![]() The following list reviews some of the main functions of listening that are relevant in multiple contexts: Emotional support in the form of empathetic listening and validation during times of conflict can help relational partners manage common stressors of relationships that may otherwise lead a partnership to deteriorate (Milardo and Helms-Erikson 37). ![]() Empathetic listening can help us expand our self and social awareness by learning from other people’s experiences and by helping us take on different perspectives. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of listening to make someone else feel better and to open our perceptual field to new sources of information. Listening also has implications for our personal lives and relationships. Training and improvements in listening will continue to pay off as employers desire employees with good communication skills, and employees who have good listening skills are more likely to get promoted. Even though listening education is lacking in our society, research has shown that introductory communication courses provide important skills necessary for functioning in entry-level jobs, including listening, writing, motivating/ persuading, interpersonal skills, informational interviewing, and small-group problem solving (DiSalvo 283-90). Poor listening skills, lack of conciseness, and inability to give constructive feedback have been identified as potential communication challenges in professional contexts. Interpersonal communication skills including listening are also highly sought after by potential employers, consistently ranking in the top ten in national surveys, according to the 2011 “Job Outlook” published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. In general, students with high scores for listening ability have greater academic achievement. In terms of academics, poor listening skills were shown to contribute significantly to failure in a person’s first year of college (Zabaya and Wolvin 215-17). Listening is also important in academic, professional, and personal contexts. In general, listening helps us achieve communication goals: physical, instrumental, relational, and identity. These people rarely pick-up on hidden meanings or subtle nonverbal cues.Understanding how listening works provides the foundation we need to explore why we listen, including various types and styles of listening. People who are not able to listen beyond the face value of the other’s words. These people are constantly looking to ambush and trap the other person in their own ideas and words, usually to prove or support a strong personal belief of their own. However, they do so to collect information that can be used against the other person (like a cross-examining attorney). Defensive listening creates impressions of insecurity and a lack of confidence. People who take innocent comments as personal attacks. When that topic arises in the conversation, they turn off. The opposite of selective listeners, insulated listeners are people who actively avoid or ignore certain topics. These people need to remember that communicators and their communication styles are in a continual process of change. ![]() These people push, pull, chop, and squeeze messages in order to make sure that they are consistent with prior messages. People who always interpret messages in terms of similar messages remembered from the past. These people manufacture information to fill in the gaps of incomplete information, distorting the intended message. People who like to think that what they have heard actually makes a whole, coherent story, even when it may not. ![]() Selective listeners have their own agenda of interesting and valuable topics and disregard or are disinterested in others’ agendas. People who listen only to parts of a message that interest them and reject or ignore everything else. Stage hogs do not listen to the other person, but give short speeches. People who are only interested in expressing their own ideas, and who don’t care about what others have to say on the subject. People who give the appearance of being attentive, with smiles, head-nods, minimal responses, etc., but behind this polite facade, they are ignoring or not attending to the other person.
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