What is listening?
"Listening is as important as as speaking in terms of making relationship work" (Adler & Proctor 236).
It is important to understand that all communications fuse together as one process; still, an ability to identify the different components of this process one by one is important as much as an ability to perceive all the components as a whole. Without knowing what a particular component might be the observer will miss it; without taking all the parts as a whole, s/he won’t get all the information about the communication act, because the whole it always bigger than simple sum of its parts. In order to be able to evaluate the communication we need to analyze not only the speaker or a person who sends a message, but also a recipient, because communication is two-directional.
Listening is a process of responding to speech by perceiving it as a meaningful message(s).
There is a significant difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is simple accepting a sound. Listening is a recognition of this sound as a speech and understanding it.
It is important to understand that all communications fuse together as one process; still, an ability to identify the different components of this process one by one is important as much as an ability to perceive all the components as a whole. Without knowing what a particular component might be the observer will miss it; without taking all the parts as a whole, s/he won’t get all the information about the communication act, because the whole it always bigger than simple sum of its parts. In order to be able to evaluate the communication we need to analyze not only the speaker or a person who sends a message, but also a recipient, because communication is two-directional.
Listening is a process of responding to speech by perceiving it as a meaningful message(s).
There is a significant difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is simple accepting a sound. Listening is a recognition of this sound as a speech and understanding it.
Mindless vs mindful listening
Mindless listening refers to routine listening, when a person doesn't focuses 100% on what is said; he only keeps the general track of it. Mindless listening may sound superficial, and it is superficial to the certain degree, but this actually saves us energy, so we can focus better on other aspects of communication. We respond to messages in a stereotypical way, unless we hear something really important. Example: listening to the friend who tells about their vacation and shares in smallest details what food they had day by day, may result in other person's mindless listening.
Mindful listening is turned on when spoken message(s) is important or significant for the listener. If someone has court case and a judge is announcing his orders, most probably this person will be a very mindful listener, paying all attention possible to the judge.
Rhett Butler (Gone with the Wind) is a very mindful listener, because Scarlett in important for him. In this video by weiminc38 we can enjoy watching the exemplar masterpiece. Rhett gives careful attention to her words, analyzes them and evaluate Scarlett's appearance. When he notices her hands (and concludes that Scarlett was working hard) it conflicts with her story. Being very mindful listener, let him catch this contradiction and conclude that she was lying about her life. This couldn't be possible if he wasn't carefully listening.
Mindful listening is turned on when spoken message(s) is important or significant for the listener. If someone has court case and a judge is announcing his orders, most probably this person will be a very mindful listener, paying all attention possible to the judge.
Rhett Butler (Gone with the Wind) is a very mindful listener, because Scarlett in important for him. In this video by weiminc38 we can enjoy watching the exemplar masterpiece. Rhett gives careful attention to her words, analyzes them and evaluate Scarlett's appearance. When he notices her hands (and concludes that Scarlett was working hard) it conflicts with her story. Being very mindful listener, let him catch this contradiction and conclude that she was lying about her life. This couldn't be possible if he wasn't carefully listening.
elements of listening
Hearing. This refers to our listening organ and physiology. Hearing impairment due to a disease or trauma, noise, low volume, fatigue - all these factors may interfere with hearing.
Attending. This is part of a selection process. It tunes up our attention so we can ignore meaningless information and noise. When I drive my car I have my radio on; however I don't actually listen it. I have it as a background noise which help me to focus on my own thought.
Understanding. It is based on language (vocabulary, clarity) and on the congruency between a sender and recipient.
(Adler & Proctor 236). When s doctor refer to his patient as having "status post-Bachus", his colleague would understand, while a random person most probably not.
Responding is giving a meaningful feedback message, such as "I hear you". "What's the time?" "Five o'clock".
Remembering. This is a very important transactional part of a communication. I worked with a patient who suffered with Alzheimer disease and had an isolated loss of her short-term memory. All short-term memory cluster was gone. Effective communication was practically impossible. She asked a question, and at the time I finished answering she already forgot what she was asking, and asked the same question again. The following video demonstrates a patient like that. Meaningful communication is impossible as his short term memory is less than 30 seconds.
Attending. This is part of a selection process. It tunes up our attention so we can ignore meaningless information and noise. When I drive my car I have my radio on; however I don't actually listen it. I have it as a background noise which help me to focus on my own thought.
Understanding. It is based on language (vocabulary, clarity) and on the congruency between a sender and recipient.
(Adler & Proctor 236). When s doctor refer to his patient as having "status post-Bachus", his colleague would understand, while a random person most probably not.
Responding is giving a meaningful feedback message, such as "I hear you". "What's the time?" "Five o'clock".
Remembering. This is a very important transactional part of a communication. I worked with a patient who suffered with Alzheimer disease and had an isolated loss of her short-term memory. All short-term memory cluster was gone. Effective communication was practically impossible. She asked a question, and at the time I finished answering she already forgot what she was asking, and asked the same question again. The following video demonstrates a patient like that. Meaningful communication is impossible as his short term memory is less than 30 seconds.
ineffective listening
What happens in this channel is not functioning properly? The communication will not be productive. This is called ineffective listening.
There are several types of ineffective listening.
1. Pseudolistening. The example of this type may be a motto on my son’s t-shirt, “I am only pretending to listen”.
A long time ago I read a story about a psychologist, who decided to test guests at a party. He was standing at the entrance shaking hands and cheering the guests, and the typical dialogue was like this:
A. “How are you today?
B. Great! How are you?
A. Oh I am great, my grandma just died this morning!
B. Oh, very nice!
Almost nobody heard the actual message. What a pseudolistening, what a communication!
On a picture above we see mom, who is pseudo-listening. Her body language conflicts with her verbal statement.
2. Stage-hogging. This is a kind of narcissistic listener who likes to drag all attention to themselves and uses every conversation only as a reason to switch the topic to his own precious person.
3. Selective listening. This type of listener has a “filter” which lets only certain info get through. For example, a tired mother may ignore all sounds around her, even loud ones, yet she will hear the cry of her baby from another room.
4. Insulated listening means having “filters” too, but those filters work in an opposite way – they don’t allow unwanted information to be heard.
5. Defensive listener "take others’ remarks as personal attacks," as defined by Adler & Proctor (243 ), even if there is no reasons for that. For example, a wife may say “I am so tired today”, and a defensive husband may respond, “Stop nagging me for not helping you”, when she meant only what she said – how tired she is without any plans of nagging him.
6. Ambushing listening is widely used in courts. It is also used by jealous spouses, who use every chance to “catch” their cheating half. Nonetheless, all of these cheating(s) are imaginary. However, the jealous one doesn’t stop and keeps ambushing because they believe some patience and some tricks will help them to see the true colors of the cheater. Also they believe that their spouse has not been caught yet but that this is just a matter of time.
7. Insensitive listening is also very common. These people tend to ignore nonverbal messages.
In the following video we can see pseudolistening. People are day-dreaming, sleeping, yawning, planning, but not actually listening. Their body language is straightforward: they keep no eye contact, faces show no interest. Five minutes later their body positions are completely turned away from the boss or a manager, they grouped by two and whisper about something; nonverbally they demonstrate very clear that they are not listening at all.
Some selective listening is still present. When one of them hear a signal word (his name) "Aaron, please answer the question", he wakes up and ask to repeat the question.
1. Pseudolistening. The example of this type may be a motto on my son’s t-shirt, “I am only pretending to listen”.
A long time ago I read a story about a psychologist, who decided to test guests at a party. He was standing at the entrance shaking hands and cheering the guests, and the typical dialogue was like this:
A. “How are you today?
B. Great! How are you?
A. Oh I am great, my grandma just died this morning!
B. Oh, very nice!
Almost nobody heard the actual message. What a pseudolistening, what a communication!
On a picture above we see mom, who is pseudo-listening. Her body language conflicts with her verbal statement.
2. Stage-hogging. This is a kind of narcissistic listener who likes to drag all attention to themselves and uses every conversation only as a reason to switch the topic to his own precious person.
3. Selective listening. This type of listener has a “filter” which lets only certain info get through. For example, a tired mother may ignore all sounds around her, even loud ones, yet she will hear the cry of her baby from another room.
4. Insulated listening means having “filters” too, but those filters work in an opposite way – they don’t allow unwanted information to be heard.
5. Defensive listener "take others’ remarks as personal attacks," as defined by Adler & Proctor (243 ), even if there is no reasons for that. For example, a wife may say “I am so tired today”, and a defensive husband may respond, “Stop nagging me for not helping you”, when she meant only what she said – how tired she is without any plans of nagging him.
6. Ambushing listening is widely used in courts. It is also used by jealous spouses, who use every chance to “catch” their cheating half. Nonetheless, all of these cheating(s) are imaginary. However, the jealous one doesn’t stop and keeps ambushing because they believe some patience and some tricks will help them to see the true colors of the cheater. Also they believe that their spouse has not been caught yet but that this is just a matter of time.
7. Insensitive listening is also very common. These people tend to ignore nonverbal messages.
In the following video we can see pseudolistening. People are day-dreaming, sleeping, yawning, planning, but not actually listening. Their body language is straightforward: they keep no eye contact, faces show no interest. Five minutes later their body positions are completely turned away from the boss or a manager, they grouped by two and whisper about something; nonverbally they demonstrate very clear that they are not listening at all.
Some selective listening is still present. When one of them hear a signal word (his name) "Aaron, please answer the question", he wakes up and ask to repeat the question.
There is another example. A lecturer is an Insensitive listener. He ignores all non-verbal (and very loud) messages from his audience. Comments are being made - non-verbally. He doesn't need to ask.