Many times, in personal interactions, questions are not asked with the primary purpose of gathering information. They are asked for any one of a number of reasons such as:
To make a person feel - on a subconscious level, perhaps - that their privacy is not respected
To get a person to agree to some principle that, by implication, they have previously not been in agreement with
So that the question-asker may exert social dominance over the questionee (see first point - a subtle lack of respect may be an attempt to denote social rank)
I'm sure there are many other reasons, but these are some that I've reflected on recently. Many of us believe that we must reflexively answer when asked a question, but I have paused to think, taken time to process before responding, or at least reflected later on conversations and I've noticed that many questions don't seem to be very much about getting particular answers; rather, they seem to be totally all about communicating a subtext.
If anyone else can think of examples, please feel free to bring them up for discussion.
I had an experience recently in a commission sales atmosphere (and we all know that scenario is a hotbed of "persuasion.") I walked out without buying anything, but reflected later on the many statements and questions which all had a purpose; they seemed confusing at the time but all made perfect sense upon dissected analysis.
