8 things people do that lead to foolish assumptions.
Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve assumed something about someone else’s words, actions, or intentions, only to be completely wrong? Maybe you’ve damaged relationships and friendships by assuming the worst about people and their motivations?
Or you’ve worked yourself into a lather assuming that you’ve failed an exam, or are suffering from some terminal ailment, only to discover that everything was all well and good?
So many difficult situations can be avoided if we stop assuming that we know what’s going on.
You’ve probably heard the phrase, “When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.” But making assumptions goes beyond just looking (or behaving) like an ass. Sometimes, you can cause real damage to relationships or situations by jumping to conclusions and acting upon them before you have tangible details to work with.
Here are 8 things that people who regularly end up making stupid assumptions do. If you can avoid doing them you’ll save yourself a lot of disappointment and humiliation.
1. Neglecting to ask what other people are actually thinking.
We can never know what other people are thinking or feeling unless we have the courtesy to ask them. In fact, research shows that the majority of the time, what we assume that another person is thinking or feeling is usually dead wrong, if not the complete opposite of what’s actually going on inside them.
Have you ever been on the receiving end of someone informing you of what you’re thinking? For instance, have you ever heard someone say to you, “You think you’re better than me!” or “You think you’re so smart,” and so on?
Chances are that couldn’t have been further from the truth, but they were so focused on projecting their insecurities onto you that what was actually going on with you didn’t even come into the equation.
2. Working with emotions, not facts.
People who lean toward hypochondria will often fall into emotional maelstroms due to their assumptions. They might have a symptom or two that may possibly be associated with some awful, potentially terminal illness, and then they start spiraling. They’ll think about all the treatments they’ll need to go through, how much that’ll hurt, and how they might only have a short amount of time left with their loved ones.
From there, they’ll freak out about the possibility of not seeing their children grow up or feel anguish at not accomplishing all they wanted to, and so on. This will just keep getting bigger and bigger until they’re experiencing full-on panic attacks… and then they get test results back from the doctor and find out it’s absolutely nothing to be worried about.
As soon as they get that information, all the panic and despair simply stop. Why? Because they had solid answers to work with rather than wild assumptions veering off in all directions.
The same thing often happens when we assume things about a person (or situation) rather than working with tangible facts.
Let’s say you’re in a raging fury because your favorite bento box is missing. You assume that your housemate has taken it and put something you either don’t eat or are allergic to into it, and now it’s going to be ruined forever, and you’ll have to either bleach it or get a new one, and how could they be so awful, and, and, and…
…and then you find it in your bag, where you left it on Friday when you came home from work.
This is why it’s so important to work with facts rather than feelings. When we make assumptions about others, we’re showing them an immense amount of disrespect and discourtesy.
3. Believing the past can predict the future.
It’s important to note that just because you’ve experienced certain things in the past, that doesn’t mean that new circumstances will unfold the same way—even if they share certain traits. This is a type of “cognitive bias” that Dr. Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, discusses in his pivotal work.
As an example, let’s say your partner told you that they’d call you on their lunch break, but by 12:15 you haven’t heard from them yet. Depending on what you’ve experienced in the past, your heart and mind may leap in several different directions.
For instance, you may worry that something horrible has happened to them and fly off into a panic spiral. Alternatively, you might assume that they’re banging one of their coworkers in the supply closet and start to get enraged about all the details you’re envisioning.
Think of it like being in court, having to prove a case. Unless you have X number of facts that can prove that this situation is in fact what you assume it to be, the case would be thrown out due to lack of evidence. Assumptions are not reality: hard facts and evidence are.
4. Projecting their own issues and experiences onto others.
Many people fall into the habit of assuming things of others because it’s what they have (or haven’t) experienced themselves. For example, if you’ve been cheated on in the past, you might assume that the partner who’s late calling or texting you is cheating, because that’s what you’ve been wired to brace yourself against. Or, if you had someone close to you die in a car accident, you may assume the worst when your partner is late coming home.
These assumptions are projections from previous experiences and can cause far more emotional strife than necessary.
On a similar note, people who have experienced certain things will often assume that others who go through similar circumstances will feel and behave the same way they did. Furthermore, if that other person behaves differently than they did, they might not believe that the experience was as difficult or traumatic, simply because the response was so different from their own.
Here’s an example: years ago, I worked with a group of people who liked to chat about their personal lives in the lunchroom. One person, “A” was talking about some difficulties she had, and how they’d been caused by a trauma she’d experienced in the past.
Another person, “B” offered their perspective, and A lashed out at them saying: “You wouldn’t feel that way if you’d gone through what I have.”
Then, when she found out that B had actually been through the same thing, she refused to believe it because B’s emotional and psychological reaction hadn’t been the same as hers.
Different people will be affected by their experiences in different ways. Something that damages one person will simply roll off another, and vice versa. We’re all wired differently, and as such we’ll be affected by things in our own ways. Research on trauma and individual differences backs this up.
We cannot expect that the other 8 billion people on this planet will respond to things the exact same way that we do, even though this is one of the most common assumptions we make.
5. Assuming that others have the same abilities that they do.
You might be able to change a tire as easily as you can code a website, but that doesn’t mean that the person standing next to you can do both of those as well. Similarly, there are undoubtedly things that you don’t know how to do, but others take for granted as almost second nature.
Everyone is wired differently, and what’s easy for one person might be incredibly difficult for another. That doesn’t mean that they’re incompetent or stupid: just different. This is especially true for those who are neurodivergent or who may suffer from PTSD, fetal alcohol effects, or countless other developmental differences.
“Different” doesn’t mean “wrong.” Furthermore, the people you may assume to be sub-par in an area that you consider important might outshine you by miles in other areas.
On a similar note, please don’t assume that someone who’s nonspeaking or has difficulty communicating doesn’t understand everything that’s going on around them. Many people who are nonspeaking are completely cognizant of their surroundings. They just can’t express themselves verbally the same way that you can.
6. Letting their preconceptions and personal biases control their decision making.
Let’s say you’re starting a new job, and there are two people chatting in the lunchroom. One of them is older and conservatively dressed, while the other is younger and a bit more wild in appearance. You know that one of them is your boss and the other is the secretary, but which one is it?
Chances are you’d assume that the older person is your superior, but that isn’t necessarily the case. If you were to go up to that one and speak to them with the assumption that they were the boss, you could end up embarrassing yourself rather thoroughly. Furthermore, this would start your new career there on a sour note.
The same type of embarrassment can occur if you assume that others around you don’t speak your language and say something disparaging right in front of them. A person’s appearance (e.g., skin color, mode of dress, etc.) does not necessarily denote the languages they’re capable of speaking. As such, it’s best to err on the side of politeness and never say anything in another language that you wouldn’t say to someone directly.
Have you made social gaffs because of your preconceptions based on a person’s race, gender, or assumed sexual preferences? Perhaps you’ve made assumptions about people and spoken out before finding out further details and then felt like an ass about it.
As an example, many people with invisible disabilities have been yelled at in public for daring to take a priority bus seat or park in a disabled space. Since they didn’t use a wheelchair or similar mobility device, others assumed that they were able-bodied, since they “didn’t look” disabled.
Then, once the person explained that they had cerebral palsy, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, or similar, the one who virtue signaled by shrieking at them would be left feeling mortified.
You can avoid that type of mortification—and public humiliation—by never assuming that you know what’s going on in other people’s lives. Give them the benefit of the doubt, and if it’s appropriate to do so in the moment, ask them about themselves. Or ask how you can help them.
7. Not looking at the big picture to understand someone’s motivations.
Many of us have knee-jerk responses to things that people say or do because of our own history. For instance, if you had an abusive partner or family life before, there were likely things that your abusers said or did that were associated with verbal or physical mistreatment toward you.
As a result, if and when other people say or do similar things—albeit innocently and innocuously—you’ll be triggered into responding the same way you did when you knew that you were about to be yelled at or smacked around.
I’m guilty of this kind of reaction, and I’m still learning how to reprogram my own mind so I don’t immediately: A) assume the worst of people, and B) react poorly as a result.
An example of this happened just this afternoon. I was eating a bowl of soup for lunch, and my lovely partner smiled and said: “Wow, you really seem to be enjoying that!” My instant response was anger, guilt, and resentment, and I was inclined to stop eating and go do something else immediately.
Why was that? Because I’d grown up with a vicious narcissist mother who had tormented my sibling and I into eating disorders. Any time we ate or drank anything in her presence, she’d find a way to mock or shame us for daring to consume anything.
As a result, hearing someone comment on how I’m apparently enjoying food caused an instant defensive response. I **had** been enjoying said soup until he commented on it, and then I was hit with a wave of guilt, self-loathing, and anger.
I assumed he was being negative toward me as well, because that’s how I had been programmed… when in fact, the opposite was true. He was delighted to see me actually savoring food instead of picking at a crumb or two and eating just enough to keep me alive.
8. Believing things “should be obvious.”
Another area in which many people make too many assumptions (and then end up frustrated and/or disappointed) is when it comes to other people knowing your needs.
For instance, just because you do things a certain way—and want others to do them that way too—doesn’t mean that others will know that about you or about the thing in question.
You might feel that you don’t need to communicate your needs or expectations to others because you assume that they’ll just know what’s needed. Then, when they fail to live up to your expectations, you get disappointed or angry with them.
Here’s an example: The board of directors at a company I once worked for was primarily comprised of Jewish men and women. One of our young interns was assigned the task of sorting out the catering for an upcoming board meeting, so she made several calls to make those arrangements.
On a whim, I asked her to please run the order forms past me to approve before confirming them. Well, it’s a good thing I did, because the foods she had ordered included ham sandwiches and crab cakes—both of which are wholeheartedly non-kosher. Furthermore, she hadn’t made any allowances for several board members’ food allergies and intolerances, despite them being listed in the directors’ files.
We had assumed that she knew that the board members were mostly Jewish (which she did not), as well as what kosher food was (she didn’t), and that dietary details were kept in that particular file (which hadn’t occurred to her). This assumption came from our combined years of experience with event management, which made these checks second nature to us. But this 18-year-old didn’t have a clue, and nobody had taken the time to explain it to her.
Had we not checked, everything would have gone very badly, with long-lasting negative repercussions all around.
This is why it’s so important not to assume, but to communicate clearly with everyone involved. It’s no failing of theirs that they’re not mind readers and don’t have the same life experience that you do. Nor should anyone feel put out by having to go through the drudgery of explaining things that “should be obvious.”
They may be obvious to you, but they aren’t to other people. And vice versa. You probably don’t like feeling like an incompetent tool if and when you have to do something you’re unfamiliar with.
Ultimately, the best way to stop making assumptions is to ask questions and then work with the facts in front of you. Follow those two rules and you’ll spare yourself (and others) an incredible amount of potential embarrassment and grief.
