This document summarizes the key aspects of listening and the listening process. It defines listening as constructing meaning from spoken and nonverbal messages in order to clarify, connect with others, build trust, help learn and remember, and improve evaluation skills. There are five types of listening described: appreciative, discriminative, comprehensive, empathic, and critical. The listening process involves attending, understanding through questioning and paraphrasing, remembering through repetition and mnemonics, evaluating facts and inferences, and responding supportively while demonstrating respect.

1. Chapter 5:
Listening and Responding
By: Miranda Emery

2. What is listening?
“The process of receiving constructing meaning from, and
responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages.”
Provide clarification, connect us to others, build trust and
empathy, help us learn and remember material, and improve
our ability to evaluate information
Hearing is a physiological process/ listening is cognitive
Listening only occurs when we put meaning to what we hear
50% shortly after and 20% two days later, yet 80% of execs
believe listening is one of the most important skills

3. Types of Listening
Appreciative
Goal: to enjoy the thoughts and experiences of others
Situation: Casual social interaction
Discriminative
Goal: Accurately understand the speaker’s meaning
May require reading “between the lines” and picking up
on nonverbal cues
Situation: Listening to a Dr. to see if there is reason for
concern

4. Types of Listening
Comprehensive
Goal: Not only to understand, but to learn, remember,
and recall
Situation: Listening in Ms. Emery’s oral
communications class
Empathic
Goal: To try to understand how someone else is feeling
Situation: Therapists, counselors, psychologists, and
psychiatrists do this.

5. Types of Listening
Critical
Goal: To evaluate the worth of a message
Requires more psychological processing
Most demanding of the types
Requires that you understand and remember both the
verbal and nonverbal message, assess the speaker’s
credibility, and effectively listen all the time
Situation: Listening to a political candidate, apology
from someone who has violated your trust

6. Steps of the Listening Process
Attending- The process of focusing on what a speaker is
saying regardless of the potential distractions of other
competing stimuli
1. Get physically ready to listen
2. Resist mental distractions while you listen
3. Resist interrupting others
4. Hear a person out before you react
5. Observe nonverbal cues

7. Steps of the Listening Process
Understanding- Decoding a message accurately to reflect
the meaning intended by the speaker.
1. Ask questions to gain additional information
Question- Statement designed to get further info or clarify
info already received
2. Paraphrase the message to check your understanding
Paraphrase- Putting into words the ideas or feelings you
have perceived from a message
Content paraphrase- Focused on the denotative meaning of
the message
Feelings paraphrase- Response that captures the emotions
attached to the content of a message.

8. Steps of the Listening Process
Paraphrasing effectively
Listen carefully
Notice what images and feelings you have experienced from
the message
Determine what the message means to you
Create a message that conveys these images or feelings

9. Steps of the Listening Process
3. Empathize with the speaker
Empathy- Intellectually identifying with or vicariously
experiencing the feelings or attitudes of another.
Empathic responsiveness- When you experience an emotional
response parallel to, and as a result of observing, another
person’s actual or anticipated display of emotion.
Perspective taking- Imagining yourself in the place of another,
most common form
Sympathetic responsiveness- Feeling concern, compassion, or
sorrow for another because of the other’s situation or plight.

10. Steps of the Listening Process
Remembering- Being able to retain information and
recall it when needed.
1. Repeat the information
Repetition- Saying something aloud or mentally a few
times after hearing it, helps store info in long-term
memory, otherwise it is stored in short-term for as little as
20 seconds
2. Construct mnemonics
Mnemonic device- Any artificial technique used as a
memory aid.
3. Take notes

11. Steps of the Listening Process
Evaluating- Critically analyzing what you have heard to
determine its truthfulness.
Factual statements- Accuracy can be verified
Inferences- Conjectures which may be based on fact or
observation
1. Analyze the “facts” to determine if they are true
Often requires questions that test the evidence
2. Test inferences to determine whether they are valid
You are listening critically when you separate facts from
inferences and then evaluate them as true or valid.

12. Steps of the Listening Process
Responding (See page 100)
1. Guidelines for responses that offer emotional support
• Supportive message- Comforting statements that have a
goal to reassure, bolster, encourage, soothe, console, or
cheer up
2. Guidelines for responses that demonstrate respect
when disagreeing or critiquing others

13. Thank you