This is the second in our three-part series on questions. Part one covers the essentials of good questions, part two explores bad questions, and part three provides countermeasures for communicating with people who systematically ask faulty questions.
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Good questions (from our discussion in the first entry) improve understanding, increase comprehension, or gather information. Bad questions do the opposite: they impede understanding, sow confusion, or stifle the flow of information. Even worse, bad questions often lead to conversational escalations that dramatically increase the likelihood of relational damage.
It is crucial to distinguish between one-off (single-incident; discussed in this entry) bad questions and systemic bad questions (that is, people who demonstrate a pattern of asking you bad questions; discussed in our third entry). The difference between a single incident and a pattern significantly influences your response.
Your best response to single-incident bad questions is to gently ignore or deflect the faulty question (methods below). Questions are powerful—but not simple—communication tools. People mess up their questions all the time for completely innocent reasons. When in doubt, treat a bad question as a single incident. Patterns will reveal themselves to you quickly.
There are three fairly common categories of bad questions: rhetorical questions, leading questions, and criticism in disguise. Below we discuss each one and cover communication countermeasures for all three.
1. Rhetorical questions. “To be or not to be” from Shakespeare is perhaps the most famous rhetorical question in history. More commonly, we hear rhetorical questions like: “Why do I put up with this?” or “Why do I stay in this relationship?” Rhetorical questions suffer from a fatal flaw—they aren’t supposed to be answered—and this flaw often confuses or upsets people. Humans expect to be able to answer questions and when this impulse is stifled, frustration (which never helps conversations) is common.
Don’t ask rhetorical questions because they introduce counterproductive elements like confusion, frustration, or anger into conversations. If someone asks you a rhetorical question, don’t make things worse by trying to contort an answer. The response you jam into their rhetorical question will almost certainly be unhelpful (Q: “Why do I put up with this?” A:“Because you are a loser!”). Let rhetorical questions go. They weren’t meant to be answered in the first place.
2. Leading questions. “Wouldn’t you rather stay home and catch up on work than drive all the way to Aunt Sally’s?” and“Do you really want to spend all of that money on movie tickets or should we just watch something good on TV?” are examples of leading questions where the “right” answer is clearly embedded in the question.
You aren’t fooling anyone by stuffing the approved answer in your question, so quit it. If you don’t really want to give someone an opportunity to respond, just say what you want (“Look, I’d rather stay at home and catch up on work than go to Aunt Sally’s today.”) You won’t always get what you want, but your discussion will have a better beginning if the other person doesn’t fell like he or she is responding to a bad question.
When someone asks you a leading question, treat it like a statement and reply normally (“Actually, I’d really enjoy going to the movies. I want to get out of the house tonight.”). Most leading questions are relatively benign, so restrain the urge to react negatively to the obvious “clue” they are giving you. If you are concerned that a leading question is being asked with bad intentions, treat it like a criticism in disguise (see next).
3. Criticism in disguise. “Shouldn’t you be watching your child?” and “Do you think that another slice of cake is a good idea?” are examples of criticisms that are not-so-cleverly-disguised with question marks. These questions often generate sharp negative reactions—people hate being criticized—that can quickly escalate conversations and can lead to relational damage.
Make sure that you are not guilty of asking this type of profoundly unloved question by taking a moment to ask yourself (mentally) why you really want to ask the question. Go back to the three main functions of good questions—improve understanding, increase comprehension, or gather information—and see if the question you want to ask does either of these things. (By the way, regularly assessing your motives before speaking will, over time, help you develop a communication conscience, and this conscience will keep you out of untold relational trouble.)
Controlling your desire to emotionally react to criticism in disguise will test your restraint mightily. But the alternative—responding to a criticism with an emotional response—will always make things worse (Q: “Do you think that another slice of cake is a good idea?” A: I could see why another piece might be a problem for a fatso like you, but it’s not going to hurt me.”)
You’ll be better served in the long run by not emotionally reacting to single-incident criticisms in disguise. In cases where someone constantly asks you these bad questions, you’ll need to take a more active approach to reducing the bad questions. Strategies for countering systemic bad questions are the focus of the third entry in our series on questions.