Prepare

Question Your Assumptions

Cultivates:

Draws on:

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A woman in a gray blazer rests her chin on her hand at a table, looking aside in thought.

How to Do It

If you assume that someone dislikes or distrusts you—or has harmful motives—you’re likely to approach them with anxiety that can negatively impact the interaction before it even begins. Without a doubt, sometimes these concerns are justified—but too often, they end up undermining connection. If you’re willing to question your assumptions and instead approach the other person with curiosity, the experience is likely to be better for both of you.

Before you engage with someone across differences, question the assumptions you’re holding about that other person.
Try writing them down. If some of them feel negative or leave you anxious, pause and ask yourself where they might be coming from. Often our assumptions grow out of past experiences of being mistreated—or even from stereotypes we’ve absorbed along the way.
Try to remind yourself that the person you are meeting is not who mistreated you or the person from a disturbing news story or social media post.
You can even practice this during a conversation: The next time you feel slighted in an interaction, pause to ask yourself whether your interpretation of what they’re saying is influenced by past experiences that may not have much to do with the person before you.

If you assume that someone on campus dislikes or distrusts you—or has harmful motives—you’re likely to approach them with anxiety that can negatively impact the interaction before it even begins. Without a doubt, sometimes these concerns are justified—but too often, they end up undermining connection. If you’re willing to question your assumptions and instead approach the other person with curiosity, the experience is likely to be better for both of you.

Before you engage with someone across differences, question the assumptions you’re holding about that other person.
Try writing them down. If some of them feel negative or leave you anxious, pause and ask yourself where they might be coming from. Often our assumptions grow out of past experiences of being mistreated—or even from stereotypes we’ve absorbed along the way.
Try to remind yourself that the person you are meeting is not who mistreated you or the person from a disturbing news story or social media post.
You can even practice this during a conversation: The next time you feel slighted in an interaction, pause to ask yourself whether your interpretation of what they’re saying is influenced by past experiences that may not have much to do with the person before you.

The Practice on Campus

On the first day of classes at Linn-Benton Community College, Speech Communication faculty member Mark Urista leads an activity where students share a little bit about themselves with one another using a prompt like: “What is something that people wouldn’t know about you just by looking at you?”

This helps students question initial assumptions they might make about one another, which creates a less threatening classroom environment.

The following week, he builds on this by assigning students to write and deliver a speech that identifies a social problem they really care about. Afterwards, the class responds to prompts like: “Did the speaker convince you that there's a problem?”, “Did the speaker convince you that their solution will work?”, “Did the speaker convince you that you will personally benefit?” Why or why not?

He then asks the students receiving feedback to assume good intent: their peers are answering these prompts to help them learn and grow. According to Urista, that framing leads students to say, “Oh, yeah, I never really considered that point,” rather than taking the feedback too personally or straining classroom relationships.

The Research

Studies the practice is based on.

Mechanisms for coping with status-based rejection expectations.

Mendoza-Denton, R., Page-Gould, E., & Pietrzak, J. (2006). In Levin S., van Laar C., (Eds.), Stigma and group inequality: Social psychological perspectives, the Claremont symposium on Applied Social Psychology (151–169). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Concerns about appearing prejudiced get under the skin: Stress responses to interracial contact in the moment and across time.

Trawalter, S., Adam, E. K., Chase–Lansdale, P. L., & Richeson, J. A. (2012). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(3), 682–693.

Confidence in contact: A new perspective on promoting cross–group friendship among children and adolescents.

Turner, R. N., & Cameron, L. (2016). Social Issues and Policy Review, 10(1), 212–246.