III. Functions of Listening

1. Listening to comprehend: when you listen to gain understanding;

2. Listening for support: when you listen to provide support to your friend, suspending judgment and showing concern and empathy;

3. Listening to analyze: when you listen to evaluate the message you receive;

4. Listening to appreciate: when you listen to enjoy the sounds of something;

5. Listening to discern: when you listen to separate some information from among other information.

DISCUSSION STARTER 4: Recall a situation in which you listened the wrong way.

For instance, a friend needed you to listen supportively, but you listened to analyze.

What led you to make this error? What consequences ensued from your mistake? What can you do in the future to avoid such listening mishaps?

IV. Listening Styles

1. Action-oriented listeners want brief, to the point and accurate messages; grow impatient with disorganized, long-winded or imprecise people.

2. Time-oriented listeners prefer briefness and conciseness; they allocate certain time and stick to their schedule.

3. People-oriented listeners establish commonalities between themselves and others; show concern for people’s emotions; demonstrate empathy, provide positive feedback.

4. Content-oriented listeners prefer intellectual challenge, complex and provocative information.

V. Gender Differences in Listening Styles

Larry Barker, Kittie Watson:

1. Women are more likely to use people-oriented and content-oriented styles of listening; they are generally interested in

2. Men are more likely to use time-oriented and action-oriented messages; they are more in a hurry to get to facts.

3. We should not automatically assume men or women listen in a particular manner because of their gender.

DISCUSSION STARTER 5: Do your preferred listening styles match research on male/female differences?

How have your listening styles affected your communication with people of the same gender? The opposite gender?

VI. Culture and Listening

Culture shapes and use and perception of listening styles; individualistic cultures appreciate time and efficiency, and they may have problems with people and content-oriented listening; collectivistic cultures attention to feelings and subtle messages is emphasized.

VII. Preventing Ineffective Listening

1. Overcoming selective listening: (a) broaden gradually the range of information you attend to in your encounters; (b) work to improve your attention.

2. Strategies to improve selective listening (Michael’s Sound Bite 5-2): (a) repeating the key ideas to yourself; (b) taking notes, (c) paying attention to transitions between ideas; (d) suspending your judgment, (e) creating a chain of arguments your interlocutor uses; (f) asking questions to add more information; (h) summarizing at signposts.

DISCUSSION STARTER 6: What personal and professional consequences have you suffered because of your selective listening? What factors led you to selectively listen in those situations? How could you have overcome those factors to listen more actively?

3. Eavesdropping: when situations are set up so that people could listen to private conversations. Eavesdropping occurs due to a number of reasons: (a) seeking to discover incriminating information; (b) trying to find what people say about you; (c) out of curiosity. It must be remembered that people sometimes say things they don’t mean to (a) impress others, (b) fit in; (c) draw attention to themselves.

4. Pseudo-Listening: occurs when people pretend they are listening and paying attention when really they do not.

DISCUSSION STARTER 7: When do you pseudo-listen to others? How do you feel and respond when you sense that someone has been pseudo-listening to you? Are there situations in which pseudo-listening is acceptable? If so, when?

5. Aggressive listening occurs when the only reason for listening is to find information to attack. This is done mostly to raise the attacker’s self-image in his or her own light. In this case the partners must (a) discover and deal with root causes of aggression, such as stress, relationship problems, or family problems; (b) if need be, seek additional assistance; (c) limit interactions; (d) remain polite and respectful; (e) use people-oriented listening; (f) try not to use aggressive listening as it only makes things worse.

6. Narcissistic Listening is self-absorbed listening that ignores what others have to say; people only engage in feedback as long as they remain in the center of attention; mostly negative feedback is shown when people stop attending to the narcissist.

DISCUSSION STARTER 8: How do you feel when people use narcissistic listening with you? Have you ever listened in a narcissistic way? If so, what led you to do it? Is narcissistic listening always incompetent, or is it acceptable in certain circumstances?