Avoiding Making Negative Assumptions

As a young Boy Scout, I loved going on camping and backpacking trips, sitting by a campfire and watching the night sky for shooting stars. However, I really struggled with learning the different constellations. I knew one star for sure, the Sun. No problems at all finding that one during the day. I could even pick out the Big Dipper most nights. But I never understood how those three random stars over there made Orion’s belt, or this cluster of stars below looks like a giant bear (For real people??):

I just can’t comprehend how someone looks up at that and thinks “Bear!” However, that’s exactly what our brain does when we are anxious, angry, and afraid of being hurt. We hear or see a few data points, a comment here, or delayed text back there, and we then stitch together a constellation of meaning about the people and situations in our lives, which are rarely positive.

This tip is designed to raise your awareness of our tendency to create negative narratives without knowing the whole story, hopefully saving you from needless relational pain. 

Long before neuroscience described negativity bias, Scripture cautioned us about premature interpretations. “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame (Prov. 18:13, ESV).” Instead, we are instructed to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger (James 1:19, ESV). But how exactly?

Tip #6 – Ask clarifying, nonjudgmental, neutral questions to avoid making negative assumptions.

Let’s examine a few common scenarios in which people tend to make assumptions that cause avoidable harm to themselves and their partner. These tend to occur in four types of interactions: (1) when your partner is silent when you were wanting a response, (2) interpreting someone’s tone as hostility, (3) filling in the blanks yourself when someone doesn’t reply to a communication quickly, and (4) assuming task incompletion means you’re being disrespected or are not their priority. Let’s take an example of each scenario and see how we can get better results by making a few small improvements.

Example 1: When You Shared and Got Silence as a Response

Ineffective (Assuming Intent):

Partner A: “I’m telling you something important and you’re just sitting there. Clearly you don’t care.”
Partner B: “Wow. I do care. I’m just trying to think. Why do you always assume the worst?”

The conversation begins with a harsh assumption that the other party’s intent is unsupportive and uncaring. And you know what that gets you in return? Defensiveness. No one enjoys feeling attacked, much less having the person they love the most assume they don’t care about them.

Your desire for a response is legit, though we are not entitled to one immediately. Your feeling of being uncared for matters, even if your partner did all that he/she could to care for you. And here’s the important part about the stories we create, more often than not, they reflect the unhealed wounds from the past and reflect your brain’s reaction that the painful past may be repeating itself in the present. That’s why noticing these negative narratives are so important, because they point the way to the real issue in your heart and if handled carefully, can serve as an invitation for your partner to meet you in your fear and pain with care and compassion.

The trick here is to choose to believe the best about your partner’s intentions and motives. I bet your partner doesn’t open his/her eyes in the morning and their first thought is “What fresh hell can I cause my partner today?” Apart from abusive partners and those with personality disorders, people really do want to please their partners and win their hearts.

So instead of assuming and running with the assumption as if it is true, notice it, pause to discover the story you are telling yourself, and then invite your partner to help correct it with clarifying, nonjudgmental questions. Notice the assumptions and then choose to believe the best about your partner. Let’s see it in the conversation below done differently.

Effective (Clarifying Instead of Assuming)

Partner A: “I noticed you got quiet after I shared that. I was hoping you’d have had something helpful to say. The story I’m telling myself is that maybe it didn’t matter to you. I believe you genuinely love me and support me. That’s what made this time stick out to me. Can you help me understand what’s happening in you right now after you heard what I said?”
Partner B: “I’m thinking about how to respond. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. It takes me a little longer to process what’s new to me in what you just said, but it is very familiar to you. Can you give me a minute to catch up because I’m here for you?”

Example 2: Interpreting Tone as Hostility

Ineffective (Assuming Intent)

Partner A: “There you go again with that tone. You’re obviously mad at me (or blowing me off, disrespecting me, etc.).”
Partner B: “I’m not mad! Why do you always jump to that?”

This points to my second reason why clarifying questions are better than assuming. The story you tell yourself will either spawn peaceful curiosity or activate your brain’s fear and danger responses that will then override your judgment and impair critical thinking. Our narratives can jettison us from our Window of Tolerance, and hijack the prefrontal cortex, the very part we need for problem-solving and living according to our values.

Let’s try something. Think back on your life and imagine all the times you were concerned something bad might happen or that a person didn’t like you to the same degree you liked them. There are likely hundreds of examples if we took the time to list them. Now think about how many times you were actually correct. I’m certain it is far, far less than the number of initial concerns. Even for the times you were correct, the outcome likely wasn’t as bad as you anticipated, and here you are now, surviving and reading a blog.

Your brain is wired to look for danger, threat, and abandonment, even when the evidence for it is sparse. If we believe the default negative narrative and act on it as truth, we quickly get ourselves into relational trouble. Here’s how a small change in approach can make a big difference:

Effective (Clarifying Instead of Assuming)

Partner A: “Your tone sounded sharper than usual to me. I don’t want to assume. Can you tell me more about what’s happening inside you right now?”
Partner B: “I’m stressed from work. It’s not about you, honey. I’m sorry I’m not my usual self. Today was the worst day, and my boss…”

By taking the time to slow down, recognize that we have created a story that needs to be clarified, and then asking curious nonjudgmental questions, we can achieve so much more in our conversations. I’m thankful you’ve taken the time to learn these easy adjustments.

We will cover the next two scenarios in Part 2 of this post. For now, let’s practice two key skills:

1.        Choose to believe the best about your partner’s intentions and motives to interrupt the default negative assumptions.

2.        Engage your partner with nonjudgmental curiosity to prevent defensiveness and learn what’s needed to solve the problem or meet your needs.

The effort to make these relational changes is so worth it. They contain Biblical wisdom and empirically supported research that make a difference worth pursuing. Just by reading this, you have invested in changing how your brain perceives your relationship and your partner, along with already setting yourself up for a better future. Well done!