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The Inference Ladder is the mental process in the unconscious mind where the mind moves forwards from facts to judgment ( ^[1]). This mental process is compared by its original author to climbing stairs, where each step in the process builds on another. It takes minimal seconds causing people to instantly draw conclusions based on their beliefs and assumptions. The Inference ladder is designed to observe people’s thinking process as human beings are not aware of what they think about in a specific situation. The Inference Ladder has proven to improve people’s communications skills as it pushes people to be aware of the information they share with other people( ^[2]).

The Ladder of Inference was developed by Harvard Business School professor, Chris Argyris in 1970 ( ^[3]). However, in the year 1992, the concept was thoroughly explored by an American scientist, Peter M. Senge. He explains this theory in his bestseller book “The Fifth Discipline Field-book: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning” ( ^[4]). He illustrated how people that face these situations, automatically create a conclusion based on their observations by not understanding the other persons perspectives and point of view ( ^[5]).

Chris Argyris invented the Inference Ladder for the use of “ double-loop learning". Chris Argyris proposed that in difficult or emotional conversation, people feel the need to be right. People that stay on top of the Inference Ladder are only self-protecting themselves from being wrong. Therefore, using the Inference Ladder helps discover people’s opinions, errors and false judgments.

The Inference Ladder goes through a process of six steps. In the process of the six steps, the mind stores experiences in current situations and creates assumptions and conclusions based on it. The first step is referred to “Observable Data and Experiences”. In this step, the mind tends to observe all the data collected through experiences. The second step is called “Selective Data”. The human brain collects millions of incoming bits of information and people tend to select data based on believing what is important to them ( ^[6]). We filter out information based on our beliefs, viewpoints and expectations and instantly, with this information, the unconscious mind adds meaning to the data that has been collected ( ^[7]). Automatically, your mind makes interpretations and assumptions based on meanings and inferences. Lastly, the mind makes a final conclusion which can lead to false interpretations and judgments towards people. The process of this Inference Ladder is formulated mentally in the unconscious mind leading people to believe their conclusion is correct and normal. Once the conclusion has been drawn, the mind immediately makes belief about the person based on the data. Finally, the last step in the Inference Ladder is taking actions based on the belief.

Communication in Everyday Life by Dalton A. Kehoe

The Fifth Discipline Field-book: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning by Peter M. Senge

Communication in Everyday Life written by Dalton A. Kehoe illustrates an example about how a boss criticizes Jane, a subordinate in an office. Jane has been delivering a number of late reports to the boss. As she simply overhears the boss speaking about her performance not meeting the standards, Jane instantly constructs meaning about how her boss is picking on her. She adds inferences, or assumptions that the boss dislikes her. These assumptions begin to distract her belief systems. Jane makes a conclusion based on the inferences, beliefs and feelings that Jane holds about how men manage women. Her conclusion is that the boss dislikes her and picks on her because she is a woman. In a split second, Jane labels her boss as a male chauvinist who shouldn’t be supervising women. The Inference Ladder shows how quickly Jane processes information and results in wrong assumptions and judgments towards her boss. She simply didn’t consider her work ethic for always submitting late reports to her boss but believed that her perspective over the boss being a male chauvinist is true. The final step on the Inference Ladder is taking actions based on our beliefs. Jane can simply quit her job based on her beliefs.( ^[8])

Descending the Inference Ladder helps people avoid making conclusions, based on assumptions. People must acknowledge and understand other people’s point of view before adding their own assumptions. People need to ask questions when confused or puzzled. Due to this, Advocacy and Inquiry play an important role ( ^[9]). Advocacy is defined by giving people’s opinions and perspectives. On the other hand, Inquiry is defined by asking questions that helps people understand viewpoints. “High Advocacy and Low Inquiry” is a one-way communication process where people are giving information to the other person. However, this does not help explore viewpoints or accept assumptions. “High Inquiry and Low advocacy” leads to asking a number of questions in order to understand the person’s perspective. This process requires discovering information that leads to making proper judgments. Low Inquiry and Low Advocacy is when both people offer less information. Lastly, High Advocacy and High Inquiry contributes to both parties expressing their views and information to the other person’s reasoning's and opinions ( ^[10]). In the earlier example, if Jane simply asksed her boss why he thinks she is not meeting the work standards, the boss would have informed her of her weaknesses. This is called High Advocacy and High Inquiry because both of them would ask questions and share their own point of views with one another. This leads to the boss and Jane not making inferences about each other.

Every step on the Inference Ladder such as moving up or down illustrates that Inferences are made. The higher the up the Ladder of Inferences the greater are the chances of subject to error ( ^[11]). Therefore, the purpose of the Inference Ladder was to help people realize and reflect their emotions in conversations, disagreement and arguments. The important points of the Inference Ladder is to have encouraging conversation with other people and by doing so; people need to be alert of their reasoning towards a specific steps. Lastly, be consciously aware of the actions we make through our observations and inferences.

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