Bianca Highsmith-Propst
COM 110-830A: Intro to Communication
Forum 2
How well do I listen? To whom? In what context? In what situation? As an all-around person, mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, classmate, or student, how well do I listen, depending on the situation? The purpose of this post is to speak more in-depth about listening. Silence, the acronym RASA, and listening will be the topics I will discuss. Understanding these key points helps illustrate how well I feel when I listen.
Silence would be the number one key point in listening. When you are getting to know someone, there could be potential
self-disclosure (124)
that will help you get to know a person better. While I didn’t know much about my peers at work, once they were comfortable with me, they were open to telling me personal things about their lives and asking for my advice on specific topics. I had to be silent and listen to accept the information given by self-disclosure.
The acronym RASA stands for receive, appreciate, summarize, and ask. In
our relationships and friendships, we look for traits of
responsiveness and similarity (134)
. Receiving information from someone who is responsive to our good and bad characteristics and still loves us would be greatly appreciated. When we communicate with these people, we receive
information better and can understand it more to summarize what they have said and can ask questions. When we have similarities with people, we tend to have a better sense of communication.
Listening is part of the foundation we build as we begin new relationships. My daughter is only six years old, and when she communicates with me, she sometimes is
defensive (137)
. These instances come when she has done something she knew she was not supposed to do or said something she was not supposed to say, but she did it anyway. When I sit down and talk to her about it, she acts like I have broken her world into pieces. I am learning to listen better to her and give her better communication tips.
In conclusion, the purpose of this post was to speak on how and in what instances I listen.
I talked about silence, the acronym RASA, and listening. We all can listen, but we must take a step back and evaluate how well we listen first.
