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Amelia Greenwood

Professor Heidi McGrew

Interpersonal Communication 2206 – 5B3

21 November 2019

An Evaluation of Various Listening Techniques

Communication is the most important factor in everyday living and learning how to use

communication in various ways can help us create healthy relationships. Typically, society

believes that listening and hearing are the same. This is not the case. In the textbook, listening is

defined as “the process of receiving and responding to others’ messages.” (Adler 197). Hearing

describes the neuroscientific way in which one receives messages. The textbook defines hearing

as “the process in which soundwaves strike the eardrum and cause vibrations that are transmitted

to the brain,” (Adler 198). Hearing and listening do not always go hand in hand. As one goes

about their day, people hear sounds constantly. Although their eardrums transmit the soundwaves

to their brain, there are many sounds that people hear and do not listen to. An example of sounds

that people hear but do not listen to are the background noises such as road traffic and other

irrelevant sounds. When learning about the various communication styles we must be aware of

our surroundings to be more sensitive to others’ preferred style of communication. We can do

this by engaging in our interpersonal relationships more in depth, learning and understanding

what the different communication styles are, and learning how to be a more effective listener.

There are four different styles of listening. These styles are relational listening, analytical

listening, task-oriented listening, and critical listening.

Relational listening is primarily focused on “building emotional closeness with others”

(Adler 199). As seen in the textbook, these listeners are highly aware of other people’s emotions
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and are able to more adequately engage their message sender in the conversation. Good

relational listeners and often highly responsive and understanding other people. This comes with

some fallbacks; Relational listeners are often inadequate to give unbiased information and

feedback due to their supportive nature. When taking the Listening Style Profile (LSP-R), I

obtained a score of thirty-eight on the assessment. This was my highest score on the assessment.

Like previously discussed, as a relational listener, I find myself being empathetic and excelling

in understanding. During conversation, I have to be conscious of the way other people perceive

my verbal and nonverbal communication. In an effort to be fully engaged in the conversation, I

may appear engaged too much and invasive to one’s privacy.

When taking the LSP-R assessment, I scored a twenty-five in the task-oriented listening

portion. This score is to be expected because of my personality and the way that I focus on my

various demands from work and educational pressures. As seen in the textbook, task-oriented

listening is focused on productive listening and used to complete the jobs and assignments

needed. This form of listening is crucial when needing to focus on the tasks at hand rather than

the feelings heard in the emotion. Although this form of listening allows one to quickly and

precisely complete the various demands that are necessary, this also creates a divide in their

inability to understand the feelings of the sender (Adler 199). I agree with my score on the

assessment due to the variety of conversations I have on a daily basis with my job and education.

With the many tasks involved with my job, I do not have much time for emotional conversations

and often have to engage in direct conversations with a lack of emotional topics. This is

necessary to create time for the multiple tasks needed to be done. Although this is good for time-

management, this can also create problems such as a lack of thoughtful deliberation and
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minimizing emotional concerns. Although it is not an intention to disregard all emotional

concerns and other’s feelings, this can happen due to the intent focus on the tasks at hand.

Another listening style is critical listening. Critical listening is primarily seen to “have a

strong desire to evaluate messages,” (Adler 201). This form of listening also allows for one to

completely assess the quality and accuracy of the message. Critical listeners are seen to not only

understand their messages, but they are also focused on understanding the accuracy, consistency,

and quality of the message. Although this form of listening is useful in the investigation of a

problem, it can negatively impact listening by frustrating other people involved in the

conversation due to the way that critical listeners often find suspicious faults in the minor details

of the message (Adler 201). When taking the Listening Styles Profile, I scored a twenty-four on

the portion about critical listening. When taking the test and receiving my results, I understood

why I scored lower. In my daily life, I often focus on the messages and disregard the quality,

accuracy and consistency of the message. This is because I often trust the speaker will only

engage in critical listening when I have a good reason to lack trust. The few times that I have

engaged in critical listening was during moments when I had been involved in high-school drama

and had to decide on the accuracy of the gossip being spread. On a daily basis, I tend not to use

critical listening due to the negative impact and the frustrations it can cause.

When taking the Listening Styles Profile (LSP-R), my lowest score was analytical

listening. I obtained the score of twenty-two. Throughout the textbook, analytical listening is

defined as “attending to the full message before coming to judgement,” (Adler 201). Analytical

listeners are often seen to analyze and fully comprehend the message from various perspectives

in hopes of investigating the full message before creating judgement. These can be useful when

needing to find an answer to difficult questions that need multiple perspectives before
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concluding the answer. Analytical listeners are useful in large questions but can also have

negative implications when there is a fast deadline. This is due to the large amount of time it

takes for analytical listeners to fully complete their full analysis on the various perspectives

(Adler 201). I agree with the score I received on the assessment due to my typical nature of

wanting to complete assignments fast. In my day to day activities, I do not often have time to

complete the whole process in evaluating the various perspectives to find the answer. My score

on the assessment reflects my nature and the lack of analytical listening I do in my daily

activities.

As said previously, my lowest listening style score is analytical listening. In order to

strengthen my interpersonal relationships, I need to be more open about spending more time

researching and fully understanding the various perspectives before jumping to a conclusion and

judging the actual message. A way that I can involve analytical listening in my everyday

activities would be managing my time better at work thus allowing more time for the time-

consuming analytical process. A few listening responses that I could practice and use more often

would be questioning and analyzing. Questioning involves the need for additional information

and asking follow-up questions in hopes of finding answers (Adler 209). By using questioning in

daily communication, I would strengthen my analytical listening by gaining more information

thus allowing me more knowledge to fully understand all perspectives before generating a

conclusion. Analyzing is defined in the textbook as the practice of “the listener offers an

interpretation of the speaker’s message,” (Adler 218). This means that the listener gives a

different perspective than the one already proposed. When using this in daily conversations, I

would strengthen my analytical listening by fully investigating the various perspectives and

gaining access on all perspectives in problem solving environments.

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As learned in the past, there are many nonverbal skills that will improve my listening

skills. Body movement is an example of a nonverbal communication skill that improves my

listening skills. Oculesics, a form of body movement, is the “study of how the eyes can

communicate.” Eye movement is a crucial part of body movement because the various forms of

eye movement can signal the listener’s interest in the conversation (Adler 179). When engaging

in conversations throughout my daily activities, I can use my eye movement’s intentionally to

show that I am fully engaged in the conversation to show interest. Using eye movement

intentionally will improve my listening skills in order to fully improve my listening skills.

Overall, communication is a two-way road. In order for communication to occur there

must be a speaker and a listener. Listening is crucial in communication and thus needs to be fully

studied and practiced in order to gain knowledge and improve listening skills. As said before,

listening and hearing are drastically different based on their textbook definitions. Listening is

based on conversations and the ability to respond and process the speaker’s message. Hearing

involves a more scientific background and is defined as the process of the soundwaves entering

the ear and striking the eardrum. The process of listening involves gaining knowledge and being

able to interpret our new information into our daily activities.

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Works Cited

Adler, Ronald B, et al. “Culture and Interpersonal Communication.” Interpersonal

Communication, 14th ed., Oxford University Press, 2018.