Assumptions and Miscommunication: How to Clarify Your Intentions

Avoid the Pitfalls of Embarrassment and MisCommunication

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We’ve all been there. You’re halfway through a conversation, you think you’re on the same page, only later on realising that the other person had a different interpretation altogether? The content of communication is often appealing to the other side because, in part, it can package an assumed set of presuppositions.

The phenomenon of assumption-based misunderstanding is often referred to as the “Curse of Knowledge” because assuming that your conversational partner shares your states of mind (eg, recognising certain kinds of furniture, responding to standard routines or borderline cases, recalling past events, et cetera) can at best bore the other person and, at worst, offend their sensitivities.

According to David Stovall of the University of Illinois in a Lifehacker article, there are various ways to recognise when you’re hobbling your own communications with assumptions.

The Pitfall of Assumptions

Assumptions are a mental shorthand that the brain uses to save time and cognitive energy to do other things. So, instead of gathering the information we need, we just fill in the blanks based on what we already know from our…