was because my daughter was sick and I had no one to watch her. Another time, I was out of gas and had no money in my account, but was too embarrassed to say as much, so I pretended to be sick. The bottom line is that it was always something, and people quickly and understandably lost patience with me.
But internally, something else was going on. I ached to be reliable. I so badly wanted to be someone that could be depended on; someone who could walk around with her head held high, but I just couldn’t find my way out of the mess.
2. Brainstorming is a trap
I’ve facilitated a lot of collaboration in my time. Whether a Google Venture Design Sprint or a co-choreographing a piece, I’ve come to develop a strong, unpopular conviction:
Brainstorming doesn’t work.
Adam Grant said it best:
I’ve seen it proven to be true over and over: other methods of collaboration—ones that don’t cause priming of a group by the first and loudest voices—produce richer, more creative solutions. Brainstorming in all its forms is highly problematic.
It’s a different kind of first-mover advantage: the first person to talk will prime the room, and result in the instant loss of a variety of perspectives.
3. The fundamental attribution error
The fundamental attribution error is a cognitive bias where individuals tend to overemphasize the role of personal traits and characteristics in explaining the behavior of others while underestimating the influence of situational factors. In other words, people often attribute someone's actions to their inherent disposition rather than considering external circumstances that may have contributed to that behavior.
If someone cuts you off on the road, they’re simply selfish, stupid people. If you cut someone else off, it was an honest mistake or the product of a stressful situation, and not at all an indicator of who you are.
There are so many shades of the assumption dilemma, so what are supposed to do with it? Should the temp agency have brought me in for a heart-to-heart, working to get to the core of the issue and help me resolve it? Probably not. The pain and consequences of letting people down played the largest part in my slow but steady determination to be a different kind of person. Boundaries and context matter.
But so does the quality of our emotional intelligence.
4 Skills We Need to Work on (Forever)
Where does this leave us in our quest to understand the gap between behavior and thought? The key lies in empathy and a willingness to acknowledge that what we see may not tell the whole story.
Assume You’re Making Assumptions: Don’t just be aware that you may have your own biases and preconceived notions, assume that you do. It’s possible not to, and starting with the knowledge that you have some things wrong will allow you to…
Ask, Don't Guess: Instead of making assumptions about what someone's behavior means, engage in open, non-judgmental conversations. Ask them about their thoughts and feelings, allowing them to share their perspective. This is particularly helpful in virtual communities, where we read text through the lens of our own biases.
Recognize the Context: Understand that behavior can be heavily influenced by external factors. Take into account the situation, the social environment, and the individual's personal history. Even if you don’t have insider info, you at least know that they have a personal history, and that it’s definitely a factor.
Respect Privacy: Remember that not everyone is willing or ready to share their innermost thoughts, nor is it often appropriate to ask. Respect their boundaries and allow them to reveal what they're comfortable with.
Writing about community is hard. So many of you who read these emails are building businesses and want the brass tacks; the tactical, step-by-step instructions on community strategy. The challenge is that tactics fall short if human behavior is not understood and navigated well. I see more failure in this category than in the pragmatic execution.
I hope today you find a stranger to serve as a muse for thinking about all the ways we’ll never know the breadth of another’s internal world. Just don’t get caught staring 🙂
Via Seth Godin
Onward,
April
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