Open-Ended Questions

[sabrdawg]

Does anyone else here struggle with answering open-ended questions? I never know how to answer them! I realized this in talking with a friend over our last few conversations. I don't like these types of questions during job interviews, either! Anyone else know where I'm coming from?

 

[St947]

That is interesting do you have any examples? Perhaps, tell me about a time you had to deal with a team member who constantly opposed your ideas? Try breaking down the question, like academic writing where you must prove; Existence, Cause, Language, values, and actions. Go in any Order you feel necessary. Your language should reflect your answer; 'Honestly I try to stay calm and grounded' Your values; such as you expect to be treated respectfully, set your own priorities and make your own decisions, at the same time you are patient and ask a lot of questions. Your action can reveal your efforts to find a win/win, a will to inspire, a chance to validate another person, and your ability to take criticism. For this type of question you may want to use mnemonics illustrate your interpersonal effectiveness with the GIVE FAST DEAR MAN strategy used in 'Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. Instead, of trying to answer the questions look at it as maintaining control of the conversation. Tell a story, but be precise and use the S.T.A.R. method; specific situation, task, action, and result of the situation. Another method used in presentations is the P.R.E.P Point Reason Example Point/Conclusion. In business situations you may want to analyze the internal and external lotus of control. The outside factors can be determined using the PEST-LIED analysis method in order to optimize the internal system. Hopefully, you can do some role play with improv exercises to relax you for your interviews.

 

[sabrdawg]

Wow, that's great advice! I'll have to try it. As far as job interviews go, I luckily don't have to worry about any in the near future, as I'm content at my current 3 jobs Thanks so much!

 

[Bolletje]

I generally don’t struggle with open-ended questions, unless the person asking the question is really just looking for one specific answer and I have no idea what they want to hear.

For example: my driving instructor asking me: “who do you want to run over with your car?” After careful consideration, I came up with a name. This was obviously not correct, I should have answered with “no one” and then she could have continued explaining how to make sure I didn’t run anyone over.

 

[SameStars]

With friends I'm okay, unless it's like an emotional talk, but in formal situations I get easily blocked, and if I feel really stressed I'll forget the original question.

 

[Progster]

I find vague, non-specific questions like "do you like Greece?" hard to answer. I just can't - do you mean the climate, do I like the landscape, the politicians, the people, the food??? No idea how to answer.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

How does that make you feel?

 

[Iamnotarabot]

first appointement with the psychiatrist I think I will never see again, iv done many appointements with my psychologist and it was mainly about findind out what is related to asd and what is related to other stuff...She gave him a resume with a lot of things.
And when I met him he starts with :

" As a student, what are you going throught that may be related to ASD?"

Triggered.

 

[AO1501]

I can manage open questions such as 'How are you?' and 'Are you OK?' because I know the social conventions these relate to, and I struggled a lot for many years with the typical interview/job review questions such as 'Where do you see yourself in 5 years?', or 'How do you think we would benefit if we hire you?', but in general, open questions just baffle me totally.

While I was married, my wife frequently used to ask things like 'Why are you upset with me?', or 'What is the matter with you?', and then get angry when I struggled to work out what she meant, let alone what the response should be. I managed to work out that when asked 'What do you think of....?' I am being asked for a personal viewpoint on the subject, but if it was phrased as 'How do you feel about....?' instead, I have always tended to panic because that doesn't make sense to me.

I have noticed that my partner tends to ask things in a very different way, that helps me a great deal. She typically makes a statement, and then asks me if I agree or not. This is a very easy way for me to handle questions. She also tends to give me binary options to create closed questions, such as 'Would you prefer this, or that?' which makes life so much less complicated and confusing. But then she's an Aspie too!

 

[Gracey]

“What d’yer think?” amuses me.

(What do I think? -what goes on in my head?/ what do I think about?)

(I’m being asked for my opinion on something,
I have to work out which; of the four or more subjects they’ve spoken about, they mean.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

“What d’yer think?” amuses me.

(What do I think? -what goes on in my head?/ what do I think about?)

(I’m being asked for my opinion on something,
I have to work out which; of the four or more subjects they’ve spoken about, they mean.

There was a film with Michael Keaton, they all just escaped from a madhouse.

They asked him :

What do you do ? (Implication usually his job etc)

His reply

It kind of depends on the circumstances.

Which cracked me up for several years.

 

[sidd851]

I find that open-ended questions are sometimes deliberate attacks on one's person.
Regardless how or what one may answer, one is subsequently attacked, also regardless of one's unarguably defensible and unassailable response.
Edit: This type of attack is meant to suggest that your fundamental judgement is at question, and for introspectives, this can be quite damaging and demoralizing...

 

[Mint]

I have and still do struggle with open-ended questions. Some of them I've discovered doesn't really matter and they are just a societal courtesy of some kind, like "How are you?" No matter what, I always answer "Fine. You?" and that's the end of it. I hate the how do you feel questions about anything. I don't think with feel, I think with logic. I think that word just trips me. Listening to someone and wondering what they are expecting is as bad. I've learned, despite my communication skills, my power lies in asking questions. If I don't understand what they want/expect, I ask. If I need more information, I ask. Considering how much work that feels like in my brain when it's happening, I'm glad I don't talk to many people.

 

[SplendidSnail]

Yes. I hate open ended questions. And not just in job interviews either.

Even in general conversion, when someone asks me something like, "How was your day?", or "How was your trip?", I'll really struggle to answer those questions, even though the answer is of little consequence and the person is just trying to be friendly.

 

[musicalman]

I agree with AO1501 with the binary questions. I ask them all the time myself. I noticed that I did this about 6 months ago but I think I've done it for a long time before that without knowing. I don't know why I do it either. Not many people ask me binary questions which doesn't bother me so much, but it's the easiest way I've found to ask my own questions to others.

I don't like open-ended questions either, but the reasons I don't like them depend on the situation.

If someone asks "How was your trip?" Well the things I really enjoy in a lot of trips are different from the things a lot of other people like. Do you really want me to tell you about that interesting sound I heard or the wild musical idea I had while doing activities x y and z? Or are you asking for something more generalized? Or are you asking about something specific but not telling me what that specific thing is, and hoping I'll know? And when someone says they're just asking about everything, that doesn't help me because I still fear they won't be interested in what I have to say. Naturally I don't have this problem with people I can relate to, like friends who I know well enough to make pretty good guesses about what they'd be interested in hearing about.

In academic settings it becomes more serious, and as a child my teachers used to marvel at how poorly I could explain certain things or understand the real point of a question. Another problem was that in math or history or any other class really, when they ask you to define a solution to a problem, or to outline or infer a chain of events, well that can be hard enough for me sometimes depending on what it is. Then they ask you to explain how you got there. I understand that in some cases anyway, the answer you give doesn't matter as much as the validity of the explanation you use to back it up, but the trouble is that even if I know the correct answer, say, to a math problem, I have difficulty explaining it, and sometimes if I find it too intuitive I completely forget how I got there but I still believe my answer is correct. I think that's something that a lot of aspies struggle with if they find something too intuitive. I once saw a documentary about a 13-year-old aspie who had the exact same struggles in his own math class (math was his special interest). I think the documentary was called Growing Pains of a Teenage Genius.

And in professional settings like job interviews, well in order to answer the open-ended questions there or in any other professional setting, I'd have to rehearse, and know what answers the interviewer would find interesting so that I have a chance at getting the job. The only answers I find intuitive are honest ones, and sadly that seems to be an unsatisfactory approach for me, since I am very reserved, even pessimistic. I'm sure most people wouldn't want to hire me if I seemed nervous about being able to perform this or that task. I wish I were the outgoing confident person who is going to stride out into the big wide world ready to handle anything, because it seems that it's those people who attract interest from others, not just in jobs but in life too.