Chapter 4: The Importance of Listening
Learning Objectives
- Describe the differences between listening and hearing.
- Explain the benefits of listening.
- Discern between the different listening styles.
- Identify the types of noise that can affect a listener’s ability to attend to a message.
- Describe how a listener’s attention span can limit the listener’s ability to attend to a speaker’s message.
- Analyze how a listener’s personal biases can influence her or his ability to attend to a message.
- Define receiver apprehension and the impact it can have on a listener’s ability to attend to a message.
- List and explain the different stages of listening.
- Understand the two types of feedback listeners give to speakers.
- Define and explain critical listening and its importance in the public speaking context.
- Understand six distinct ways to improve your ability to critically listen to speeches.
- Evaluate what it means to be an ethical listener.
Key Terms
- Action-Oriented Listeners
- Assumptions
- Content-Oriented Listeners
- Critical Listening
- Ethical Listening
- Evaluating
- Hearing
- Listening
- Listening or Receiver Apprehension
- Noise
- People-Oriented Listeners
- Physical Noise
- Physiological Noise
- Psychological Noise
- Receiver Biases
- Receiving
- Remembering
- Responding
- Semantic Noise
- Time-Oriented Listeners
- Understanding
primarily interested in finding out what the speaker wants
are gaps in a logical sequence that listeners passively fill with their own ideas and opinions and may or may not be accurate
are interested in the message itself, whether it makes sense, what it means, and whether it’s accurate
using careful, systematic thinking and reasoning to see whether a message makes sense in light of factual evidence
rests heavily on honest intentions; we should extend to speakers the same respect we want to receive when it’s our turn to speak
fourth stage of the listening process; judging the value of the message
an accidental and automatic brain response to sound that requires no effort
at its best, is active, focused, concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the meanings expressed by a speaker
the fear that you might be unable to understand the message or process the information correctly or be able to adapt your thinking to include the new information coherently
a wide range of distractions that can inhibit an audience member from accurately attending to a speaker’s speech
interested in the speaker; listens to the message in order to learn how the speaker thinks and how they feel about their message
consists of various sounds in an environment that interfere with a source’s ability to hear
consists of distractions to a speaker’s message caused by a listener’s own body
consists of distractions to a speaker’s message caused by a receiver’s internal thoughts
can refer to two things: biases with reference to the speaker and preconceived ideas and opinions about the topic or message
first stage of the listening process; the intentional focus on hearing a speaker’s message, which happens when we filter out other sources so that we can isolate the message and avoid the confusing mixture of incoming stimuli
third stage of the listening process; begins with listening; if you can’t remember something that was said, you might not have been listening effectively
fifth and final stage of the listening process; also referred to as "feedback"; the stage at which you indicate your involvement; almost anything you do at this stage can be interpreted as feedback
occurs when a receiver experiences confusion over the meaning of a source’s word choice
prefer a message that gets to the point quickly
second stage of the listening process; we attempt to learn the meaning of the message, which is not always easy
