Interpersonal Communication

Lecture_2

Listening is Your Life!• On average, a college student will spend over

50% of a day listening; an employee spends over 60%

• However, we tend to only process HALF of what we hear…..

• Understand about a QUARTER of the message….

• And retain even LESS of the content

Hearing vs. Listening• Hearing

– Involuntary, physiological process– We don’t think about this

• Listening– Voluntary, psychological process– Process of receiving, attending to, and assigning

meaning to aural and visual stimuli– As we assign meaning to a message, we must

understand, remember, interpret, and respond– Often, instead of ‘listening’ to others, we only hear

them

Effective vs. Ineffective Listeners

• Effective Listeners enhance relationships– Decrease stress– Enhance knowledge– Build trust– Improve analysis and decision making– Increase confidence

• Ineffective Listeners destroy relationships– Increase stress, minimize knowledge– Destroy trust and confidence

Stages of Listening

• HURIER MODEL of listening (Brownell)– Listening is a system of interrelated

components that includes both mental processes and observable behaviors; includes the following factors:

• Hearing• Understanding• Remembering• Interpreting• Evaluating• Responding

Stage One: Hearing

• We exist in a world filled with aural stimuli• We hear what we listen for!• Attending

– Our willingness to focus on and organize particular stimuli

– If we ‘attend’ to a sound, we concentrate on it. If the sound doesn’t hold our attention, we will refocus on something else.

– It is not enough to capture one’s attention; you must maintain it

Interpersonal Communication © 2014 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Stage 2: Understanding

• During this stage, you absorb the meaning of a person’s statement or sound

• Work to “decode” what is being said using our own reservoir of information

• To ensure understanding, you may:– Reply to person– Ask questions for clarification– Rephrase or paraphrase what you heard

Stage 3: Remembering• During this stage, our brain assigns

meaning to the spoken words; after that, we choose whether to commit the information to memory for further use

• Memory allows us to retain and recall information when we need to do so, but ‘forgetting’ is necessary for our mental health as well!

Stage 3: Remembering (cont.)• Short term memory

– Where we store most of what we hear– If not used and transferred to long term memory, we

will lose this information– We remember 50% of a message immediately after

listening to it– We remember 25% after a brief time lapse

• Long term memory– Connects new experiences to previous images and

information– We remember events of significance (birthdays,

anniversaries, etc)

Stage 4: Interpreting• When interpreting, we attempt to make sense of a

message

• Consider message from sender’s perspective

• Doing this, we try not to impose our own beliefs onto the other person’s message

• Interpret by listening to both verbal and nonverbal cues (tone of voice, posture, facial expressions, etc)

Stage 5: Evaluating

• Weigh the worth of a message and critically analyze what we have listened to, appraising what we were told

• Does message have relevance to us?• Make choices

– Separate facts from inferences– Weight evidence– Identify prejudices and faulty arguments

• If we do not make wise choices, we risk evaluating a message incorrectly

Stage 6: Responding•Affect our overall communication process

•When we respond, we react and provide feedback

•We communicate our thoughts and feelings about the received message

•We let the person know whether we thought the message was communicated successfully

•We are, in effect, the sender’s “radar”

Styles of Listening• Four listening styles

– People Oriented• Preferred by those who focus on emotions and interests of

others; fosters relating to others in meaningful ways

– Action Oriented• Preferred by those who value clarity and precision; do not

like to feel frustrated, but want person to be direct with them

– Content Oriented• Those who enjoy intellectual challenges; enjoy debates,

relating issues to their own views

– Time Oriented• Expect speaker to get to the point – quickly and efficiently

Types of Listening

• Appreciative Listening – help us unwind or escape

• Comprehensive Listening – gain knowledge

• Critical/Deliberative Listening – analyze worth, validity, and soundness of

message– accept or reject

Types of Listening (cont.)

• Empathic Listening (focus on OTHER PERSON)– when one reaches out to us for support, he/she

needs us to listen with empathy.

– Important to master in order to build strong interpersonal relationships

– Serves therapeutic function: facilitates problem solving, lends different perspective to situations, helps us regain emotional balance

Empathic Skills and Abilities

• When empathizing, you activate three skills:– Empathic responsiveness– Perspective taking– Sympathetic Responsiveness

• Steps to Improve your “Empathy Quotient”– Make an effort to be other oriented– Take in the whole scene– Work to understand the other person’s emotions– Try to believe and identify how you feel about the

person’s situation

Active Listening

• Similar to perception checking• Involves explaining to a speaker your

understanding of what was communicated• Holds the key to mutually understood messages • Pay attention and respond using both verbal and

nonverbal cues• Identify what speaker says, what you think he/she

means• Let speaker know that you understand his/her

feelings

Listening Ethics

• Do you fake attention?• Do you ignore specific individuals?• Do you lose emotional control? (red flag

words)• Do you avoid challenging content?• Are you egocentric?• Do you waste potential listening time?• Are you overly apprehensive?• Are you suffering symptoms of listening

burnout?

Hurdling Listening Roadblocks

• Listening requires your full attention• Evaluation follows – does not precede –reception• Appearance and delivery are not reasons to not

listen• Do not judge someone based on your own

prejudices• How you listen affects how others feel about you• If you feel opportunities to practice skillful

listening, you will become a better listener.

Daily practice improves performance

Feedback

• Attempt to return or ‘feed back’ to another person our reactions to their messages; this is constant, whether intentional or not

• Feedback may be immediate or delayed• Feedback may be person or message

focused• Feedback may be low- or high-monitoring• Feedback may be evaluative or

nonevaluative – Nonevaluative: probing, understanding,

supporting feedback, or “I” messages

Culture’s Influence

• Dialogic listening occurs when responding to one another

• Attitudes toward talk and silence also play roles– Some cultures prefer direct communications;

others value elaboration and exaggeration– The meaning we give words varies based on

experience and background

Gender’s InfluenceMen Women

Comfortable with comprehensive listening (hearing message’s facts)

Listen to confirm relationship and person with whom they share relationship

Seek to retain power, dominance Listening goal is to reach an emotional level

Seek to listen for solutions so that they can give advice; apt to ‘shut off’ listening when the encounter something they can’t solve quickly

Excel at empathizing and offering support

Tend to speak more Tend to listen more

Listeners perceive men’s speech as stronger, more active, and more aggressive than women’s

Listeners perceive women’s speech as polite, pleasing, and sweet

Media and Technology

• Television shows and other forms of media shorten our attention spans

• We often see guests on TV talking over one another, competing for time, and acting like children when they can’t speak if they choose to speak

• With our use of technology (texting, internet), we “listen” more visually rather than aurally

• We tend to multitask when listening, so we do not solely focus on any message

Gaining Communication Competence

Become a Better Listener• Catch yourself exhibiting a bad habit• Substitute a good habit for a bad habit• Listen with your whole body• Consistently use your ears, not just your

mouth• See the other side• Don’t listen assumptively• Participate actively

Interpersonal Communication © 2014 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Communication

Verbal(words)

Non-verbal(gestures, glances, changes in the tone

of voice, etc. )(= paralanguage)

body language

55%

words7%

tone of voice38%

Nonverbal communication is studied by:

Proxemics: use of space

Haptics: touch

Oculesics: eye behavior

Kinesics: body movement

Proxemics –

the study of space in interpersonal relationships

comfortable interaction distance (comfort zone)

Average comfortable distances among North Americans

Distance between faces  Tone of voice Type of message

  very close (7-15 cm) soft whisper   top secret or sensual

  close (20-30 cm) audible whisper   very confidential

  neutral (50 cm-1 m)soft voice, low

volume    personal subject matter

  neutral (1.3 m-1.5 m) full voice   non-personal information 

  across the room (2.5 m-6 m)

loud voice   talking to a group

  stretching the limits  (6 m-7m indoors and  up to 30 m outdoors)

loud hailing voice  departures and arrivals

Proxemics –organization of space

Western offices Japanese offices

Haptics –the study of touch

Low-contactcultures

High-contactcultures

North Americans, the British,

China, Japan

Italians, the French, Russians, Arabs and Latin

Americans

Oculesics –the study of the use of the eyes in

interpersonal communication

In China and Japan people avoid looking at each other in public places

or in a crowd.

Oculesics –the study of the use of the eyes in

interpersonal communication

Oculesics –the study of the use of the eyes in

interpersonal communication

Asians, Puerto Ricans, West Indians, African Americans and Native Americans consider a direct eye contact to be rude, or disrespectful, or intimidating, while Europeans find it a sign

of openness and honesty.

Kinesics –the study of bodily movements and

facial expressions

Gestures

instinctive

coded

acquired

Instinctive gestureswe do them unconsciously

“I’m happy!”

“I’m sad…”

Universal hand gestures

MEANING HAND GESTURE

“I am hungry.” Patting the stomach with the hands

“I am cold”, or it's cozy or a sign of eager anticipation.

Rubbing the hands together.

Coded / technical gestures – hand signals used by TV directors,

gestures of referees or brokers in the stock market

Acquired gestures – socially generated

Facial expressions and head gestures

• The “ultimate gesture”

• Yes / No gestures

Hand and arm gestures

• "O.K." gesture

• Victory/Peace sign

Hand and arm gestures

• thumbs-up sign

• hailing a taxi

Hand and arm gestures

• finger beckoning

• upraised hand

Hand and arm gestures

• Hands at the hip with arms akimbo

Hand and arm gestures

• waving one's hand • touching a child on the top of the

head• point at an object • at the restaurant• placing your hand behind your head

Hand and arm gestures

• linking your pinky with someone else's pinky

• “counting to ten” on the hands

Trunk and leg indications

• pointing the sole of your shoe toward someone

• bowing