Learning Unit’s Contents

Listening

LISTENING is the subject of this online lecture. We will learn why listening is essential in the process of communication. Furthermore, we will discuss the different listening styles.

And the first question we have to ask ourselves is

what the difference is between listening and hearing.

HEARING is simply defined as our ability to perceive sounds.

LISTENING is the process of giving thoughtful attention to what we hear.

Listening is, of course, a more complex activity.

You have to focus your mind on what is being said.

And this is an INTENTIONAL behavior.

1 – The Process of Listening

The process of LISTENING

implies different stages.

1.1 First you have to hear whatever someone is saying – this is obvious.

For that reason, Tubbs and Moss talk about HEARING as the first step in the process of listening.
When your are listening, you are making use of your hearing organs.

1.2 the second stage is ATTENDING,

i.e. the act of paying attention.

Attending is a selective process.

You have to decide what you will pay attention to.

1.3 The third step is, of course, UNDERSTANDING: The process of making sense of a message.

This is the very moment in which the listener assigns meaning to the symbols used by the sender.

1.4 The next step is, according to most authors,

REMEMBERING.

After you have understood, after you have assign a meaning to the symbols,
you need to store this information in a place of your mind, so that you can use it when it is necessary.

In this regard, psychologists distinguish between

a SHORT-TERM-MEMORY

and a LONG-TERM-MEMORY. The main criteria to determine whether we will store the information in the short-term or in our long-term memory, is the degree of ego-involvement – how important the topic is for your identity, for your physical, psychological, emotional or financial integrity.

1.5 There are certain authors who also include another element in the process of LISTENING.

They talk about RESPONDING.

Responding is simply to give feedback to the speaker.

It is obvious that the two elements are closely related.
And, of course, the quality of the response will depend on the quality of the listening process!!!

2 – The Listening Act

There are two important characteristics of LISTENING I would point out:

Unlike the hearing process, LISTENING IS NOT A NATURAL PROCESS It is something that has to be learned and trained.

LISTENING is a skill that needs training.

And, as a consequence,

LISTENING REQUIRES EFFORT !!!!

A concentration effort and an elaboration effort.

And this is the reason why there are so few good listeners.

3 – Personal Listening Styles

Now we are going to explain how people listen or tend to listen.

3.1 – The CONTENT-ORIENTED style

This kind of listener is interested in the quality of the message. They look for details and analyze the ideas.

3.2 – the PEOPLE-ORIENTED style

This style is not analytical. This kind of listeners is interested in creating and maintaining Relationships.

They are more interested in understanding and supporting people than in evaluating them.

More concern with the human being than with the issues at hand.

3.3 – the ACTION-ORIENTED style

The action-oriented listeners are mostly interested in the task at hand.

They want to go immediately to the heart of the matter.

Their main concern is what sort of response is appropriated for the message.

3.4 – The TIME-ORIENTED style

This kind of listener is most concerned with efficiency.

They are conscious that time is scarce and act consequently.

These are the typical listeners that grow impatient when they thought that the speaker is wasting time.

4- Types of Listening

4.1 the PLEASURABLE LISTENING

When you enjoy what your are listening to.

Forms of pleasurable Listening:

Radio, TV, movies, music.
But also when you are enjoying a normal conversation, you are engaged in pleasurable listening.

4.2 DISCRIMINATORY LISTENING

According to Tubbs, the most serious type of listening

Used for understanding and remembering. This is the type os listening that helps you in the classroom.

4.3 CRITICAL/EVALUATIVE LISTENING

In this case you are not just interested in understanding and remembering the messages, but also in critically analyzing and evaluating the accuracy of what you are listening to.

And that means, you are concern with the possible biases of the message or the hidden intentions of the sender.

4.4 – EMPATHIC LISTENING

The listener tries to demonstrate EMPATHY for the speaker

To empathize with someone,

you need to penetrate into his/her feelings and understand the cause of those feelings.

In this case,
the factual information is not as important as the feelings of the speaker.

Of course, this type of listening is especially important in interpersonal communication.

Perception

In this learning unit, we will learn something about

how we perceive the world, and also how we perceive the other people and ourselves.

1 – Perception Defined

Perception is defined in our textbook as
the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting information in order to give personal meaning to the communication we receive.

When we are perceiving, we are GIVING SENSE to different stimuli.

– And the world, the external world is full of stimuli !!! –

We are literally bombarded by them. There are so many stimuli that a strong selection is necessary. We need to filter the information we are exposed to.

Consequently, the process of perception always starts selecting those stimuli we are paying attention to.

2 – Selective Attention

In Psychology, the process of determining what we pay attention to and what we simple ignore,
Is called SELECTIVE ATTENTION.

Right now, in front of your computer, you will find a lot of such stimuli:

Objects in your desk, those electronic devices that have become indispensable in your life, maybe some music. You should concentrate on the online lecture – and ignore the other stimuli.

Every minute of your life you are consciously or unconsciously making this decision:
WHAT TO PAY ATTENTION TO:

Watching TV, listening to the radio, going to the cinema, reading a newspaper, checking text messages, …

And what decides your selection?

3.1 First your INTEREST.

If your are interested in Politics or Political Communication
You are going to watch CNN or CNBC

If you are interested in Sport, you will look for sport channels.

This is common sense.

3.2 And then, our NEEDS.

If you need a computer, you will read computer magazines.

If you need a car, you will look for information about this topic.

3- Filters

Other important factor in the process of selecting stimuli is what the psychologists call
FILTERS.

There are two kinds of filters:

The PERCEPTUAL FILTERS

And the PSYCHOLOGICAL SETS

3.1 The perceptual filters are physiological limitations. Our senses are not accurate enough – and they can mislead us.

Sometimes we think that one person was rough with us because he or she didn’t answer our greetings, but in fact he or she didn’t hear you because was paying attention to something or someone else.

3.2 The psychological sets are our expectations and predispositions to respond to certain stimuli

They are the result of previous experiences in life. If you were attacked and robbed by a black person, or by an Hispanic, or by a gipsy

You may develop a predisposition against these groups of the population. And these predispositions will affect the way you perceive them.

4 – Organizing the Information

After selecting the stimuli,

we have also to ORGANIZE the information in our mind.

We need patterns that make sense.

There are three categories of ORGANIZATION in our mind:
Similarity Proximity and Closure

4.1 Similarity

Stimuli that are similar to each other are commonly grouped together.

Example: People who look similarly are put into the same category:

The Arabs – or the Hispanics – or the Italians.

Actually, there are differences, sometimes huge differences, between the individual of these groups, but we use the stereotype to simplify the perception, and to save time and perceptual energy.

4.2 Proximity

Proximity refers to the grouping of things that are close in Space and/or Time.

In time: We remember something because it happened when our son was born or our father died.

In Space.
A case of sexual harassment at a university in Singapur will be less interesting for you than a case of sexual harassment at Central CT State University.

4.3 Closure

We tend to “fill in the gaps” when pieces are missing,to make assumptions.

For that reason, our psychological sets are very important.

If we see a man in a Mercedes – we will assume that he is wealthy, but he may be deeply in debt – even because of the car.

Closure is sometimes very important because it could be a source of Misunderstanding. If we meet a person wearing conservative clothes – we may wrongly assume that his/her opinions will be conservative, too.

5 – How We Perceive Others

A group of scholars, communication scholars, has been trying to identify perceptual tendencies, i.e. the way we use to perceive ourselves and others.

5.1 We often judge ourselves in more generous terms than we judge others.

Social Scientists talk i this regard about a

“SELF-SERVING BIAS”.

If he or she had a CAR CRASH – he or she was driving too fast.
If I had the Crash – the road was in bad conditions.

If someone else fails in the exam, he or she did not try hard enough,
If I myself fail, the professor was unfair, or I had no time, or it was too difficult.

5.2 We are influenced by what is most obvious.

When something or someone is loud or bright – it attracts our attention,

exactly as big events do.

Repetitions are effective, too, to enhance perceptual effectiveness.

This is the reason why commercials are constantly repeated, even if we find it annoying.

5.3 We cling to first impressions, even if wrong.

That means that first impressions have the character of self-fulfilling prophecies.

This is our old tendency to put labels on everything, also on people.

The first impression can determine the posterior judgment of a person.

If the impression is bad – you will always look for signs of this expectation.

5.4 We tend to assume that others are similar to us

and in consequence, will react as we react.

If you find a joke very funny, maybe you will repeat it and be embarrassed because nobody laughs

And this is the reason why we sometime may offend or irritate people when we are trying to help them.

5.5 We tend to favor negative impressions over positives ones.

Just one negative characteristic or feature of one person can spoil the judgment about one person.

And this is the reason why you should NEVER speak in an interview about your weaknesses!!!

Researchers have found out that job interviewers were likely to reject candidates who revealed negative information about themselves, even if the total amount was highly positive – much better than the chosen candidate.

5.6 We blame innocent victims for their misfortunes

When something happened to someone, we frequently think that she or he deserved it.

If we suffered the same misfortune, then it is fate!!!

This is a form of the SELF-SERVING BIAS, we talked about in first place.

Self-Perception

 

When we talk about self-perception we are not necessarily talking about who we are, but rather about who we believe we are. Our self is defined in a very complex process– and we are not always aware of the internal and external factors and influences that determine that process.

1 – Self-Concept

In most textbooks, Self-Concept is defined as an organized collection of beliefs and attitudes about oneself, meaning that in the self-concept, both the ideas we have about ourselves and how we like those ideas play an essential role.

Our self-concept is determined by a variety of factors:

1.1 First of all, our self-concept is the direct result of the feedback we receive from the people around us. In this regard, researchers talk about the “looking glass self”, which is the result of the process of observing yourself though the eyes of the others.

1.2 Very important in the development of the self-concept are our experiences during the childhood. In this formative period of our lives we are molded by parents, educators, and all kind of experiences.

1.3 the social interactions in which you play a role, will make you adjust to the characteristics associated to this role. Since we play many different roles in our life depending on time and space, our self-concept will reflect this variety of roles.

1.4 the self-concept is finally defined by comparison. We are constantly comparing ourselves with whomever is close to us.

2 – Self-Esteem

The self-esteem is the evaluating moment of the self concept, how you like who you think you are.

In this evaluation, many different factors play a role (your intelligence, physical appearance, work performance, etc). But again, it is the feedback from others, what they think of your intelligence, your physical appearance, your work performance, etc., the decisive moment.

George H. Mead talked in this regard of a symbolic interaction that we are constantly establishing with our social environment. According to this author, the individual is constantly thinking about what other people may think of him/her, and most importantly say about him/her. And this steady flow of thoughts determines not only what we say and the behaviors we adopt, but also the value that we give to ourselves.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Our expectations and predispositions about ourselves and other people may determine the way we act and the opinions and attitudes we develop.

A high degree of self-esteem may create positive expectations about your performance in the different aspects of life, and these expectations might, as a matter of fact, help you success.
On the contrary, a low self-esteem might be the reason of a failure.

Psychologists call this phenomenon “self-fulfilling prophecy”.

Since our self-esteem heavily relies on what people think about us, self-fulfilling prophecies are normally the result of the social environment. When society expects a certain behavior of an individual – or group of individuals – it is likely that the behavior actually takes place.