Listening in Interpersonal Communication

To Help

Listening Stages

Purposes of Listening

To Influence

To Play

To Relate

To Help

To Learn

To learn and understand about other people

To gain social acceptance, popularity, and make people like us

Other’s attitude, values, belief, opinions, and behavior.

Listening to music, to be enjoyable

To show our concern, solve our problems

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Stage one: Receiving

Stage two: Understanding

Stage three: Remembering

Stage four: Evaluating

Stage five: Responding

Process

Concentration

While listening:

Focus

Avoid distractions

Avoid interrupting

Process

Learning

While understanding

Avoid assuming

Avoid judging

Relate the new information

Process

Memory

While remembering

Identify central idea

Process

Critical thinking

While evaluating

Resist evaluation

Summarize the message

Repeat names and key concepts

Assume the speaker is a person of goodwill

Distinguish facts from inferences

Process

Competence in giving feedback

While responding

Support the speaker’s talk

Act honestly

Own your response

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Empathic and Objective Listening

Nonjudgmental and Critical Listening

Surface and Depth Listening

Active and Inactive Listening

Be objective both friends and foes

Enhance relationship

critically; making evaluation or judgment

nonjudgmentally

putting your understanding of the whole message

repeating exactly what the speaker’s exact words

balance your listening

Literal meaning