Where Do Mind-reads Come From—Part 2: Personal Bias

In the last post, we discussed how ambiguity often leads to Mind-reading. That's just the first part of the story. The next question is, once we’re faced with an ambiguous message, what tools do we use to interpret it? How do we fill in the blanks? In the case of Mind-reading, we rely on what we already know—or think we know—which may or may not be relevant to the current situation. The information we draw on may include:

• Personal tendencies. When we’re trying to understand how others think, feel, and act, the most obvious guides we have are our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Suppose one of your coworkers recently dropped her only child off at college. If you’ve previously experienced “empty-nest syndrome,” you might think, “That must be hard for her. I’m sure she’s lonely.” If you had a different experience, you might think, “I’m sure she’s relieved to have more time to herself.” Our own tendencies can easily lead us to misinterpret other people’s behavior. For instance, if you usually write fairly chatty emails and only send brief, impersonal messages when you’re annoyed, you might assume that someone who sends you a terse email is feeling annoyed with you. It’s possible that you’re right, but just as likely that you’re completely wrong.
  
• Worries and fears. A good example of this occurred recently when we were leading a new training for the first time. The presentation included relatively long lectures, with fewer breaks for interactive exercises than we usually give. We weren’t sure how successful that format would be. Amy in particular was worried that people might get bored or overwhelmed trying to take in so much information all at once. When she saw one person fidgeting and shifting in his seat, she was certain that her fears were justified—this man’s mind was drifting because she’d been talking for too long. As it turns out, Amy was right about the distraction but totally wrong about the cause. This man had a serious leg injury that made it painful for him to remain sitting. He didn’t need the lectures to be shorter; he just needed to be able to stand up from time to time. And when we asked the whole group to critique our new training format, we received nothing but compliments about the lectures.
  
• Hearsay and rumors. Mind-reads can be contagious. If you hear from other people that your new neighbor is snobbish, that idea may color all the interactions you have with him. When he turns down your invitation to a cookout, you might assume it’s because he feels superior to you or would rather do something more exciting (rather than because he’s shy, has strict dietary restrictions, or has a previous commitment for that day). If you have a tendency to talk openly about other people’s intentions, be careful about spreading Mind-reads (for instance, the new salesman is trying to kiss up to the boss; Alison is afraid of commitment; or Frank is prejudiced against female leaders). Your Mind-read of someone may become that person’s reputation—and reputations are very hard to shake.
  
• Past experience with the person. Established knowledge about a person—including what they’ve told you previously about their thoughts and feelings—is one of the more reliable sources of information. It’s far from perfect, however. Do you ever change your opinion on an issue, or start to feel differently about someone or something over time? We’ll bet you do. Other people do too. The more time goes by, the greater the possibility that what you used to know about somebody is no longer true.
  
• Past experience with other people. We may also try to understand people by comparing them to others we’ve known in the past: “She’s just like my sister—she says she agrees with me when it’s obvious she doesn’t” or “I know the type; he only feels motivated when there’s a crisis.” As with any other Mind-reads, these speculations will sometimes be accurate, and sometimes inaccurate. What they certainly are not is reliable.

Where Do Mind-reads Come From?

Continuing our series on Mind-reads, we consider various factors that lead us to use this type of communication.

Typically, we don’t go around making random assumptions about other people’s thoughts and feelings; there are reasons behind our Mind-reads. The problem is, those reasons may have little or no connection to what’s really going on. Mind-reading tends to be driven by ambiguity, shaped by personal bias, and supported by a avoidance of direct questions. In this post, we'll take a close look at the first of these factors.

Ambiguity
Mind-reads feed on ambiguity. When a person says or does something that is open to multiple interpretations, we jump to the explanation that makes the most sense to us. This often happens automatically, outside our awareness. We don’t consciously reason, “Alex is looking out the window, which could mean that he’s bored”; we just think, “Alex is bored.” Ambiguity creeps into communication in several different ways:

• Silence. What does it mean when you ask a question and get no answer? Is the other person confused? Irritated? Afraid of saying the wrong thing? What about when you get no response to an opinion, suggestion, joke, or personal story? Or when someone fails to reply to email or voicemail messages? It’s possible to read just about anything into silence. Suppose the leader of a meeting makes a proposal and nobody responds. One person might assume this means that everyone agrees. Another might assume that everyone disagrees, but is afraid to raise an objection. Someone else might conclude that no one really understood the proposal. We make these sorts of interpretations all the time, labeling silence at different times as tacit support, patient listening, apathy, stonewalling, defiance, and so on. In the story that started this series, Ben interpreted Alan’s silence as an expression of lingering anger.
  
• Vagueness. Sometimes words can be just as ambiguous as silence. When a colleague says that your latest presentation was “interesting,” does that mean he found it fascinating and thought-provoking, or confusing and bizarre? When your friend calls your new shoes “very unusual,” does she like them or does she hate them? These vague comments fuel speculations about what the person really thinks. It’s easy to slip into either a positive Mind-read (“He was really impressed by my presentation”) or a negative one (“She hates my shoes but doesn’t want to tell me directly”).
  
• Body language. Not all communication is verbal. Aspects of our body language—including posture, gestures, facial expression, and eye movements—can carry just as much information as the words we use. Unfortunately, that information isn’t always clear or consistent with the message we’re trying to send. One woman we trained (call her Jen) was surprised to learn that her body language could make her appear judgmental. This became clear when she was acting as a mentor in an educational program. A woman Jen was mentoring said she felt uncomfortable talking to her about challenging personal issues, because she believed Jen was judging her and judging what she said. It turned out that when Jen was listening to her mentee, she furrowed her eyebrows and squinted a little. To this woman, that expression conveyed a critical, judging attitude. In reality, it was something that happened unconsciously whenever Jen listened intently to anyone. (Jen does her best to avoid doing that now to prevent others from developing similar Mind-reads.)

• Absence of voice tone. Voice tone is a powerful force in communication. In fact, the tone we use often has a greater impact on a conversation than the words we say. There’s a world of difference between the neutral remark “Remember that the meeting starts at 10” and the same words spoken with a snide or accusatory tone. However, in a written format like email, both comments may look exactly the same. As a result, the sender’s friendly reminder may be received as an attack or a sarcastic jab. While email may be a great convenience, the ambiguity it creates can easily lead to misunderstandings. The same risks apply to text messaging and any other forms of electronic media that don’t communicate voice tone.

A Great Friendship Gone Bad: What Went Wrong?

In our last post, we told a true story about a communication breakdown between Ben and a close colleague (whom we’re calling Alan), and we challenged you to identify the specific behavior that caused all the trouble. Could you tell what it was?

You may have noticed that we didn’t include any dialogue in the story. That’s because in this case, the most influential communication was never stated out loud. Ben wanted to restore his relationship with Alan, and, as we’ll show later, he could have done that quite easily if he’d made the effort. He simply didn’t try—not because of what Alan had said to him, but because of what he kept saying to himself. He was convinced that he knew what was going on in Alan’s mind. Consider some of the comments he makes: “it was clear that was what he wanted”; “I got the unspoken message”; and “there was no doubt that Alan was still angry.” All of these are what we call “Mind-reads.” Without realizing it, Ben was allowing his Mind-reads to ruin his friendship.

Mind-Reads—Turning Friends into Fictions
When we Mind-read, we treat our assumptions about other people—what we imagine they’re thinking or feeling—as though they were facts. Mind-reads may be simple statements about a person’s psychological state (“Marilyn’s tired”; “Jim is still upset”; “You’re in a good mood today”); they may address relationships with us or with others (“I can tell my boss is disappointed in me”; “Bill clearly prefers working with Tom”; “Our neighbors have an unhappy marriage”); or they may deal with any number of other topics (“You didn’t enjoy that party”; “I know Jack wants a raise”; “He’d rather hire someone younger”; “They’re waiting for us to make the first move”; and so on).

Mind-reads get people into a lot of trouble. Have you ever talked to someone who seemed to think they could read your mind? This can be extremely irritating, particularly when the person implies that they know you better than you know yourself—“You don’t really mean that”; “You think you love her, but you’re just infatuated”; “You can’t admit to yourself that he was right.” The consequences of unspoken Mind-reads can be just as serious. We may start to talk and act in ways that are based more on imagination than on reality. Ben’s experience with Alan is a good example of that.

When we rely too heavily on Mind-reads, we are in a sense populating our world with imaginary friends—not to mention imaginary coworkers, bosses, spouses, children, and so forth. These individuals may bear a strong resemblance to the real people they’re based on, but important aspects of their personalities and emotional lives are created by our own minds. In the opening story, Alan became more and more of a fiction to Ben; the open-minded, compassionate person he knew appeared increasingly distant, closed off, and unforgiving. Mind-reads are not always so negative. Some people may seem more generous, intelligent, and likeable in our imagination than they would if we really got to know them. The problem is that whether wicked or wonderful, imaginary friends aren’t real.

As we continue this series of posts, we’ll take a close look at the various factors that lead to Mind-reads, as well as strategies we can use to counteract them.

A Great Friendship Gone Bad

What communication problem made these two people grow apart?

As summer vacations come to a close, we're getting back to work on this blog with a new series of posts. If you've been following along, you know that our last series covered Yes-Buts. We're now moving on to a another kind of challenging communication behavior. Before we tell you what it is, we challenge you to figure that out for yourself. Read the case below and ask yourself, what is the primary issue that's causing problems in this situation?
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(This story comes from Ben’s personal experience, so he’ll narrate it directly.) 

It was a real loss for me to fall out of contact with Alan[1], but it was clear that was what he wanted.

When Alan and I first met at a conference in 2003, we hit it off instantly. We both did organizational coaching and consulting, and we found we had a lot to learn from one another. Over time, we developed a strong friendship and professional connection. Every month we spoke on the phone and coached each other on different cases we were working on. Whenever one of us was struggling with a difficult issue, in either our work or our personal life, we’d talk it through together and leave with insights and solutions we could never think up on our own. Overall, the relationship felt remarkably rewarding and supportive.

The turning point came about four years into our friendship. In one of our calls, Alan told me about an upsetting incident that had happened in a professional networking group he belonged to. Listening to his story made me angry; I thought he had been treated unfairly and deserved an apology. Feeling resentful on Alan’s behalf, I complained about the incident to another friend (Chris) who was a part of that same group. Chris then raised the issue with the group leader, and eventually word got back to Alan that I’d been talking about his experience.

Alan called me up, furious — and rightly so. He had talked to me in confidence and expected I would keep the discussion between us. I apologized profusely, but had the sense that it wasn’t good enough. Clearly Alan was still upset. I worried that he would never again feel able to trust me with anything personal. My fears were confirmed later that month. We had a date set for one of our mutual coaching sessions, and for the first time, Alan didn’t call. I sent him an email asking what had happened, but never heard back. I got the unspoken message: He didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.

Over the next two years, my only contact with Alan was at the same annual conference where we had originally met. Although Alan wasn’t rude or hostile, he made no attempt to engage me in conversation. The first year, when I said “Hello,” he said “Hello” in reply, but then kept on walking. The second year, even though we participated in a small workshop together, we did nothing more than exchange a few pleasantries. By that point there was no doubt that Alan was still angry, and that I had little chance of restoring my friendship with him.

[1] Names and identifying details have been changed to preserve anonymity.
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Now we ask you, from the point of view of communication behavior, what is the primary issue disrupting Ben and Alan's friendship? We'll reveal the answer in our next post. (If you think you know it, don't give it away, but feel free to email us directly to check out your guess.) Stay tuned!