Wait vs Interrupt Culture

You may be interested in Raymonde Carroll's Cultural Misunderstandings, which is about differences in French vs American cultures and how these manifest in everyday affairs. Much of the second chapter ("Conversation") is devoted to puzzling out the differences between what you call the interrupt culture, and Carroll classifies as the norm for French conversation, vs the wait culture, which for her is the norm for American conversation.

A few quotations (there's much more on this in the book):

a party, in a university town in the United States, in honor of a well-known French academic. The host and most of the guests are French. There are a few scattered Americans. The French academic, who has just been introduced to an American historian, looks interested. “I’m very interested in history . . . Are you familiar with Z (famous American historian)?” “Yes.” “What do you think of his latest book?” The American responds, talking about what he thinks of the book in question. The Frenchman, having stopped listening at a certain point, is glancing around the living room, and he eagerly widens the circle when another Frenchman approaches and “brutally interrupts” the conversation with a joke. The newcomer turns to the American, “What are you working on right now?” The latter, who has learned his lesson, responds briefly with “Oh, the same thing” and makes a joke. This little scene was described to me by the American in question, who added, “I really don’t understand French people; they only pretend to ask questions. This behavior especially surprised me coming, as it did, from such a famous man. He had no need to ask the question if he wasn’t interested in the answer. Of course I wasn’t going to fall into the same trap twice, so I joked ‘French-style’ instead of answering.” Americans often expressed surprise in my presence at the fact that French people, “who claim to be very big on manners,” are themselves so “rude”: “they interrupt you all the time in conversation,” “they finish your sentences for you,” “they ask you questions and never listen to the answer,” and so on. French people, on the other hand, often complain that American conversations are “boring,” that Americans respond to the slightest question with a “lecture,” that they “go all the way back to Adam and Eve,” and that they “know nothing about the art of conversation.”

[...]Let’s see what happens in a simple conversation between two French people. I (the speaker) look at my interlocutor, watch for signs of boredom or inattention. If the other person’s gaze begins to stray, to wander, I change my behavior, my tactic, or the subject, or else I cut myself short to allow him or her to speak. Of course, we are not talking about what truly happens in most cases but of the norm, the “ideal” situation which remains unchanged, no matter how often the rule is broken. In the inverse case (someone is speaking to me), I have several means at my disposal to intervene or to indicate that I want to speak: facial expressions, lips which open as if to say something but remain silent, slight body movements, or gestures. If this does not obtain the desired result and I still am unable to speak, I must make use of other signs—a barely audible inhalation which indicates that I am going to speak, a discreet sigh, a chopped-off word—or the stratagems of last resort—“speaking of which” “funny you should mention that”—which in general have nothing to do with the preceding conversation but rather indicate that I would like to say something too. If I start to look distracted or take on a vacant stare, it is to indicate, in what is still an acceptable manner, that I am ready to abandon the conversation since there is no place in it for me. If this has no effect, my only hope lies in the intervention of a third party (a friend met fortuitously on the street, a host or hostess, a guest, or a table companion at a meal or party) to save me from this “pain in the neck.” If worse comes to worst, I can avail myself of the excuses that have the disadvantage of being obvious: a telephone call to make, something urgent to tell someone else that I almost forgot, and the like. When I am pushed to this extreme, I am really resentful at the other for having “cornered” me, for having “kept me” (and therefore held me against my wishes), for having “monopolized the conversation” for “hours”—in short, for not having “given” me a chance to speak, that is, for having refused me all meaningful presence.

[...]American conversation is closer to a hike with two or more people in unknown territory than to a game on familiar territory—hence the need immediately to situate the participants (the territory) and the importance of cooperation. Each person will contribute to the exploration according to his or her knowledge and capacities. We may return from this hike with our hands empty or full, depending on the moment, the mood, and the quality of each person’s contribution. Consequently, if I (an American) am unsure of my information, I do not pretend to know but let whoever might know more speak. But if I have something to “contribute,” I can speak as long as seems necessary to respond to a question, to share my information. And I will listen to the other in the same way when it is his or her turn, no matter what the other’s style may be. And since when I am finished, I will spontaneously stop speaking, the other person will wait for this silence, different from that of a thoughtful pause, to speak in turn. Any other kind of behavior would look like an insulting interruption to me; I would interpret it as a sign of lack of interest or, even worse, as frivolous and annoying, as contributing nothing more than “noise,” “senseless commotion,” or signs of “impatience” to the conversation. In short, the interruption is more a commentary on the person who interrupts than on the person who is interrupted. We can now understand why Americans are shocked by the “rudeness” of French people who “interrupt you all the time.”

I have naturally low Latency of Verbal Response, and was raised in the intersection of several cultures where the normative LVR was negative (that is, you're expected to start replying just before the other person finishes).

When I experienced minor aphasia due to brain trauma, my LVR ballooned astronomically. This made it impossible to talk to some people... but it also revealed to me that several people I'd known for years and thought of as "quiet" were more than happy to talk to me at length and actually had quite a bit to say.

Since then, I've made more of a conscious effort to do some initial "handshaking" in conversations to work out what someone's natural LVR is, and to match it. (I often fail, but I do try.) I encourage it as a way of expressing interest in what someone has to say, if nothing else.

I attended a group discussion in regard to religion and ethics where there were very firm rules about how interaction could take place. No interrupting, no cross-talk, people's statement's were timed with a little hourglass and all took less than 60 seconds... I think (if I recall correctly) they even had a "talking-item" which you had to have in your hand in order to speak. When we read over the rules at the beginning of the discussion, I remember rolling my eyes and thinking, "Seriously? We are all adults... Can't we just have a discussion without all these rules? This is silly & infantile..."

The discussion was awesome. One of the most productive and interesting discussions I can remember. The rules, with no excepetion, were strictly but politely enforced. It felt silly at first, and then increasingly natural. I listened much more intently to other perspectives than I regularly do. I re-thought and chose to refrain from making statements I normally would have made. It was cool, and I'd say the Wait Culture worked that day.

I've been an 'interrupter'. I like to talk. And I enjoy heated debate. But I've been persuaded it is very unlikely to be the most productive way to proceed in a discussion. I'm trying to become a 'waiter'. (It's hard to do...)

...

Upvoted for framing this topic in a helpful way (Wait vs. Interrupt Culture). I've learned there is a staggering difference in the way individuals feel about this -- some think the wait culture is super weird; some are horrified by the rudeness of anything resembling an interruption. Interesting and helpful to know.

I've always found interrupt mode incredibly frustrating to deal with, because it takes me longer to come up with appropriate responses than most people's Maximum Wait Time, and by the time a monologue is finished, whatever I thought of is no longer on-topic. I do find it interesting that you associate interruption with nerddom, though. As a tech geek, interruption is a Very Bad Thing because it disrupts mental state. If I want someone's attention, I stand near them, look attentive, and wait for them to swap out. I expect others to do the same. Sometimes I have to ask. But I don't think I've had anyone competent refuse to wait or express confusion about why.

It's possible nerd communities make a distinction between work-interruption and conversation-interruption. Most of my communication is textual so I may not have noticed. One of the things I've always loved about communication on the Internet is that interruption is effectively impossible; both parties can get their say without being dependent on the other party to shut up for a moment.

I grew up in a wait culture, and it's really hard for me to talk when interruption is the norm. I've had to deliberately force myself to interrupt people, which is really uncomfortable. If I'm not feeling comfortable already, I just won't really say anything unless asked a question directly. I would really like to experience a wait culture again. I should probably try to improve my skill at talking and making myself heard in an interrupt culture though. Any advice for this?

My sympathies are mostly with interrupt culture, because I find it hugely uncomfortable to have confusions or arguable points or whatever just sitting there, in the past, while the conversation meanders away and thoughts on the past topics dissolve - I have zero "trust" of the kind described in the OP. But in groups larger than three, interruption attempts can turn into multiple simultaneous threads of conversation and I don't have the audio processing capacity to manage that on most days. So then I have to ratchet up the interruption and shout over everyone to pare it down to one thread (with some overlap/interruption, but between tracks that respond to each other, not that are carried on independently and adjacently). I did this just a few hours ago with my dinner party guests.

At one organization I work with we mostly have a 'wait' culture, and it is socially enforced, since we have recognized that many of our members are 'waiters' and will not speak if interrupters do not give them a chance.

With more than 3-4 people we use several hand signals to facilitate conversation. We have the usual raised hand to speak next, but we also have a separate gesture for 'I have a direct response to what you just said', which takes priority over raised hands. It works as a 'soft interrupt', and it is up to the current speaker to let the interrupter speak. The interrupter can usually communicate how urgent/important they think their interruption is through body language. Now when the conversation gets heated we have people gesturing hard at each other instead of shouting. I think it does improve the quality of conversations.

We also have a gesture for 'I agree with this', and a gesture for meta-communication. The 'meta' gesture has absolute priority and is used for things like bringing the conversation back on tracks at meetings, or to remind people to follow the conversation rules. We usually don't need a designated moderator as we moderate each other and enforce the norms with the 'meta' signal'.

I've found this system improves the quality and productivity of our group conversations and I've found myself getting frustrated in other groups who don't use hand signals.

Now, I’ve praised the virtues of wait culture because I think it’s undervalued, but there’s plenty to say for interrupt culture as well. For one, it’s more robust in “unwalled” circumstances. If there’s no one around to enforce wait culture norms, then a few jerks can dominate the discussion, silencing everyone else. But someone who doesn’t follow “interrupt” norms only silences themselves.

I'm not sure this is necessarily true.

I've found hat, where "interrupt" norms hold sway, a few jerks can STILL dominate the discussion, by interrupting everyone else and speaking loudly and aggressively enough that no one can successfully interrupt them back. If, when someone interrupts you, you simply keep talking as if they aren't even there, and you have the right body language and voice projection tricks to make the rest of the audience keep listening to you and ignore the re-interrupter, you've won.

My experience is that even when waiting is the norm, you can still typically interrupt as long as you "ask permission" first (outside of really formal contexts where there's a rule against interrupting, anyway). Example of a less formal/explicit version: Raise hand slightly, go "Ah-" or "Uh...". Example of a more formal/explicit version: Interrupt with "Can I interrupt you for a second there?" The speaker can then either let you speak (e.g. "Yes?") or not. (Example of a less formal/explicit version: Raise hand in "stop sign" gesture or "just a minute" gesture, possibly also shake head. Example of a more formal/explicit version: "Hold on a moment, let me finish this.")

(This obviously overlaps some with Benquo's comment on metaconversational interruptions, though that seems to be about the reverse problem?)

This is interesting, and seems similar to the issue of ask v. guess, which can create similar problems due to cultural differences.

I think the culture is one variable. Context is another. They can interact in interesting ways. This was brought home to me in a specific way.

I am a lawyer by trade. I was representing a client in a complex contract negotiation with a Navajo business (and quasi-governmental) entity. My client hadn't seemed to be making much headway, despite lots of negotiation. When I joined the negotiation, I figured out what was going on.

My client interpreted a long pause in discussion as a signal that the proposal was not well received. That was consistent with his experience in the business world: if someone makes a horribly embarrassing proposal, it is polite to pause long enough for them to save face by way of qualification or limited retraction.

A pause among the Navajo is just polite. I subsequently found a study that backs this up (with the significant qualifier of a very small sample size). The normal pause to signal swapping of turns in a discussion is around 4 to 6 seconds among the Navajo subjects in the study, while it is around 1 second for "Anglos" in the literature reviewed in that study.

So my client was negotiating against himself. He would propose something. His Navajo counter-part would politely pause to make sure he was finished and to show proper consideration. He would think he had put a foot wrong and would better his last offer, endlessly. After our first call, I told him to wait for them to say something, no matter how long it took. We eventually got to a deal.

In retrospect, I think that our Navajo counter-parts were aware of what was happening and were using it to their advantage. The study I found says that Navajo familiar with "Anglo" culture use signals to tentatively claim the floor when it appears that their "Anglo" counter-part is done. Example: "Um, I'd say ...(pause of four seconds) ... right now not many people my age know the language." Our counter-parts did not do so that I recall. It is possible my memory is mistaken. It is also possible that they were less exposed to "Anglo" culture, so had not picked up the floor-claiming mechanisms that the participants in the study had.

Max

Good post. I suggest you make "Cross-posted at my personal blog" a link.

I grew up in a big italian-american extended family - very much an interrupt culture. If I didn't interrupt (loudly) I didn't speak at all.

This pat year and a half I've been at a job that involves interviewing lots of people, and I've been making a conscious effort to wait, and to become more comfortable with pauses. It's amazing how much people will volunteer just to fill a silence.

I'm guessing that if possible, these modes should be chosen depending on the situation. Waiting seems better when discussing something in a group where several people often have something to say at the same time, as a kind of scheduling algorithm to improve fairness and give structure to navigate a more complicated conversation (and control its complexity). A norm that you can interrupt, but only rarely, can rescue a discussion with many participants from this mode. Interrupting seems better when only a few people are interacting, so that there is a more efficient feedback loop, for example relevant confusions/questions are cleared up quickly instead of increasing the difficulty in interpreting subsequent statements (including to the point where you are no longer able to follow, which easily happens when there is no possibility of feedback, but can be mitigated when there is).

If you know sign language, instead of interrupting the person you can quickly comment something they says (eg. I have a question OR I disagree OR I understand) without interrupting them. Then they can either let you talk, or finish saying what they are saying (if they judge it's better to do so) but at least they'll know what your reply will be about.

This is not an observation, but a proposition. I'm still not good at sign language.

An interesting post. I suppose the main difference is the size of the group you are used to, since larger groups can't hold a single conversation in an interrupt culture. Like Error said, on the internet (assuming threaded posts, that is) interruption is entirely impossible. It occurs to me that among deaf people communicating via sign language, there would be a more interesting phenomenon: everyone can sign simultaneously, and everyone can parse what someone is signing no matter how many other people are signing.

Networking protocols face similar challenges. I wonder if there's a rationality of conversation hidden somewhere in here?

I think using wait culture is a good solution to this problem about audience/speaker perceptions highlighted on Overcoming Bias. It can also draw out anyone who is shy, has a quiet voice or is a non-native speaker. This is relevant in the London LessWrong group, for example, where we have a very broad range of conversational styles/people.

I find that my favourite long conversations with larger groups (I think without any formal rules, it is possible. though quite infrequent to have workable longer conversations with up to about a dozen people) tend to oscillate between the two modes. It's as if the conversation itself were breathing. The longest pauses and slowest pace would correspond to fully in, the acceleration that then takes place is breathing out, lots of interrupts and competitive yammering is fully out... and then somehow there is a shortage of breath and people slow down to process the fragmentary, multichannel stuff they just went through, the pace slows, until there are a few thoughtful silences... and the cycle begins again. Compared to that oscillation, extended 'wait' periods tend to become boring (I had this experience in university seminars) - of course, if uncertain terrain, open ended questions need to be traversed carefully, it may be just the thing. A great deal of value is lost in extended 'interrupt' mode. I wouldn't say it is just a competition... but it does seem wasteful. Of course if the true gems need to be separated from a great deal of sparkly things, it may be just the thing.

This seems good enough for Main.

Very interesting. In Normandy, during the yellow-vest episode, we tried with a few anarchists and traditional-left activists a new way of talking in public, we called this "pow wow"; people take the microphone and speak their mind one after another and when everyone has spoken his mind the microphone return to the organisation; in rare cases people had nothing to say and handed over the microphone to their neighbour. Surprisingly, shy people, especially women, who thought they had nothing to say, where found to have a lot of interesting sayings. And sadly this experience only lasted two or three meetings, as it infuriated the more 'traditional" "ego fueled" left activists, who tend to usally act in those meetings as leaders or preachers thus depriving people to speak their mind, and those egotics were disoriented to see that public interest may shift to the humble, instead of them. Only the anarchists did really endorsed this experience. Fun.

If, in addition, the point of the discussion was to try to determine the truth of something, this could be seen as within the domain of Systems-Oriented Social Epistemology (for one discussion, fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/goldman/Systems-Oriented%20Social%20Epistemology.pdf - article by Alvin I Goldman). I.e. the effect of various communication protocols, media technologies, fads (such as forwarding anonymous emails), social media designs, peer review regimes, etc. on tendencies to converge on truths. To me it seems like the most interesting sort of question in epistemology, and the most likely have a real impact on practical affairs. Hal. http://therealtruthproject.blogspot.com/2010/04/practical-epistemology.html