Chapter 7: Listening

The nature of listening:

  • Listening: 

    • Active process of making meaning from another person's spoken message

  • Hearing:

    • Sensory process of receiving and perceiving sounds. 


People have various listening styles that represent differences in their goals for listening.

  • Relational style emphasizes concern for other people's emotions and interests.

  • Task-oriented style emphasizes concise, error-free presentations.

  • Critical style emphasizes intellectual challenges (asking questions, being skeptical, focusing on probability and logic, and looking for errors in arguments).

  • Analytical style emphasizes withholding judgment while listening (take in everything I can before I pass any evaluation, ex: doctors).

Ways of listening:

The HURIER model explains the stages of effective listening: HURIE → internal process, R is external.

  • Hearing

  • Understanding

  • Remembering

  • Interpreting: goes through our perceptual filters (experiences, mood, etc).

  • Evaluating: judge statements

  • Responding

Types of Responses: most passive to most direct

  • Stonewalling – no response or engagement, probably a lack of interest, is rude.

  • Backchanneling – a lot of non-verbal (nod, eye contact, changing facial expressions) and stock responses but we check in to communicate that we are engaged. 

  • Paraphrasing – repeat what you said in my words. 

  • Empathizing – I understand/acknowledge what you're feeling.

  • Supporting – agree with what someone says, support perspective or POV, fully endorse

  • Analyzing – my perspective/interpretation/experience on your situation

  • Advising – you should do this


People often engage in these types of listening

  • Informational listening: listening to learn

  • Critical listening: listening to evaluate argument (logic, reason, errors)

  • Empathic listening: listening to experience another person's thoughts or feelings.

    • Requires perspective-taking, and empathetic concern

Other types include: inspirational listening, appreciative listening


Common barriers to effective listening:

  • Noise

  • Pseudolistening and Selective Attention (false listening and listening to what I want to listen).

  • Information Overload

  • Glazing over (genuine listening, but missed certain areas; leftover brain time because people talk slower than our brain process their words)

    • Daydreaming

  • Rebuttal Tendency

    • Debate a speaker's point and formulate a reply while that person is still speaking.

    • Uses mental energy that should be spent paying attention to the speaker

    • By not paying close attention to the speaker, the listener can easily miss some of the details that might change how the listener responds in the first place. 

  • Closed-Mindedness

    • "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" –Aristotle.

  • Competitive Interrupting

    • How is this different from regular interrupting? 

    • Stage hogging, they're over you and they want to talk about themselves. 

    • Using interruptions to take control of a situation