Chapter 6 Listening Effectively

Solution Manual for Communication Matters 2nd Edition

by Kory Floyd ISBN 0078036860 9780078036866
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Chapter 6—Listening Effectively

At a Glance

What It Means to Listen

Ways of Listening

Common Barriers to Effective Listening

Honing Your Listening Skills

Learning Objectives

After studying this chapter you should be able to:

1. Differentiate between listening and hearing.

2. Explain the importance of listening effectively.

3. Identify examples of how culture affects listening behavior.

4. List and summarize the stages in the HURIER model of listening.

5. Differentiate and give examples of informational listening, critical listening, and

empathic listening.

6. Identify your primary listening style.

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 Chapter 6 Listening Effectively

7. List and summarize the barriers to effective listening.

8. Examine a social interaction and identify barriers to effective listening.

9. Assess your listening skills.

10. Describe strategies for improving your informational, critical, and empathic listening
skills.

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 Chapter 6 Listening Effectively

Lecture Outline

I. What it means to listen.

A. What is listening?
1. Listening is the active process of making meaning out of another person’s
spoken message.
2. Hearing is the sensory process of receiving and perceiving sounds.
3. Listening involves attending to someone’s words, or paying attention well
enough to understand what that person is trying to communicate.
4. Effective listening requires listening with the conscious and explicit goal of
understanding what the speaker intends to communicate.
B. The importance of listening effectively.
1. A study by Dindia and Kennedy found that college students spent 50 percent
of their waking hours listening.
2. Good listening skills are essential in the workplace.
3. Listening is also one of the most important communication skills in families
and in other personal relationships.
C. Misconceptions about listening.
1. Myth: Hearing is the same as listening.
2. Myth: Listening is natural and effortless.
D. How culture affects listening behavior.
1. Culture affects listeners’ expectations for directness.
2. Culture affects nonverbal listening responses.
3. Culture affects understanding of language.

II. Ways of listening.

A. The stages of effective listening can be described by the HURIER model,
developed by Judi Brownell.
1. Hearing is the physical process of receiving sound.
2. Understanding is comprehending the meanings of the words and phrases
you’re hearing.
3. Remembering is being able to store something in your memory and retrieve it
when needed.
a. Research shows that most people can only recall 25 percent of what they
hear.
b. Mnemonics are tricks that can aid our short- and long-term memory.
4. Interpreting involves a) paying attention to all the speaker’s verbal and
nonverbal behaviors so that you can assign meaning to his or her message and
b) signaling your interpretation of the message to the speaker.
5. Evaluating involves judging the speaker’s statements.

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 Chapter 6 Listening Effectively

6. Responding is indicating to a speaker that you are listening.

a. Stonewalling is responding with silence and a lack of expression on your
face.
b. Backchanneling is using facial expressions, nods, vocalizations and
verbalizations to let the speaker know you are paying attention.
c. Paraphrasing is restating in your own words what the speaker has said to
show that you understand.
d. Empathizing is conveying to the speaker that you understand and share his
or her feelings on the topic being discussed.
e. Supporting is expressing your agreement for the speaker’s opinion or point
of view.
f. Analyzing is providing your own perspective on what the speaker has said.
g. Advising is communicating advice to the speaker about what he or she
should think, feel, or do.
B. Types of listening.
1. Informational listening is listening to learn.
2. Critical listening is used when our goal is to evaluate or analyze what we are
hearing.
3. Empathic listening occurs when you are trying to identify with the speaker
by understanding and experiencing what he or she is thinking or feeling.
a. Perspective taking is the ability to understand a situation from another’s
point of view.
b. Empathic concern is the ability to identify how someone else is feeling
and to experience those feelings yourself.
c. Empathic listening is different from sympathetic listening, which involves
feeling sorry for another person.
4. Other types of listening include inspirational listening, or listening to be
inspired, and appreciative listening, or listening for pure enjoyment.
C. We have listening styles, or a set of attitudes and beliefs about listening.
1. A people-oriented style emphasizes concern for other people’s emotions and
interests.
2. An action-oriented style emphasizes organization and precision.
3. A content-oriented style emphasizes intellectual challenges.
4. A time-oriented style emphasizes efficiency.

III. Common barriers to effective listening.

A. Noise is anything that distracts you from listening to what you wish to listen to.
1. Physical noise consists of actual sound.
2. Psychological noise comprises anything else we find distracting.
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 Chapter 6 Listening Effectively

B. Pseudolistening is pretending to pay attention to someone when you really are

not listening; selective listening is listening only to what you want to hear and
ignoring the rest.
C. Information overload refers to the huge amount of information that each of us
takes in every day.
1. Sources and effects of information overload.
a. One of the biggest problems with information overload is that it can
interrupt our attention.
b. Information overload can be particularly distracting for people with
attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
2. Avoiding information overload from computer-mediated sources.
a. Turn off your cell phone.
b. Set filters on your e-mail system.
c. Remove your address from junk mail lists.
d. Use your DVR to watch television shows and skip the commercials.
D. Glazing over is daydreaming during the time we aren’t spending listening.
1. Glazing over can cause you to miss important details in what you’re hearing.
2. Glazing over might lead you to listen less critically than you normally would.
E. Rebuttal tendency is the propensity to debate a speaker’s point and formulate a
reply while that person is still speaking.
1. The rebuttal tendency requires mental energy that should be spent paying
attention to the speaker.
2. Because you are not paying close attention to the speaker, you can easily miss
some of the details that might change your response.
F. Closed-mindedness is the tendency not to listen to anything with which one
disagrees.
G. Competitive interrupting describes the practice of using interruptions to take
control of the conversation.

IV. Honing your listening skills.

A. Become a better informational listener.
1. Separate what is and what isn’t said.
2. Avoid the confirmation bias, or the tendency to pay attention only to
information that supports your values and beliefs, while discounting or
ignoring information that doesn’t.
3. Listen for substance more than style—the vividness effect is the tendency of
allowing dramatic, shocking events to distort our perceptions of reality.
B. Become a better critical listener.
1. Be a skeptic. Skepticism is an attitude that involves raising questions or
having doubts.
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 Chapter 6 Listening Effectively

2. Evaluate a speaker’s credibility.

3. Understand probability.
C. Become a better empathic listener.
1. Listen nonjudgmentally.
2. Acknowledge feelings.
3. Communicate support nonverbally.

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 Chapter 6 Listening Effectively

Key Terms

Listening Noise

Hearing Pseudolistening

Attending Selective listening

HURIER model Information overload

Mnemonics Glazing over

Informational listening Rebuttal tendency

Critical listening Closed-mindedness

Empathic listening Competitive interrupting

People-oriented style Confirmation bias

Action-oriented style Vividness effect

Content-oriented style Skepticism

Time-oriented style

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 Chapter 6 Listening Effectively

Additional Lecture Ideas

1. Contact your college’s student support center and invite an interpreter to class to discuss
the role sign language plays in the lives of persons who are hearing-impaired. Encourage
your students to interact with the interpreter by learning phrases in sign language, and
challenge your class to explore a world where hearing is not an option.

2. Therapists “listen for a living.” Invite a professional counselor or psychiatrist to class.

Ask your guest speaker to provide tips to the class on how they can become better
empathic listeners. Have students prepare questions for the speaker ahead of time, and
save time for a discussion.

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 Chapter 6 Listening Effectively

Classroom Discussion and Activity Topics:

1. Informational listening through art. Divide students into 4–5 small groups. Have each
group elect one person to be the “team artist,” and send that person to the board. Provide
dry erase markers/chalk for each artist. Distribute abstract art to each of the teams: for
example, two circles with an arrow going through horizontally with five squares,
containing polka dots, floating around the outside (get creative). The artists should not be
able to see the art that is distributed.

Round 1: Each artist is told to remain facing the board, and is instructed not to speak. All
team members stand up and face the wall. On the count of three, instruct all teams to
shout their instructions to their artists. The result will most likely be that the drawing on
the board looks nothing like the picture the team is holding.

Lesson Learned: We must eliminate noise to listen effectively.

Round 2: As in Round 1, each artist remains facing the board and all team members
remain facing the wall. This time, however, have each team take turns giving
instructions. The result will most likely be that the drawing improves slightly.

Lesson Learned: Turn taking is important when listening.

Round 3: This time, each artist may turn to his or her team and ask questions regarding
the accuracy of his or her drawing. Also, team members may turn around and see the
picture being drawn. The result will be a fairly accurate replication of the original
drawing.

Lesson Learned: The nonverbal channel is an important partner of the verbal channel
when conveying meaning.

2. In groups, have students brainstorm techniques for becoming better listeners in a

classroom setting. As a class, have students share their best tips.

3. As you lecture, have students complete a “personal listening inventory.” Include the
following elements:

a. Do you consider yourself a “good listener?” Why or why not?

b. What type of listening needs the most improvement? Informational? Critical? Empathic?

c. What type of listening style best describes you? A people-oriented style? An action-oriented style? A
content-oriented style? A time-oriented style?

d. What is the most common barrier to listening that you have to overcome?

e. What are some practical steps you can take to become a more effective listener?

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 Chapter 6 Listening Effectively

4. Read a silly and short story to your class (make one up, or find a children’s book), and
don’t allow your students to take any notes. Once the story is over, give them a five
question “pop quiz” to see how well they were listening. For example, here is a silly story
you might use:

Calvin went to the store to buy orange juice, asparagus, eggs, peanut butter, and avocado. While he was
there, a masked robber walked up to the seafood counter and stole 10 lbs. of tilapia. A mother with her two
children ran to get away.

Questions:

a. What five items were on Calvin’s grocery list?

b. True or False – The masked robber walked up to the deli counter.

c. True or False – The masked robber stole 10 lbs of tilapia.

d. True or False – A grandmother with two children ran to get away.

e. True or False – The robber was male. (trick question…the robber’s sex was not revealed)

Students typically miss at least one, and usually more, of the questions. Emphasize that
we all can improve when it comes to listening, and it is easy to miss (and forget)
information we hear.

5. Divide students into six groups, and assign each group one element of the HURIER
model. Ask students to create a skit that illustrates their particular element (hearing,
understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating, and responding).

6. The Dark Side of Communication—Times of Grief: Providing Effective Empathic

Listening. Listening during times of grief often reflects the dark side of communication
because it involves actively attending to something that is difficult to hear. Have students
read the tips provided in Chapter 6, and engage the class in a discussion.

 Have you ever had to “lend an ear” to someone who was grieving?

 How did the situation make you feel?

 Do you feel like you were an effective empathic listener? Why or why not?

 Have you ever lost a loved one and felt that nobody was listening to you in an empathic manner?

 Have you ever lost a loved one and felt the emotional comfort of close friends and family that
listened intently to your feelings? What did they do that made them such effective empathic
listeners?

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 Chapter 6 Listening Effectively

Additional Reading and Websites

http://www.listen.org/

The Homepage of the International Listening Organization.

http://www.compassionatelistening.org/

A non-profit organization teaching heart-based skills for peace building and

reconciliation in families, communities, on the job, and in the world.

http://storycorps.org/listen/

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all

backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of
their lives. Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 30,000
interviews from more than 60,000 participants. Each conversation is recorded on a free
CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our
weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and on our Listen pages

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