Answering a Question With a Question – Psychological reasons for doing so?

What is the Meaning of Answering the Question With a Question?

In psychology, behavior of answering a question with a question can have multiple meanings. Does the person we ask the question do not understand us? Or does he understand but is trying to distract us because they does not have an answer? Or is they trying to save time? Or are they making fun of us? We should examine the psychology of it in more detail.

There is no need to perceive this badly all the time. Sometimes it is normal for a person to suddenly respond with the question when stunned by a question.

Another variant of answering a question with a question is answering the question with the same question,it’s a tactic people often use to save time.It is not well known, but this method is also a method used to capture the sense of rhythm in dialogue while writing a script.

For some people, this has become a habit, and they use this method so much that even if they know the answer to the question, they respond with the question first. Moreover, if this action is done intelligently, it is effective enough to make them think about the answer and forget the question they asked completely.

To understand this more accurately,let’s first look at a little bit of response psychology.

The Response Psychology

Understanding the question asked is the first stage in the answer process, here is the most important what the researcher in question,the interpretation of the same meaning does not change.

Answers can be affected by many factors. The researches are even the questionnaire, the answer order given with the questions shows that it creates changes in the results.

The response-order effect (response order effect) is to comprehend the question, to find the relevant information in memory, to generate an answer and it can be seen as the consequences of other mental stages on the answer. 

Question queue the effect of answering a question to the previous or next question. It refers to the determination of the answer (item-order effect).

The previous question and interpretation of the general next problem of the given answer and the answer is given it affects it. The difficulty of the problem and the obtained answer there is an inverse relationship in general terms.

It has been found to have a significant effect. Data from the field of linguistics judgingly, uncommon words, ambiguous noun phrase or it causes syntax comprehension problem, so hand survey questions it affects the quality of the answer given.

Some people’s responsiveness is extreme to choose values ​​or to prefer values ​​that take place in the center, in general, maybe. The level of interest of the people also depends on the quality of the answers given the last stage is effective. 

Some people may tend to only give a satisfactory, simple answer (satisficing), avoiding hard mental effort. Satisficing given the theory, respondents can shorten the mental process that will produce the correct answers.

And with very little effort, however, to appear logical, answer all questions in the order of questions in the same or similar way (Anand et al.,2009). This issue (escapism) is generally confronted by the researcher if the individual’s mental ability is insufficient and the willingness to answer is low.

Based on this information how can we list the reasons for answering the question with a question in psychology?

We can say that many individuals get more time for themselves by “responding to questions with questions” where they are blocked in the course of the conversation. As the “best defense is attack” method is used in battlefields, this is perhaps a tactic in mutual dialogue, according to some.

Socrates applied this in the same way at the time. When he looked at his mentality, he believed that all the information contained in human beings from birth. While applying this method to his students, he aimed “to be able to prove himself to find the answer to the question he was asked to himself without being aware of the answer to the question he was asked to himself.” He says that you have the right to request before fulfilling this request. You can consider another response request as a precondition and take sanctions before responding to the response request requested by the other party. At this stage, the detail of answering the question with a question comes into the game.

The point is, of course, none of us are Socrates, we are aware of this. Some of us even answer the question with the question, some of us directly respond to the question with the same question because we do not have an answer. If we list the possible reasons, “it is quite intelligent people trying to save the situation, or it is a tactic, maybe it may also indicate some self-confidence problems, the essence of the job is to try to hide that you do not know the answer, time. it is trying to win “.

One thing I’m sure of is that the act of “answering the question with a question” damages the course of the dialogue and the human willingness to continue the conversation. “With a simple logic,” the purpose of asking a question is to get an answer. ” Or you can ask your questions to be sure about something. So why is it so difficult for a person to answer? However, instead, it can be said that I know the answer to this question, but I do not / do not want to say, or directly I do not know the answer to this question, nobody can press you on this issue. The choice is yours.

Are you one of those who use the word I don’t know, or one of those who answered the question with a question?

I don’t see bilateral dialogues as a race, so I don’t need to answer questions with questions often. I prefer to say I don’t know if I have no knowledge or can not form an opinion on a topic. I try to learn new things from him by saying I don’t know instead of giving it and reducing the quality of the dialogue.

Of course, this may not always be caused by an instructive dialogue. Sometimes the person in front of us can ask meaningless or disturbing questions to force us, and if I realize this, I can use the method of answering the question with questions to provoke the other person like any other person. It may differ.

When we look from another perspective, answering the asked question with a question is actually an inquiry.The person who answers the question with a question questions the other person.

So the person who answers the question with the question means that he / she is convinced that he / she is superior or wiser than the other person.We can say that two individuals who constantly ask each other questions are competing for wisdom or superiority.This is used as a tactic in job interviews.

If you are asked what do you do in your spare time, and you have read more science time, you will answer that I am reading science books. In this way, he comes to you with new questions such as who are you reading. In the interview, you have questions asked.

It is an inertial aggressive behavior, even if it appears to have no obvious intention to manipulate.

Naturally when you answer a question with a question who asked a question remains in a passive-aggressive situation, and that’s not right. A ‘sincere’ question should be able to get the sincere answer it deserves. I wish our only concern was to be understood instead of using such confusing methods to make an impressive impression.

Also read What Is the Meaning and How To Answer “What Are You Up To”

Answering a Question With a Question – Psychological reasons for doing so?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to top