5.6: Chapter 5 Summary

Listening Review

Why Listening Matters

• We spend more time listening than any other communication activity—about half our day. Strong listening boosts grades, job performance (and promotion odds), and relationship quality.
• Listening supports key goals: learning, connecting, shaping identity, and navigating everyday decisions.

The Listening Process (What’s happening in your head and body)

• Receiving: Taking in sound and visual cues; manage environmental and psychological noise.
• Interpreting: Making meaning using context and prior knowledge (schemata).
• Recalling: Moving information from short-term to long-term memory; expect limits and use strategies to remember.
• Evaluating: Judging credibility, completeness, and value; keep focus on the message, not the person.
• Responding: Showing you’re listening via verbal/nonverbal feedback, back-channel cues, clarifying questions, and paraphrasing.

Types of Listening (Use the right tool for the job)

• Discriminative: Scanning for specific cues (e.g., hearing your name in a crowd).
• Informational: Learning and retaining (e.g., lectures, instructions).
• Critical: Analyzing logic/evidence, separating facts from inferences (e.g., news, persuasive talks).
• Empathetic: Understanding feelings/perspectives without rushing to fix (e.g., a friend venting).

Listening Styles (How people tend to listen)

• People-oriented: Supportive, feelings-first.
• Action-oriented: Organized, task-focused.
• Content-oriented: Deep-dive, details and multiple perspectives.
• Time-oriented: Brief and efficient; may rush others.

Barriers to Effective Listening (What gets in the way)

• Environmental/physical: Poor seating, noise, fatigue.
• Cognitive/personal: Thought-speed > speech-speed, multitasking, low motivation.
• Message/speaker issues: Disorganized content, jargon, overload.
• Bias/prejudice: Prejudging the person or topic.
• Bad habits: Interrupting, distorted/narcissistic/aggressive listening, eavesdropping, pseudo-listening.

Improving Listening Competence (What to do instead)

• Before: Set a purpose, manage noise, sit where you can see/hear, prime attention.
• During:
  • Active listening behaviors: eye contact, open posture, head nods, brief encouragers.
  • Paraphrase + clarify: “So you’re saying… Did I get that right?”
  • Use your “extra” brain bandwidth wisely: repeat, rephrase, reorganize.
  • Note-taking and mental bracketing to park distracting thoughts.
• Critical listening moves: Separate facts/inferences, check sources, look for missing voices, watch for either/or traps and overgeneralizations.
• Empathetic listening moves: Suspend judgment, mirror feelings (not the spotlight), ask open-ended questions, avoid unsolicited advice.

Fast Self-Checks

• Can you summarize the speaker’s main point in one sentence?
• What’s fact vs. inference in what you just heard?
• Which barrier is strongest for you right now, and what’s one tactic to counter it?

References

Alsop, R., Wall Street Journal-Eastern Edition 240, no. 49 (2002): R4.

Andersen, P. A., Nonverbal Communication: Forms and Functions (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1999), 57–58.

Bardhi, F., Andres J. Rohm, and Fareena Sultan, “Tuning in and Tuning out: Media Multitasking among Young Consumers,” Journal of Consumer Behaviour 9 (2010): 318.

Beall, M. L., et al., “State of the Context: Listening in Education,” The International Journal of Listening 22 (2008): 124.

Bodie, G. D., “The Active-Empathetic Listening Scale (AELS): Conceptualization and Evidence of Validity within the Interpersonal Domain,” Communication Quarterly 59, no. 3 (2011): 278.

Brownell, J., “Listening Environment: A Perspective,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993).

Bruneau, T., “Empathy and Listening,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 194.

Conaway, M. S., “Listening: Learning Tool and Retention Agent,” in Improving Reading and Study Skills, eds. Anne S. Algier and Keith W. Algier (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1982).

Dindia, K., “The Effect of Sex of Subject and Sex of Partner on Interruptions,” Human Communication Research 13, no. 3 (1987): 345–71.

Dobbs, M., “The Rise of Political Fact-Checking,” New America Foundation (2012): 1.

Floyd, J. J.,Listening, a Practical Approach (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1985), 39–40.

Flynn, J., Tuula-Riitta Valikoski, and Jennie Grau, “Listening in the Business Context: Reviewing the State of Research,” The International Journal of Listening 22 (2008): 143.

Fried, C. B., “In-Class Laptop Use and Its Effects on Student Learning,” Computers and Education 50 (2008): 906–14.Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 193.

Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 200.

Hayakawa, S. I. and Alan R. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action, 5th ed. (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1990), 22–32.

Listen-Coach.com, Dr. Rick Listen-Coach, accessed July 13, 2012, www.listen-coach.com.

Lustig, M. W. and Jolene Koester, Intercultural Competence: Interpersonal Communication across Cultures, 5th ed. (Boston, MA: Pearson Education, 2006), 110–14.

McCornack, S., Reflect and Relate: An Introduction to Interpersonal Communication (Boston, MA: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2007).

Nelson-Jones, R., Human Relationship Skills, 4th ed. (East Sussex: Routledge, 2006), 37–38.

Nichols, M. P., The Lost Art of Listening (New York, NY: Guilford Press, 1995).

Petty, R. E. and John T. Cacioppo, “The Effects of Involvement on Responses to Argument Quantity and Quality: Central and Peripheral Routes to Persuasion,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46, no. 1 (1984): 69–81.

Ridge, A., “A Perspective of Listening Skills,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 5–6.

Rubin, D. L., “Listenability = Oral-Based Discourse + Considerateness,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 277.

Toppo, G., “Colleges Start Offering ‘Midnight Classes’ for Offbeat Needs,” USA Today, October 27, 2011, accessed July 13, 2012, www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011–10–26/college-midnight-classes/50937996/1.

Wolvin, A. D. and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley, “A Listening Taxonomy,” in Perspectives on Listening, eds. Andrew D. Wolvin and Carolyn Gwynn Coakley (Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation, 1993), 19.