Lately, when reading news, you might find yourself letting out a series of exasperated “why” questions. Why are politicians enacting policies they know will produce human suffering and environmental harm? Why isn’t more being done to stop mass shootings? Why can’t old enemies figure it out without resorting to bombs?
The cascade of Why? Why? Why? It starts in toddlerhood, as young humans learn about the world around them. In school, teachers (ideally) continue to foster our curiosity, encouraging us to develop more thorough accounts of why things happen the way they do. At work, we ask why a project failed or succeeded to figure out how we can improve. The creator of the Toyota Production System, Taiichi Ohno, famously elevated the asking of why to an engineering staple, arguing that posing the question five times sequentially would lead to the root of a problem.
But when it comes to human behavior, it can often be more productive and compelling to ask questions that begin with how rather than why.
When it comes to human behavior, it can often be more productive and compelling to ask questions that begin with how rather than why.
Think about your answer to the following question: Why are you working at your current job? Compare that to this one: How did you come to work at your current job? “Why” questions tend to provoke the stating of specific reasons, a need to explain via rational justification. I work at this job because it is what I trained to do. I work here because I need the money. I work here because the hours fit my schedule. Rat-a-tat-tat.
In contrast, “how” questions can evoke more wandering responses that often include crucial information about social processes, history, networks, decision-making, and uncertainty. How did I come to work as a sociology professor at Yale University? Well, when I was in college, someone mentioned that becoming a professor required a Ph.D., so after graduation I worked at a nonprofit for a few years while deciding whether to apply to graduate school. I emailed my undergrad adviser, who suggested a few Ph.D. programs. I crossed off those in places with harsh winters (unknowingly eliminating most of the top sociology programs). I was accepted to UCLA, which had smart and supportive faculty working on gender, my main area of interest. And in 2007, after six years of study, I landed a job at Yale, right before the Great Recession eviscerated the academic job market. Here I sit years later.
This is a typical response to a “how” question: years of history, references to influential people and key moments, reflections on emotions and thought processes.
Questions that begin with “how” and not “why” are powerful in part because they tend to reveal social processes occurring at multiple analytical levels. For example, my response above includes references to what social scientists call the “micro” level, the level of individuals and their thinking and behavior. There are also mentions of social processes happening at the “meso” level, a middle level between micro and macro that can include anything from small groups and local communities to organizations; I discuss interactions with teachers, friends, and coworkers, as well as specific universities. Finally, there is evidence of “macro” level processes shaping my trajectory. The macro usually refers to broader historical and structural processes and, in this case, includes the institution of higher education more generally, the labor market, and economic upheavals like the Great Recession.
“How” questions can evoke responses that include crucial information about social processes, history, networks, decision-making, and uncertainty.
Whereas a “why” question might result in a singular answer that forecloses a more expansive approach, detailed responses to “how” questions can be effective in revealing hidden drivers, not only in an individual’s life story but also in organizational processes.
For example, rather than asking why women continue to earn less than men for the same work, you can ask how the gender pay gap is perpetuated in and across organizations. Answering this “how” question points to a wide range of individual-level, organizational-level, and societal-level processes. None of them are necessarily easy to address—otherwise, we would have solved this problem in the 50 years since advocates began pointing it out!—but the first step to addressing an issue is to correctly identify what is causing it. And “how” questions are more likely to reveal a multitude of complicated interacting social processes than does asking why, which encourages a unitary and often-too-simple explanation.
Tackling a “how” question might require a bit of digging, but the extra effort is well worth it. You’ll have a deeper understanding of how individuals and organizations behave the way they do, and, as a result, will probably be able to identify new, previously unappreciated opportunities for intervening and creating positive changes.
This kind of approach can even work for larger national or global problems, like those appearing in news. When we ask, “Why do politicians enact policies they know will produce human suffering and environmental harm?” our initial answers might be: They’re greedy and only looking out for their own interests. Or, they’re in the pocket of corporations. Or, our 250-year-old system of government is straining under the influence of modern-day political polarization and disinformation. Each of these responses may provide part of an explanation, but as singular answers they tend to shut down curiosity. And, importantly, they locate power outside of everyday people, in the hands of politicians or corporate leaders or amorphous technology.
Asking “how” questions can generate a greater sense of agency, especially when there are no clear answers.
Indeed, whether the topic is individual lives, organizational processes, or significant social problems, routinely asking “how” questions can generate a greater sense of agency, especially when there are no clear answers. For instance, rather than ask why poverty persists, we can ask: How does a wealthy society such as ours allow millions of people to go hungry and live on the street? Rather than ask why the U.S has not done more to address human-caused climate change: How have those with the power to reduce emissions—politicians, corporations, etc.—continued with business as usual? These large-scale social problems feel intractable but asking how they came to be entails identifying specific processes that led to their emergence and persistence. Ultimately, the goal is to pinpoint previously unidentified forms of leverage, openings for creating new and consequential approaches to addressing societal pathologies.
Certainly, there are times and places and topics for which it is appropriate to ask “why.” But defaulting to “why” questions when it comes to human behavior tends to result in oversimplified and unitary perspectives. Posing “how” questions is more likely to reveal complex, multifaceted processes, and understanding what they are and how they work increase the chances of finding new ways forward.
It’s a simple switch of one three-letter word for another when you ask a question, and yet it produces a powerful shift in thinking. Next time you find yourself grumbling, “Why?” or partaking in a conversation where the answers seem too simple and sweeping, try asking, “How?”
