comm chp 4

Informational Listening

purpose is to gain and understand information

Critical listneing

purpose to make judgements of people and their ideas

Effective listening involves

responding during and after the interaction, skillful listeners give signs to show they are involved using nonverbal and feedback

Other ways people receive messages

sight, nonverbal behaviors, lip reading, sign language

two general obstacles to effective listening

situation obstacles (message overload, message complexity, environmental distraction) and internal obstacles (preoccupation with our own thoughts and concerns, prejudgments when we think we know what they'll say or assume, lack of energy or effort, and failure to recognize different style of communicating)

Other listening purposes are

to experience pleasure, to discriminate, and to make distinctions

Selectively attend to some communication and selectively organize what we perceive by...

notice stimuli that are intense, loud, unusual, use cognitive schemata, construct other by the schemata that we use to organize our perceptions about them

Relational listening focuses

on the relationship level of meaning or the level of meaning that has to do with feelings and relationships between communicators, requires mindfulness, works best if we suspend judgment, involves understanding the other's perspective, expressing support (not necessarily in agreement)

Pseudo-listening

pretending to listen; we appear attentive but our minds are elsewhere

5 skills to be a better informational and critical listener

1. be mindful to carefully attend to what is being communicated no matter how complex the material 2. try to control obstacles and distractions to listening 3. ask questions so that speakers have an opportunity to clarify their messages 4. use aids to try to help use recall the information 5. try to organize the information by regrouping the information into categories

6 forms of ineffective listening

Pseudo-listening, monopolizing, selective listening, defensive listening, ambushing, and literal listening

Listening

a complex process of being mindful, hearing, selecting, and organizing information, interpreting communication, responding, and remembering

Hearing

a physiological activity that occurs when sound waves hit our eardrums

Facts about listening

at least as important as talking in the communication process we spend about half our waking time listening listening and hearing are synonymous

Interpretation

determines the meaning of communication, effective determination depends on your ability to understand another on their own terms, recognizing others' viewpoints even if you don't agree is an ethical responsibility of a good listener

3 stances of listening

develop variety of listening ways in various contexts, consider how its shaped by experience and knowledge, cultural expectation and guidelines are connected to listening performance

Ambushing

listening for the purpose of attacking the person speaking and or that person's ideas

Selective listening

two ways: 1. selectively focusing on parts of communication that support our views and that interest us 2. selectively screening out parts of communication that diverge from out views or that do not interest us

Monopolizing

when a person hogs the conversational stage, rerouting is shifting the topic to ourselves, interrupting can be introducing a new or diversionary topic to challenge the speaker but sometimes can be signs of support or interest

Literal lsitening

when individuals attend only to the content-level of meaning in communication and overlook the relationship level of meaning

Defensive Listening

when individuals perceive personal attacks where no are intended, when we assume that others don't like, trust, or respect us, and read other motives into whatever they say, may be confined to areas where we judge ourselves to be inadequate or areas in which we feel negative

Mindfulness

when we focus on what is going on at the present moment, an ethical commitment to attend fully to another person, enhances communication by increasing our understand of how they feel and what they think about what they are saying, and promotes more complete communication by others