What is cautious listening

Be cautious How to be a good listener - Psych2Go. Refrain from solutions. Ask correctly. Stay silent. What background were they in? What actually happened in their experiences? Be reflective. The act of listening does not necessarily equal hearing. Pay Attention. Show your support. Sign Up Sign In. The ability to be a good listener. How to Be an Exceptionally Good Listener.

There are four different types of listening that are essential to know when deciding what your goal as the listener is. The four types of listening are appreciative, empathic, comprehensive, and critical. Familiarize yourself with these different types of listening so you can strengthen and improve your ability to critically think and evaluate what you have heard.

When you listen for appreciation you are listening for enjoyment. Think about the music you listen to. You usually listen to music because you enjoy it. The same can be said for appreciative listening when someone is speaking. Some common types of appreciative listening can be found in sermons from places of worship, from a motivational speech by people we respect or hold in high regard, or even from a standup comedian who makes us laugh.

When you listen empathically you are doing so to show mutual concern. Usually during this type of listening you want to be fully present in the moment or mindfully listening to what the speaker is saying.

Your goal during this time is to focus on the speaker, not on yourself. If you are watching the news, listening to a lecture, or getting directions from someone, you are listening to understand or listening to comprehend the message that is being sent. These also happen to be skills that many college students struggle with, at least in the first years of college, but will be expected to have mastered once they get into professional contexts.

In many professional contexts, informational listening is important, especially when receiving instructions. I caution my students that they will be expected to process verbal instructions more frequently in their profession than they are in college. Most college professors provide detailed instructions and handouts with assignments so students can review them as needed, but many supervisors and managers will expect you to take the initiative to remember or record vital information.

Additionally, many bosses are not as open to questions or requests to repeat themselves as professors are. Critical listening Listening with the goal of analyzing or evaluating a message. A critical listener evaluates a message and accepts it, rejects it, or decides to withhold judgment and seek more information. As constant consumers of messages, we need to be able to assess the credibility of speakers and their messages and identify various persuasive appeals and faulty logic known as fallacies , which you can learn more about in Chapter 11 "Informative and Persuasive Speaking".

Critical listening is important during persuasive exchanges, but I recommend always employing some degree of critical listening, because you may find yourself in a persuasive interaction that you thought was informative. As is noted in Chapter 4 "Nonverbal Communication" , people often disguise inferences as facts. Critical-listening skills are useful when listening to a persuasive speech in this class and when processing any of the persuasive media messages we receive daily.

While the exchanges between judge and contestant on these shows is expected to be subjective and critical, critical listening is also important when listening to speakers that have stated or implied objectivity, such as parents, teachers, political leaders, doctors, and religious leaders. We will learn more about how to improve your critical thinking skills later in this chapter.

Empathetic listening The most challenging form of listening, which occurs when we try to understand or experience what a speaker is thinking or feeling. Empathetic listening is distinct from sympathetic listening. Sympathy is generally more self-oriented and distant than empathy. Empathetic listening is other oriented and should be genuine. Because of our own centrality in our perceptual world, empathetic listening can be difficult. Empathetic listening is key for dialogue and helps maintain interpersonal relationships.

In order to reach dialogue, people must have a degree of open-mindedness and a commitment to civility that allows them to be empathetic while still allowing them to believe in and advocate for their own position. An excellent example of critical and empathetic listening in action is the international Truth and Reconciliation movement.

The most well-known example of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission TRC occurred in South Africa as a way to address the various conflicts that occurred during apartheid. The goal of such commissions is to allow people to tell their stories, share their perspectives in an open environment, and be listened to. The truth and reconciliation process seeks to heal relations between opposing sides by uncovering all pertinent facts, distinguishing truth from lies, and allowing for acknowledgement, appropriate public mourning, forgiveness and healing…The focus often is on giving victims, witnesses and even perpetrators a chance to publicly tell their stories without fear of prosecution.

Just as there are different types of listening, there are also different styles of listening. People may be categorized as one or more of the following listeners: people-oriented, action-oriented, content-oriented, and time-oriented listeners. Research finds that 40 percent of people have more than one preferred listening style, and that they choose a style based on the listening situation.

Other research finds that people often still revert back to a single preferred style in times of emotional or cognitive stress, even if they know a different style of listening would be better.

Debra L. Following a brief overview of each listening style, we will explore some of their applications, strengths, and weaknesses. People-oriented listeners Listeners who are concerned about the emotional states of others and listen with the purpose of offering support in interpersonal relationships. This type of listening may be especially valuable in interpersonal communication involving emotional exchanges, as a person-oriented listener can create a space where people can make themselves vulnerable without fear of being cut off or judged.

People-oriented listeners are likely skilled empathetic listeners and may find success in supportive fields like counseling, social work, or nursing. Interestingly, such fields are typically feminized, in that people often associate the characteristics of people-oriented listeners with roles filled by women.

We will learn more about how gender and listening intersect in Section 5 "Listening and Gender". Action-oriented listeners Listeners who focus on what action needs to take place in regards to a received message and try to formulate an organized way to initiate that action. These listeners are frustrated by disorganization, because it detracts from the possibility of actually doing something. This style of listening can be very effective when a task needs to be completed under time, budgetary, or other logistical constraints.

One research study found that people prefer an action-oriented style of listening in instructional contexts. A friend and colleague of mine who exhibits some qualities of an action-oriented listener once told me about an encounter she had with a close friend who had a stillborn baby. As you can see from this example, the action-oriented listening style often contrasts with the people-oriented listening style.

Content-oriented listeners Listeners who like to listen to complex information and evaluate the content of a message, often from multiple perspectives, before drawing conclusions. Content-oriented listeners often enjoy high perceived credibility because of their thorough, balanced, and objective approach to engaging with information.

Content-oriented listeners are likely skilled informational and critical listeners and may find success in academic careers in the humanities, social sciences, or sciences.

Ideally, judges and politicians would also possess these characteristics. Time-oriented listeners Listeners who are more concerned about time limits and time lines than they are with the content or senders of a message. People often get action-oriented and time-oriented listeners confused. Action-oriented listeners would be happy to get to a conclusion or decision quickly if they perceive that they are acting on well-organized and accurate information.

Unlike time-oriented listeners, action-oriented listeners are not as likely to cut people off especially if people are presenting relevant information and are not as likely to take short cuts. Help Creative Commons. Creative Commons supports free culture from music to education.

Their licenses helped make this book available to you. Help a Public School. Previous Section. Table of Contents.

Next Section. Discuss the four main types of listening. Compare and contrast the four main listening styles. Receiving Before we can engage other steps in the listening process, we must take in stimuli through our senses. Interpreting During the interpreting stage of listening, we combine the visual and auditory information we receive and try to make meaning out of that information using schemata.

Recalling Our ability to recall information is dependent on some of the physiological limits of how memory works. Evaluating When we evaluate something, we make judgments about its credibility, completeness, and worth. Responding Responding entails sending verbal and nonverbal messages that indicate attentiveness and understanding or a lack thereof. The Importance of Listening Understanding how listening works provides the foundation we need to explore why we listen, including various types and styles of listening.

Listening Types Listening serves many purposes, and different situations require different types of listening. Discriminative Listening Discriminative listening A focused and usually instrumental type of listening that is primarily physiological and occurs mostly at the receiving stage of the listening process. Informational Listening Informational listening Listening with the goal of comprehending and retaining information.

Critical Listening Critical listening Listening with the goal of analyzing or evaluating a message. Listening Styles Just as there are different types of listening, there are also different styles of listening.

People-oriented listeners are concerned about the needs and feelings of others and may get distracted from a specific task or the content of a message in order to address feelings. Action-oriented listeners prefer well-organized, precise, and accurate information. They like in-depth information and like to learn about multiple sides of a topic or hear multiple perspectives on an issue. Their thoroughness can be difficult to manage if there are time constraints.