Chapter 5: Listening and RespondingBy: Miranda Emery

What is listening?“The process of receiving constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages.”

Provide clarification, connect us to others, build trust and empathy, help us learn and remember material, and improve our ability to evaluate information

Hearing is a physiological process/ listening is cognitive

Listening only occurs when we put meaning to what we hear

50% shortly after and 20% two days later, yet 80% of execs believe listening is one of the most important skills

Types of Listening

AppreciativeGoal: to enjoy the thoughts and experiences of others

Situation: Casual social interaction

DiscriminativeGoal: Accurately understand the speaker’s meaning

May require reading “between the lines” and picking up on nonverbal cues

Situation: Listening to a Dr. to see if there is reason for concern

Types of Listening

ComprehensiveGoal: Not only to understand, but to learn, remember, and recall

Situation: Listening in Ms. Emery’s oral communications class

EmpathicGoal: To try to understand how someone else is feeling

Situation: Therapists, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists do this.

Types of Listening

CriticalGoal: To evaluate the worth of a message

Requires more psychological processing

Most demanding of the types

Requires that you understand and remember both the verbal and nonverbal message, assess the speaker’s credibility, and effectively listen all the time

Situation: Listening to a political candidate, apology from someone who has violated your trust

Steps of the Listening ProcessAttending- The process of focusing on what a speaker is saying regardless of the potential distractions of other competing stimuli

1. Get physically ready to listen

2. Resist mental distractions while you listen

3. Resist interrupting others

4. Hear a person out before you react

5. Observe nonverbal cues

Steps of the Listening Process

Understanding- Decoding a message accurately to reflect the meaning intended by the speaker.

1. Ask questions to gain additional information

Question- Statement designed to get further info or clarify info already received

2. Paraphrase the message to check your understanding

Paraphrase- Putting into words the ideas or feelings you have perceived from a message

Content paraphrase- Focused on the denotative meaning of the message

Feelings paraphrase- Response that captures the emotions attached to the content of a message.

Steps of the Listening Process

Paraphrasing effectivelyListen carefully

Notice what images and feelings you have experienced from the message

Determine what the message means to you

Create a message that conveys these images or feelings

Steps of the Listening Process3. Empathize with the speaker

Empathy- Intellectually identifying with or vicariously experiencing the feelings or attitudes of another.

Empathic responsiveness- When you experience an emotional response parallel to, and as a result of observing, another person’s actual or anticipated display of emotion.

Perspective taking- Imagining yourself in the place of another, most common form

Sympathetic responsiveness- Feeling concern, compassion, or sorrow for another because of the other’s situation or plight.

Steps of the Listening ProcessRemembering- Being able to retain information and recall it when needed.

1. Repeat the informationRepetition- Saying something aloud or mentally a few times after hearing it, helps store info in long-term memory, otherwise it is stored in short-term for as little as 20 seconds

2. Construct mnemonicsMnemonic device- Any artificial technique used as a memory aid.

3. Take notes

Steps of the Listening Process

Evaluating- Critically analyzing what you have heard to determine its truthfulness.

Factual statements- Accuracy can be verified

Inferences- Conjectures which may be based on fact or observation

1. Analyze the “facts” to determine if they are true

Often requires questions that test the evidence

2. Test inferences to determine whether they are valid

You are listening critically when you separate facts from inferences and then evaluate them as true or valid.

Steps of the Listening Process

• Responding (See page 100)– 1. Guidelines for responses that

offer emotional support• Supportive message- Comforting

statements that have a goal to reassure, bolster, encourage, soothe, console, or cheer up

– 2. Guidelines for responses that demonstrate respect when disagreeing or critiquing others

Thank you