Chapter 7: Listening

I. Listening is more complicated than people think and is one of the most
misunderstood elements of the communication process.
II. Listening myths:
A. Listening is the same as hearing. People often treat the two as synonymous.
i. Hearing is the physiological process of capturing sound conducted by
hears to the brain. Hearing is something our bodies do.
ii. Listening is the cognitive process of receiving and interpreting spoken
and/or nonverbal messages. Listening is a skill – something we can
improve.
B. I am a good listener: People tend to overestimate how good they are at listening
which is problematic because usually when people are good at something, they
stop working at it.
C. Effective listening is hard to learn: Actual listening skills are not hard to
understand or implement, they just take consistent practice and concentration.
D. Intelligent people are better listeners: there is no correlation between IQ level
and listening ability. There is a correlation between emotional intelligence and IQ
level, however.
i. Emotional intelligence: the ability a person has to identify, assess, and
manage his or her own emotions while also appreciating and responding
to the emotions of others in a civil manner.
ii. People with high emotional intelligence are other-centered which makes
them better listeners.
E. Older people are better listeners: Age has nothing to do with listening skills. If we
practice good listening skills early on, though, then we will be great listeners
overtime (i.e. when we are older).
F. Women are better listeners than men: Gender or sex do not predict listening
ability.
i. According to Deborah Tannen, men and women communicate differently.
No way is better than the other. Women use rapport talk, while men use
report talk.
ii. Rapport talk: language meant to develop relationships and exchange
emotional information.
1. People oriented communication used to build connections.
iii. Report talk: the exchange of information, solutions, and problem-solving
strategies.
1. Content oriented
2. Concentrate on the substance of the message versus the emotion.
III. The process of listening involves several steps.
A. The HURIER model
i. Hearing: Taking cues. These are all of the sounds we take in but do not
necessarily process beyond the physiological component.
ii. Understanding: making sense of the cues.
 iii. Remembering: storing the information and being able to retrieve it later.
iv. Interpreting: making meaning out of the cues by carefully considering all
possible interpretations of the cues.
v. Evaluating: making a judgement about the truth-value of the message or
separating out opinion from fact.
vi. Responding: signaling to the sender that you have received the message.
Also known as feedback. The feedback should match the message and
the context.
IV. Why and how we listen
A. Listening helps us form or perceptions of the world around us. There are four
purposes to listening:
i. For appreciation: For enjoyment; not high in cognitive commitment
ii. For comprehension: For understanding or learning something new;
requires more mental effort
iii. To show support: For relationship maintenance; to show value and that
we care about what the person is saying.
iv. Critical listening: For evaluation to see whether or not we agree; requires
the most mental effort of all listening purposes.
B. Two ways we listen:
i. Active listening: paying a high degree of attention to the message.
1. We process, interpret, and store information.
2. Active listening is shown by giving eye contact, leaning in or
nodding
ii. Passive listening: listening without engaging in a noticeable way; trying
only to absorb what is said.
1. There is likely little evaluation
2. No assessment of our own understanding about what is being
said.
V. Nonlistening is giving the appearance that you are listening without actually paying
attention to the message.
A. Pseudolistening: hiding our lack of attention by using nonverbal and verbal
responses to make the speaker think we are listening (Example: saying “yeah” in
conversation every so often).
B. Glazing over: when you lose complete attention with what is going on and are
thinking about something else entirely.
i. Spare brain time: the gap between the 150 words per minute spoken
and the 650 words per minute we can mentally process. The gap
creates opportunities for our brains to turn our attention on something
else.
C. Ambushing: focusing only on the weaknesses in a message and ignoring the
strengths of the position. This type of nonlistening exacerbates interpersonal
tension.
 D. Prejudging: entering an interaction with a judgement about what we believe will
be said before the message is presented. Since we think we know that message,
we are less likely to pay attention.
E. Selective listening: choosing what the main points are regardless of what the
speaker says.
F. Advising: interrupting a person to offer suggestions and opinions in an effort to
be helpful even when suggestions are not requested. We must wait until the
speaker actually asks for advice.
VI. Guidelines for dialogic listening
A. Stop talking: when we speak, we are not listening; this means stop interrupting
or trying to finish other people’s sentences.
B. Make listening a goal: make the conscious decision when entering an interaction
to listen.
C. Remove distractions: recognize what might distract you from listening well and
remove such obstacles. If you listen better after lunch (i.e. hunger is a
distraction), schedule meetings or your harder classes in the afternoon.
D. Listen for ideas: focus on the actual ideas in a message rather than the smaller
details.
E. Listen to nonverbals as well as content: Do not get hung up on the content in a
way that causes you to ignore nonverbal expressions. Nonverbal expression can
help us know what the speaker truly thinks is important.
F. Focus on agreement and not disagreement: It is natural to listen for things we
disagree with but focusing on finding some common ground will communicate to
the speaker that you are paying full attention. This requires patience and
genuineness.