QOTD

I’ve often asked (and even more often, WANTED to ask) two distinct questions around unexpected behavior, such as we have as an example here.
1. What response did you want to see me give to ?
2. What response did you think you were most likely to get by ?

For what it’s worth, my experience is that most people cannot separate the two questions as distinct from each other. Meaning, they answer the second question the same as the first, even when they have no reason to think that the odds of getting what they want are very high. I don’t know if that points out a problem in the way I’m phrasing the questions, or if it is a by-product of the sort of thinking that creates the weirdness to start with. (Meaning, if people think that what they WANT is also the MOST LIKELY outcome of their action, then of course, they are likely to indulge in it.)

For my own part, I think a lot of people neither think nor care about other people's internality, and their goal is behavioral control and not some sort of consensus on shared well-being because they just don't perceive other people as having legitimate well-being in daily interactions. I love the idea of people exploring situations like this, and I like this pair of questions. I think folks very often are taken aback by my responses to things, and this might help me figure that out.