Transcript Chapter 6- Listening and Responding to others

CHAPTER 6- LISTENING AND
RESPONDING TO OTHERS
LISTENING AND RESPONDING
How do we Listen?
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When we listen, we are hearing everything
around us, either through sound waves or sight.
 Hearing is just a part of listening; to truly listen
you need to receive, understand and respond.
 To accomplish this, one needs to be Mindful.
MINDFULNESS
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When we fully listen, we are being mindful, taking into
account everything the speaker is saying and ignoring
everything irrelevant.
This is difficult for many people, as we can comprehend up
to 300 words per minute, with most speakers only talking at
a rate of 100 words per minute.
This leads to our minds wandering during a conversation and
possibly missing key elements.
While being mindful, we are able to not only have a more indepth understanding of the speaker’s emotions and
thoughts, it encourages the speaker to continue
communicating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfjhHuQoQuc
PHYSICALLY LISTENING
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When physically listening, we understand
communication through sight, such as seeing nonverbal
communication, lip-reading or sign language.
This is mostly used for those who are hearing impaired
and rely on physical communication like sign language
and lip-reading.
When stressed, tired or otherwise mentally fatigued, our
ability to physically listen and communicate is
diminished. This also happens when multiple
conversations or distractions are happening in our field
of vision and/or sound.
SELECTING, ORGANIZING AND INTERPRETING
COMMUNICATION
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Naturally, we don’t absorb all information around us at one time; we
cycle through and pick what most interests us. Once again
mindfulness comes into play.
To organize our thoughts we use Cognitive Schemata, meaning we
use our personal constructs and scripts and so forth to determine
what we find important.
Interpretation is the fourth aspect of listening.
When we interpret, we put together all the information
we have gathered thus far and develop an opinion.
 To make it effective, try to understand other’s
viewpoints.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpP7b2lUxVE
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RESPONDING AND REMEMBERING
Responding is crucial to listening, as it shows the
speaker you have interest and possibly an opinion
of the topic.
 One can respond through various physical
methods as well, either by nodding a head, sitting
up straight, or more negatively frowning and
looking away.
 Remembering is thought of as the final aspect of
communication, as it determines how much one
was truly listening and interpreting the
conversation.
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EFFECTIVE LISTENING
Critical listening
-Judging the information we receive
-Make sure the information is credible
Ex: A class lecture helps you listen to
information critically. Engaging in
the presentation helps with effective
listening.
Steps to listening Critically
Be mindful
-Don’t allow your mind to wander when trying to listen and think
critically about a subject.
Control Obstacles
-Block out any distractions that stop you from listening.
Ask questions
-engage with the communicator to try to get a better
understanding. You may have listened but was unable to
comprehend.
Use memory aids to recall
-Relating situations to terms you’ve heard so that
you are able to recall them later.
Organize Information
-organize information so that you are able to
retain that information.
RELATIONSHIP LISTENING
-engaging in relationship listening with
anyone
-feelings and relationships between
people
REQUIREMENTS FOR RELATIONSHIP LISTENING
Be mindful
-Listening to give support to the person
that may not be communicated through
words.
Suspend judgment
-It’s best to just listen and respond
without judging because the person may
feel that they can’t be open with you.
Understand the other’s Perspective
-Putting aside our feelings to understand
where someone else is coming from.
Express support
-Supporting someone even though you
may not agree with everything they’re
saying
UNDERSTANDING THE OTHER’S PERSPECTIVE
Minimal encouragers
- responses that encourage others to
continue and lets them know that you are
listening.
Ex: “Really?” , “I see” “Go on”
Paraphrasing
-reflecting our interpretation of what
someone says back to them
Ex: “ With all the news on teenagers and
drugs, I wonder if my brother does drugs.”
Paraphrase to understand: “It sounds as
if you suspect your brother is doing
drugs.”
OBSTACLES TO EFFECTIVE LISTENING
Situational
-Are in communication context
Internal
-Are within communicators
SITUATIONAL OBSTACLES
Incomprehensibility
-message is not clearly understood
 Message overload
-message may have to much to process
 Message complexity
-message is to complex
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ENVIRONMENTAL DISTRACTIONS
Television
 Music
 People talking
 Phones
http://youtu.be/e_54-lwVcdI?t=1m16s
http://youtu.be/5p06UYUe4Tc
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INTERNAL OBSTACLES
Preoccupation
-too absorbed in your own thoughts to focus on
what someone else is saying
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Prejudgment
-judging others ideas before we’ve heard them
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INEFFECTIVE LISTENING
Pseudolistening
- Pretending to listen
 Monopolizing
-Keeping focus on your self instead of the person
talking
 Ambushing
-Gather info only to use it to attack the speaker
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SELECTIVE & DEFENSIVE
LISTENING
Selective Listening
- focusing on particular parts of communication
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Defensive Listening
-when someone perceives something as a
personal attack when it is not intended to be.
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REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What are one of the requirements for relationship
listening?
2. Focusing on a particular part of communication is
considered ___________ listening.
3. To truly listen you need to receive, understand and
_________.
PLEASE NOTE:
Chapter summarized from information found in:
Wood, Julia T. (2014). Communication Mosaics: An
Introduction to the Field of Communication. 7th
Edition. Boston, MA: Wadsworth.
These student lecture notes provide a brief summary
of Wood’s discussion on verbal communication
(chapter 4) while providing additional commentary
and examples. The information in this slideshow is
based on the work (content and organization) of Wood
(2014).