View source for Translations:Being a Considerate Neighbour/6/en

A third element is asymmetry of information. Neighbours generally do not know what is happening; they only perceive fragments. A door closing at three in the morning, a raised voice, an unfamiliar face at the entrance. In the absence of context, people construct explanations, and those explanations are often less generous than reality. Considerate behaviour can be understood partly as reducing the number of fragments that require interpretation.