The Perception of Listening

As Sole describes in her book, Making Connections: Understanding Interpersonal Communication, ” Listening involves hearing, but it is much more than just the physiological act of your ears perceiving a sound and transmitting the auditory sensation to your brain. Listening is a complex psychological process that can be defined as the process of physically hearing, interpreting that sound, and understanding the significance of it. (Sole,K. 2011)

Talking and listening are essential life skills. The ability to talk in order to communicate and exchange ideas and information, to negotiate with others, to express feelings and emotions, allows human beings to function well in the world and to be full and active members of society. Communication, to be effective, requires the ability to listen, to understand and to make sense of what is heard. On the personal level, when we listen, we give attention to the other person in such a way as to allow them to feel heard, understood and therefore respected. In that way, listening is more than

Be receptive, keep and keep an open mind: As a good listener, you much keep an open mind to understand your colleague’s point of view, if different.

To achieve the pinnacle in any endeavor or undertaking one must start with a solid foundation. My foundation for effective communication began when I took UNV-104 21st Century Skills: Communication and Information Literacy at GCU. One of the first concepts discussed was listening. Many times, we are in a conversation and we hear what the other person is saying, but we are not comprehending. Generally speaking, listening can be described as hearing and

A vital aspect of interpersonal communication is the style in which one listens. While every individual possesses their own preferred method of listening in communication, it can be enlightening to analyze our own strengths and weaknesses so as to maximize effectual communication. Within the confines of four main listening style categories, I have chosen those which best describe my own personal listening style.

Given that listening accounts for 45 per cent of time spent on communication (Eunson 2012:310), argue the importance of listening skills in the workplace. Your analysis should identify three specific listening behaviors and provide examples to demonstrate how these skills promote communication and understanding. Support your analysis with relevant communication theory and evidence from appropriate academic sources.

The first reaction of most people when they consider listening as a possible method for dealing with human beings is that listening cannot be sufficient in itself, Because it is passive, they feel, listening does not communicate anything to the speaker. Actually, nothing could be farther from the truth.

The ability to listen well is an important tool for understanding others. Sadly, very few people know how to listen well. In fact, most people can think of only one or two good listeners in their lives. Listening is not simply agreeing - it is much more. Good listeners are able to better understand and respond to others, complete assignments accurately, settle disagreements before they escalate, and establish rapport with difficult people.

Listening is a vital element of communication and it is very much different from hearing sense of human. A meaningful communication requires both a good listener and a speaker. However, the effect of a listening style may vary depending on the occasions and situations a listener is in. Sometimes, speaker exhibit ineffective style such as defensiveness, ambushing, pseudo-listening, stage hogging and selective listening in their communication tracks.

Listening is more complex, and it encourages one to analyze and think about an idea, rather than to simply accept it (or “hear” it). Hearing is a skill that is beneficial for every aspect of life. As long as we have our ability to hear, we will always perceive different sounds, music, and voices. Listening, however, is beneficial to us in specific instances. It is important for us to attain good listening skills in education, the work force, and in our relationships with others in order to succeed. Good listening in education will bring about confident participation in class discussions; good listening in the workplace will lead to cooperation and good teamwork among colleagues; good listening in relationships is healthy and positive, for it is important to hear what an individual has to say in order to know how they feel.

Active listening is an attentive and interactive form of listening. One of the primary objectives of active listening is establishing and achieving empathy among all parties engaged in communication together. The words a person uses during communication are important, yet active listening includes listening to a person's words as well as interpreting and intuiting what a person feels and thinks. Active listening is a highly engaging activity. Active listening requires the person doing the listening to have a very keen awareness of all aspects of the communication. Active listening then is a sensory activity that challenges the listener to see, hear, sense, perceive, understand, feel, empathize, and reciprocate.

Listening is an important form of communication. Unfortunately, many people who do not know how to listen believe they can listen well. They often say "I have been doing this all of my life of course I can listen". Listening is not inherited, or a personality trait, it is a skill that must be worked on and practiced.

Brownell (1987) found in her study of listening behaviors that there are five factors. The factors included sensitivity and considers emotional component of a message; understands and recalls information accurately; objective and nonjudgmental; concentrates and encourages information sharing and provides

Listening is more than just hearing. The process of listening involves receiving and constructing meaning, and responding to verbal and/or nonverbal messages. In other words, listening is not always easy and being a good listener is all about developing listening skills. To receive messages appropriately we have to listen actively. Active listening can be broken down into three important skills; first of all you have to reflect the feelings that the person is communicating, secondly reflect the content that they are communicating and finally ask good, meaningful questions.

Developing better communication skills is more than talking to someone to get a point across. Listening and understanding the key components of the conversation is a part of having communication skills. By listening, issues would be processed better which would help establish a common ground between the people that are having a conversation.