Listening

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Listening

• Chapter 8

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Listening

• Relational Climate is the level to which we feel
  safe, supported and understood within a
  relationship. It is basically a description of
  the psychological comfort level.
• It varies along a continuum.

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Listening

• A confirming relational climate
• Is positive and supportive.
• We trust the other person.
• We have learned to count on him/her to listen and
  understand us.
• We expect him/her to confirm our thoughts and
  feelings.

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Listening

• A disconfirming relational climate
• Is defensive.
• Is characterized by negative judgments.
• Is characterized by mistrust.
• The other person imposes his or her judgment on
  us.
• This person rejects our thoughts and feelings.
• This person leaves us feeling wrong,
  misunderstood, or unworthy.

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Listening

• Rarely, if ever is a relationship completely
  confirming.
• The climate of a relationship evolves over time
  and experience.
• In most confirming relationships we feel
  genuinely valued, accepted and respected.
• This feel contributes to our psychological health.

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Listening

• Levels of Confirmation
• Recognition
• notice a person silent treatment (power play)
• Acknowledgement
• acknowledge the persons thoughts, feelings or
  actions vs. ignoring (not your feelings)
• Endorsement
• accept the persons thoughts or feelings as
  valid.
• Agree (Do we always want to do this?)

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Listening

• Basic Elements
• Hearing
• Attending
• Understanding
• Responding

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Listening

• Internal Barriers to Listening
• Emotional noise
• Stress, anxiety, anger, or being in love
• Cognitive distraction
• Compartmentalize file it away temporarily
• Admit that you are distracted
• Premature judgment
• We think we know what is coming
• We already have an opinion

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Listening

• External Barriers to Listening
• Noise
• Sensory adaptation
• Selective attention
• Related to introversion/extraversion
• Information overload
• Mental fatigue
• Multiple messages
• Message complexity

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Counterfeit Listening

• Managing to look as if you are listening when you
  are not
• Pseudo-listening
• um-hum
• Nodding the head
• Defensive Listening
• Perceiving criticism when none is intended

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Counterfeit Listening

• Selective Listening
• tuning in and out letting your attention
  wander
• Stagehogging
• Frequent interruption with your own story
• May be one-upmanship

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Authentic Listening

• Show genuine interest sympathy
• Active listening showing interest through
  verbal non-verbal responses

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Controversial Listening Styles

• Advising
• Least helpful response
• People like to solve their own problems
• (I disagree.)
• Evaluating
• Judging instead of being supportive

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Controversial Listening Styles

• Evaluating
• Judging instead of being supportive
• Appropriate when you are in a position of
  authority
• (Here your textbook implies that you should not
  express your opinions. I disagree once again.)

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Helpful Listening Styles

• Analyzing tentatively offering a different
  perspective.
• I wonder if. . .
• Questioning using open-ended questions
• How do you feel about this?
• Not to satisfy your own curiosity.

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Helpful Listening Styles

• Minimally Encouraging
• Short cheerleading responses
• Supporting
• Validate the speakers feelings

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Helpful Listening Styles

• Paraphrasing
• Reflective listening (reflects back to the
  speaker like a mirror)
• 3 components
• 1. How it sounds as if the speaker is feeling.
• 2. What you think the speaker might be thinking,
  but has not said.
• 3. Encourages the speaker to continue.
• Is that right?

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Summary of Styles

• Advising
• Evaluating
• Analyzing
• Questioning
• Minimally encouraging
• Paraphrasing

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Gender Listening

• Men are sensitive to status authority.
• They like to demonstrate competence.
• Women are concerned about harmony in
  relationships.
• They take a more empathetic approach to listening.

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Gender Listening

• Classic example Woman is feeling frustrated at
  work and tells her husband. He quickly offers a
  solution. She gets angry. He gets his
  feelings hurt, feels rejected or put down.
  What happened?

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Gender Listening

• She wanted to know if he understood how she felt?
• She is smart, and can solve her own problems.
• She has not finished talking and he has cut her
  off.
• Some of his suggestions are irrelevant, because
  he did not wait to hear the whole story.

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Gender Listening

• He is frustrated.
• He was listening, just like she wanted him to.
• His solution has been rejected.

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Application

• What are your goals?
• Listening to give help or get information
• What are your limits?
• How much time and interest do you have?
• Consider the speakers needs.
• You can ask.
• Minimize distractions.
• Mentally summarize key ideas.