Levels of Listening & Barrier to Listening Communication

Levels of Listening

1.    Active Listening
Active listening is a special kind of listening. It is a process of sending back to the speaker what you as a
listener think the speaker meant—both in content and in feelings.
Active listening is less common but more beneficial and in order to get good grades, you have to be able
to really listen to what is being said in the classroom. The most practical reason for a college student to
improve listening skills is that good listeners are not only better students, but they also spend less time on
their studies and enjoy them more than do students who are poor listeners. Students who are attentive in
class and attend class regularly are far more likely to receive higher grades and to learn more.

Characteristics of Active Listeners
1. Active listeners are willing to give the speaker a chance to develop his or her ideas.
2. Active listeners are open-minded about people who look or sound different from themselves.
3. Active listeners can follow several methods of organization—even poorly organized material will be
listened to with some degree of tolerance.
4. Active listeners are likely to listen even more attentively when the material becomes difficult. It
becomes a challenge to them.
2. Protective Listening
Listeners may not listen to a speaker because they have learned to tune out certain kinds of stimuli.
Listeners become speakers, and speakers become listeners and the sequence goes on. As a listener, you
will sometimes hear negative and even hostile expressions aimed directly at you. While no one really
likes to be subjected to hostile remarks, you have to control protective listening so verbal attacks are
perceived without your having to defend or retaliate.
3. Partial Listening
Listening must be a complete process where all the communicative stimuli transmitted by the speaker are
acknowledged and evaluated. Responding to some of the stimuli while ignoring others will make a
listener miss important facts and points that are needed for clarity and understanding.
A speaker’s voice, mannerism, grammar, and pitch will increase or decrease the listener’s tendency for
partial listening. As a listener and a positive speaker, you should consciously control the urge for partial
listening. This will help create an environment that produces greater understanding, and, in turn, more
effective oral communication.
4. Preferential Listening
Listening that is directly affected by a person’s beliefs, interests, or emotions is preferential listening.
Just as people may see what they expect to see, listeners may listen for what they want to hear. Personal
background, experiences, habits, and family tradition will many times change or distort the speaker’s
intended meaning into what the listener really wants to hear. Miscommunication is usually the result of
preferential listening.

Types of Listening

1. Critical Listening
Critical listening is usually needed when we suspect that we may be listening to a biased source of
information. Critical listening is also associated with being able to detect propaganda devices employed
by a communicator.
In adjusting your critical listening, focus on the following guidelines:
• Keep an open mind.
• Avoid filtering out difficult messages.
• Recognize your own biases.
• Avoid uncritical listening when you need to make evaluations and judgments.
• Recognize and combat the normal tendency to sharpen.
• Analyze the audience and adapt the message to the listeners.
• Clearly organize the speech so that the listeners can follow the train of thought.
• What is the speaker purpose? What does the speaker want from the audience? Is the
overall, general purpose to inform or to persuade?
• An intelligent, active listener is aware of the many possible meanings of words and
attempts to place those words in the correct context.
• Can the speech survive tests of evidence and reasoning? Are the main points supported
by relevant facts and opinions? Has the speaker reasoned clearly and logically?
• Does the speaker seem to know or care about what he or she is saying?
• Are the speakers’ verbal and nonverbal messages consistent? Do the nonverbal messages
reinforce the speakers’ thesis?
• Does the speaker establish his or her credibility and behave in ways that enhance
credibility?
• Is the material presented relevant? Is there a point to the speech? (Or do you, the critical
listener, feel like saying “So what?” at the end?
• What is your overall impression of the speech?

2. Empathic Listening
As the term suggests, the listener tries to demonstrate empathy for the speaker. It can also be described as
listening “between the lines”. When we listen between the lines we heighten our awareness and
interpersonal sensitivity to the entire message a person may be trying to communicate.
Empathy is perception and communication by resonance, be identification, by experiencing in ourselves
some reflection of the emotional tone that is being experienced by the other person.
Empathic listening serves as a reward or encouragement to the speaker. It communicates your caring and
acceptance and reaffirms the person’s sense of worth. This style of listening seems to be most important
in terms of strengthening or improving a positive interpersonal relationship between the parties involved.
Empathic listening often requires the opposite frame of mind from that required for critical listening.
Empathic listening implies a willingness not to judge, evaluate, or criticize but rather to be an accepting,
permissive, and understanding listener.

Becoming an empathic requires focusing on the following guidelines:
• A greater emphasis on listening than on talking.
• Responding to that which is personal rather than abstract.
• Following the other in his exploration rather than leading him into areas we think he should
be exploring.
• Clarifying what the other person has said about his own thoughts and feelings rather than
asking questions or telling him what we believe he should be thinking, seeing, or feeling.
• Responding to the feelings implicit in what the other has said rather than the assumptions or
“content” that he has talked about.
• Trying to get into the other person’s inner frame of reference rather than listening and
responding from our own frame of reference.
• The speaker is more apt to keep talking (vs. defending, blaming, shutting down, or
withdrawing). This can build trust, intimacy, and relationships, over time.

Common Barriers to Listening

There are many things that get in the way of listening and you should be aware of these barriers, many of which are bad habits, in order to become a more effective listener.  Barriers and bad habits to effective listening can include:

Trying to listen to more than one conversation at a time, this includes having the television or radio on while attempting to listen to somebody talk; being on the phone to one person and talking to another person in the same room and also being distracted by some dominant noise in the immediate environment.

You find the communicator attractive/unattractive and you pay more attention to how you feel about the communicator and their physical appearance than to what they are saying. Perhaps you simply don't like the speaker - you may mentally argue with the speaker and be fast to criticise, either verbally or in your head.

You are not interested in the topic/issue being discussed and become bored.

Not focusing and being easily distracted, fiddling with your hair, fingers, a pen etc. or gazing out of the window or focusing on objects other than the speaker.

Feeling unwell or tired, hungry, thirsty or needing to use the toilet.

Identifying rather than empathising - understanding what you are hearing but not putting yourself in the shoes of the speaker. As most of us have a lot of internal self-dialogue we spend a lot of time listening to our own thoughts and feelings - it can be difficult to switch the focus from 'I' or 'me' to 'them' or 'you'. Effective listening involves opening your mind to the views of others and attempting to feel empathetic. (See our page: 

What is Empathy? for more information)

Sympathising rather than empathising - sympathy is not the same as empathy, you sympathise when you feel sorry for the experiences of another, to empathise is to put yourself in the position of the other person.

You are prejudiced or biased by race, gender, age, religion, accent, and/or past experiences.

You have preconceived ideas or bias -  effective listening includes being open-minded to the ideas and opinions of others, this does not mean you have to agree but should listen and attempt to understand.

You make judgements, thinking, for example that  a person is not very bright or is under-qualified so there is no point listening to what they have to say.

Previous experiences – we are all influenced by previous experiences in life.  We respond to people based on personal appearances, how initial introductions or welcomes were received and/or previous interpersonal encounters.  If we stereotype a person we become less objective and therefore less likely to listen effectively.

Preoccupation - when we have a lot on our minds we can fail to listen to what is being said as we're too busy concentrating on what we're thinking about. This is particularly true when we feel stressed or worried about issues.

Having a Closed Mind - we all have ideals and values that we believe to be correct and it can be difficult to listen to the views of others that contradict our own opinions. The key to effective listening and interpersonal skills more generally is the ability to have a truly open mind - to understand why others think about things differently to you and use this information to gain a better understanding of the speaker.