Chapter 4 Listening in Human Communication Part 1

     There can be little doubt that you listen a great deal. On waking, you listen to the radio or television. On the way to school, you listen to friends, people around you, screeching cars, singing birds, or falling rain. In school, you listen to the instructors, to other students, and to yourself. You listen to friends at lunch and return to class to listen to more instructors. You arrive home and again listen to family and friends. Perhaps you listen to music on your phone, news on the radio or your computer, or dramas and sitcoms on television. All in all, you listen for a good part of your waking day.
     Traditionally, listening is concerned with spoken messages (Emmert, 1994; Brownell, 2010; Worthington & Fitch-Hauser, 2012). However, in light of Facebook, Twitter, wikis, and blogs, we need to expand this traditional definition of listening as the receiving and processing of only auditory signals. If posting messages on social media sites is part of human communication (which it surely is), then the reading of these messages must also be part of human communication and most
logically a part of listening. Listening, then, may be defined as the process of receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding to verbal and/or nonverbal messages.
     In this chapter we will look at the importance of listening, the nature of the listening process, the varied styles of listening you might use in different situations, and some cultural and gender differences in listening. Throughout this chapter, we’ll identify ways to avoid the major barriers to listening and provide guidelines for more effective listening.

4.1 The Importance of Listening: Task and Relationship Benefits

     Regardless of what you do, listening will prove a crucial communication component and will serve both task and relationship functions. For example, one study concluded that in this era of technological transformation, employees’ interpersonal skills are especially significant; workers’ advancement will depend on their ability to speak and write effectively, to display proper etiquette, and to listen attentively. And in a revealing survey of 40 CEOs of Asian and Western multinational companies, respondents cited a lack of listening skills as the major shortcoming of top executives (Witcher, 1999).
     It’s also interesting to note that the effective listener—to take just a few examples of both task and relationship benefits—is more likely to emerge as group leader, a more effective salesperson, a more attentive and effective health-care worker, and a more effective manager (Castleberry & Shepherd, 1993; Johnson & Bechler, 1998; Kramer, 1997; Lauer, 2003; Levine, 2004; Stein & Bowen, 2003). And medical educators, claiming that doctors are not trained to listen to their patients, have introduced what they call “narrative medicine” to teach doctors how to listen to their patients and to help doctors recognize how their perceptions of their patients are influenced by their own emotions (Smith, 2003; Ubel, 2013).
    Another way to appreciate the importance of listening is to consider its many benefits. Here are some, built around the purposes of human communication identified in Chapter 1.

■ Learning. Listening enables you to acquire knowledge of others, the world, and yourself, so as to avoid problems and make better-informed decisions. For example, hearing Peter tell about his travels to Cuba will help you learn more about Peter and about life in another country. Listening to the difficulties of your sales staff may help you offer more pertinent sales training.
■ Relating. Through attentive and supportive listening you can gain social acceptance and popularity. Others will increase their liking of you once they see your genuine concern for them.
■ Playing. Listening can be enjoyable, letting you share pleasurable thoughts and feelings. Really listening to the anecdotes of coworkers will allow you to balance the world of work and the world of play.
■ Helping. Listening often is vital in efforts to assist others. For example, listening to your child’s complaints about her teacher will increase your ability to help your child cope with school and her teacher.
■ Influencing. Listening can help you change the attitudes and behaviors of others. For example, workers are more likely to follow your advice once they feel you’ve really listened to their insights and concerns. You’re also likely to be more influential
when you listen with power, a topic addressed in Table 4.1.

4.2 The Listening Process

     The process of listening can be described as a series of five overlapping stages: (1) receiving (hearing and attending to the message), (2) understanding (deciphering meaning from the message you hear), (3) remembering (retaining what you hear in memory), (4) evaluating (thinking critically about and judging the message), and (5) responding (answering or giving feedback to the speaker). The process is visualized in
Figure 4.1.
     Note that the listening process is circular. The responses of person A serve as the stimuli for person B, whose responses in turn serve as the stimuli for person A, and so on. As will become clear in the following discussion of the five stages, listening is not a process of transferring an idea from the mind of a speaker to the mind of a listener. Rather, it is a process in which speaker and listener work together to achieve a common
understanding.
     As you read this discussion of the five stages of listening, realize that listening can go wrong at any of the five stages. At the same time, you can enhance your listening ability by strengthening the skills needed at each listening stage.

4.2.1 Stage 1: Receiving

     Unlike listening, hearing begins and ends with this first stage—receiving. Hearing is something that just
happens when you open your ears or when you get within earshot of auditory stimuli.
     Listening is quite different. Listening begins, but does not end, with receiving messages the speaker
sends. In listening you receive both the verbal and the nonverbal messages—not only the words but also the
gestures, facial expressions, variations in volume and rate, and lots more, as you’ll discover when we discuss
messages in more detail in Chapters 5 and 6. For improved reception:

■ Focus attention on the speaker’s verbal and nonverbal messages, on both what is said and what is not said.
■ Look for feedback in response to previous messages as well as feedforward (Chapter 1), which can reveal how the speaker would like his or her message viewed.
■ Avoid distractions in the environment and focus attention on the speaker rather than on what you’ll say next.
■ Maintain your role as listener and avoid interrupting the speaker until he or she is finished.

     In this brief discussion of receiving (and in this entire chapter on listening), the unstated assumption is that both individuals can receive auditory signals without difficulty. But for the many people who have hearing
impairments, listening presents a variety of problems. Table 4.2 provides tips for communication between those with and those without hearing problems.

4.2.2 Stage 2: Understanding

     Understanding is the stage at which you learn what the speaker means. This understanding must take into consideration both the thoughts that are expressed and the emotional tone that accompanies them—the urgency or the joy or sorrow expressed in the message. For improved understanding:

■ Relate new information to what you already know.
■ See the speaker’s messages from the speaker’s point of view. Avoid judging the message until you’ve fully understood it—as the speaker intended it.
■ Ask questions to clarify or to secure additional details or examples if necessary.
■ Rephrase (paraphrase) the speaker’s ideas in your own words.

     In addition to these few suggestions, consider the specific situation of listening in the classroom. Table 4.3 provides a few suggestions unique to listening for understanding in the classroom.

4.2.3 Stage 3: Remembering

     Effective listening depends on remembering. When Joe says his mother is ill, the effective listener remembers this and inquires about her health later in the week.
     Perhaps the most important point to understand about memory is that what you remember is not what was said but what you remember was said. Memory for speech is not reproductive; you don’t simply reproduce in your memory what the speaker said. Rather, memory is reconstructive; you actually reconstruct the messages you hear into a system that makes sense to you.
     If you want to remember what someone says or the names of various people, this information needs to pass from your short-term memory (the memory you use, say, to remember a phone number just long enough to dial it) into long-term memory. Short-term memory is very limited in capacity—you can hold only a small amount of information there. Long-term memory is unlimited. To facilitate the passage of information from short- to long-term memory, here are FOUR suggestions:

■ Focus your attention on the central ideas. Even in the most casual of conversations, there are central ideas. Fix these in your mind. Repeat these ideas to yourself as you continue to listen. Avoid focusing on minor details that often lead to detours in listening and in conversation.
■ Organize what you hear; summarize the message in a more easily retained form, but take care not to ignore crucial details or qualifications. If you chunk the material into categories, you’ll be able to remember more information. For example, if you want to remember 15 or 20 items to buy in the supermarket, you’ll remember more if you group them into chunks—say, produce, canned goods, and meats.
■ Unite the new with the old; relate new information to what you already know. Avoid treating new information as totally apart from all else you know. There’s probably some relationship, and if you identify it, you’re more like to remember the new material.
■ Repeat names and key concepts to yourself or, if appropriate, aloud. By repeating the names or key concepts, you in effect rehearse these names and concepts, and as a result they’ll be easier to learn and remember. If you’re introduced to Alice, you’ll stand a better chance of remembering her name if you say, “Hi, Alice” than if you say just “Hi.”

4.2.4 Stage 4: Evaluating

     Evaluating consists of judging messages in some way. At times, you may try to evaluate the speaker’s
underlying intent. Often this evaluation process goes on without much conscious thought. For example,
Elaine tells you that she is up for a promotion and is really excited about it. You may then try to judge her
intention. Does she want you to use your influence with the company president? Is she preoccupied with
her accomplishment and thus telling everyone about it? Is she looking for a pat on the back? Generally, if you know the person well, you’ll be able to identify the intention and therefore be able to respond appropriately.
     In other situations, evaluation is more in the nature of critical analysis. For example, in listening to proposals advanced in a business meeting, you will at this stage evaluate them. Is there evidence to show that
these proposals are practical and will increase productivity? Is there contradictory evidence? Are there
alternative proposals that would be more practical and more productive?
     In evaluating, try to:

■ Resist evaluation until you fully understand the speaker’s point of view.
■ Assume that the speaker is a person of goodwill, and give the speaker the benefit of any doubt by asking for clarification on issues that you feel you must object to (are there any other reasons for accepting this new proposal?).
■ Distinguish facts from inferences (see Chapter 5), opinions, and personal interpretations by the speaker.
■ Identify any biases, self-interests, or prejudices that may lead the speaker to slant unfairly what is presented.

4.2.5 Stage 5: Responding

     Responding occurs in two phases: (1) responses you make while the speaker is talking and (2)
responses you make after the speaker has stopped talking. These responses are feedback—information
that you send back to the speaker and that tells the speaker how you feel and think about his or her messages. Responses made while the speaker is talking should be supportive and should acknowledge that you’re listening. These include what researchers on nonverbal communication call backchanneling cues: “I see,” “yes,” “uh-huh,” and similar signals that let the speaker know you’re attending to the message.
     Responses made after the speaker has stopped talking are generally more elaborate and might include
expressing empathy (“I know how you must feel”), asking for clarification (“Do you mean that this new health plan is to replace the old one, or will it just be a supplement?”), challenging (“I think your evidence is weak here”), and agreeing (“You’re absolutely right on this, and I’ll support your proposal when it comes up for a vote”). For effective responding:

■ Be supportive of the speaker throughout the speaker’s talk by using and varying backchanneling cues; using only one backchanneling cue—for example, saying “uh-huh”
throughout—may make it appear that you’re not really listening.
■ Express support for the speaker in your final responses.
■ Be honest; the speaker has a right to expect honest responses, even if these express anger or disagreement.
■ State your thoughts and feelings as your own, using I-messages. For example, say “I think the new proposal will entail greater expense than you outlined” rather than “Everyone will object to the plan for costing too much.”

     Table 4.4 identifies some types of difficult listeners—listeners who don’t follow the suggestions for each of the five listening stages—and their problem-causing ways of responding.

4.3 Listening Barriers

     In addition to practicing the various skills for each stage of listening, consider some of the common
barriers to listening. Here are just four such barriers and some suggestions for dealing with them as both
listener and speaker, as both speaker and listener are responsible for effective listening.

4.3.1 Distractions: Physical and Mental

     Physical barriers might include, for example, hearing impairment, a noisy environment, or loud music.
Multi-tasking (watching TV and listening to someone) with the aim of being supportive, say, simply doesn’t work. As both listener and speaker, try to remove whatever physical barriers can be removed; for those that
you can’t remove, adjust your listening and speaking to lessen the effects as much as possible. As a listener, focus on the speaker; you can attend to the room and the other people later.
     Mental distractions are in many ways similar to physical distractions; they get in the way of focused listening. These barriers are often seen when you’re thinking about your upcoming Saturday night date or becoming too emotional to think (and listen) clearly. In listening, recognize that you can think about your date later. In speaking, make what you say compelling and relevant to the listener.

4.3.2 Biases and Prejudices

Biases and prejudices against groups or individuals who are members of such groups will invariably distort listening. For example, a gender bias that assumes that only one sex has anything useful to say about certain topics will likely distort incoming messages that contradict this bias. Be willing to subject your biases and prejudices to contradictory information; after all if they’re worth having, they should stand up to differences of opinion. When as a speaker you feel your listener may have certain prejudices, ask for a suspension of bias: “I know you don’t think women are knowledgeable about sports, but just hear me out about why I think the team’s offense isn’t working . . .”
     Another type of bias is closed mindedness, which is seen, for example, in the person who refuses to hear any feminist argument or anything about gay marriage. As a listener, assume that what the speaker is saying will be useful in some way. As a speaker, anticipate that many people are closed minded on a variety of issues and it often helps to simply ask for openness: “I know this is contrary to what many people think, but let’s look at it logically . . .”

4.3.3 Lack of Appropriate Focus

     Focusing on what a person is saying is obviously necessary for effective listening. And yet, there are many
influences that can lead you astray. For example, listeners often get lost because they focus on irrelevancies,
say, on an especially vivid example that conjures up old memories. Try not to get detoured from the main idea; don’t get hung up on unimportant details. Try to repeat the idea to yourself and see the details in relation to this main concept. As a speaker, try to avoid language or examples that may divert attention from your main idea.
     At times you might listen only for information with an obvious relevance to you. This type of listening
prevents you from expanding your horizons; it’s quite possible that information that you originally thought irrelevant will eventually prove helpful. As a speaker, be sure to make what you say relevant to your specific listener.
     Another misplaced focus is often on the responses a listener is going to make while the speaker is still
speaking. Anticipating how you’re going to respond or what you’re going to say (and even interrupting the speaker) prevents you from hearing the message in full. Instead, make a mental note of something and then get back to listening. As a speaker, when you feel someone is preparing to argue with you, ask them to hear you out: “I know you disagree with this, but let me finish and we’ll get back to that.”

4.3.4 Premature Judgment

     Perhaps the most obvious form of premature judgment is assuming you know what the speaker is going to say and that there’s no need to really listen. Let the speaker say what he or she is going to say before you decide that you already know it. As a speaker, it’s often wise to assume that listeners will do exactly this, so it may be helpful to make clear that what you’re saying will be unexpected.
     A common listener reaction is to draw conclusions or judgments on incomplete evidence. Sometimes,
listeners will stop listening after hearing, for example, an attitude they disagree with or some sexist or culturally insensitive remark. Instead, this is a situation that calls for especially concentrated listening so that
you don’t rush to judgment. Instead, wait for the evidence or argument; avoid making judgments before you gather all the information. Listen first; judge second. As a speaker, be aware of this tendency, and when you feel this is happening, ask for a suspension of judgment. A simple “Hear me out” is often sufficient.