Knowing the listening types helps us understand different learning and communication styles. Here, we’ll discuss what listening types are and some important theories.
Listening types are ways of categorizing the ways people communicate with each other. The different modes of listening reflect the diverse ways that people learn languages, engage socially and how they form relationships.
Not everyone will use just one type, but perhaps multiple for different occasions. By understanding these types of listening and communication, it can not only help you to understand others but yourself as well.
Key Theories and Listening Types: Origins
The origins of listening types can most likely be traced back through the ages in discussions around philosophy, linguistics, and semiotics. Sound is, after all, one of the earliest forms of communication. Long before the advent of writing systems, human beings and animals alike learned to develop society through the exchange of sounds.
However, ideas of listening as both an educational and scientific pursuit were made popular by Ralph G. Nichols in the 1940s. He was dubbed the ‘Father of the Listening Field’ in America, where he taught at the University of Minnesota. The pioneering question of his work was whether students could be taught how to listen. His work, Are You Listening (1948), opened the doors for many scholars to develop their own categories and methods for teaching listening skills.
We’ll cover some examples from the field since Nichols’ time, and the listening types developed over the years. There are so many contributors to the field that it’s hard to cover them all. We’ll stick to the most notable and long-lived typologies that emerged from the field of listening.
Hierarchies of Listening
Many works following Nichols were interested in how listening could be built into modern education systems. Educator Sara Lundsteen wanted to stress the value of listening skills. She created listening hierarchies to measure students’ listening skills.
Her framework went by three levels, perception of a sound (level A), discrimination between sounds (level B), and the highest level, the comprehension of sound (level C). She highlighted that even if people can discriminate between sounds, it doesn’t necessarily mean they understand them. This would become important as a way to understand why communication sometimes fails.
A remedy to this problem was active listening. The term was first coined in the book Active Listening (available on Amazon**) by psychologists Carl Rogers and Richard Farson in 1957. They described active listening as a method to get into a speaker’s mind. It is about creating an atmosphere free of judgment and criticism, where the listener feels safe and heard. As a method, it involves using the speaker’s tone, body language, and feelings to better understand the message they are trying to communicate.
Social and Serious Listening
The next area of focus for the field of listening was how to understand communication in different contexts. The previous president of the U.S. listening association, Larry Barker, and his colleague Ernest Mills described this as the difference between serious and social listening in 1971.
Social listening types developed ways to think about how people listen in different social situations, such as to show courtesy, respect, appreciation, or love.
Serious listening, on the other hand, was considered selective or targeted. These listening types were:
- Responsive listening: When a person agrees with what a speaker is saying and reciprocates.
- Implicative listening: When a person is listening for what is not being said.
- Critical listening: When a person is trying to evaluate what they are listening to.
- Empathetic or therapeutic listening: When the listener provides a soundboard for the speaker to communicate an idea or feeling.
Selective Listening
The categories devised by Barker and Mills became a crucial foundation for business listening types. These types were then further categorized by communication professors Andrew Wolvin and Carolyn Coakley in 1979. They surveyed how Fortune 500 companies conducted their listening training for employees. The results were used to create types of listening types designed to mirror the business world.
- Discriminative listening: This listening type is about discerning both the auditory and visual questions a speaker gives them. It is essentially about reading the room.
- Comprehensive listening: This type of listening is when a listener is trying to retain as much information as possible.
- Appreciative listening: This listening type focuses on the impression that a speaker or sound gives. Although a person may be listening in the sense of understanding the meaning of the words, their focus is on appreciating the sound or visuals of the speaker.
The strategies outlined in their work have become important for how businesses communicate and market to their consumers and how management communicates with staff. However, the principles of their work have commonly been applied in educational settings.
The Processes of Listening
Modern research around the field of listening has expanded into neurological, semantic, and development specializations. Scientists and researchers are increasingly interested in the process of listening and how these insights can be used in practical settings such as early years’ education, learning foreign languages, and teaching.
One of the key figures in this movement is linguistic professor and senior researcher Michael Rost. Rost developed several listening types designed to highlight emerging methods for teaching better language skills. However, the main ideas have also been applied to the way people engage in conversations in general:
- Intensive listening: This listening type is when the listener focuses on one particular point when listening to the speaker. It may be a concept, word, or idea that they are trying to understand in the context of what the speaker is saying. To do so, a listener may ignore other parts of what the speaker is saying so they can concentrate more fully.
- Interactive and responsive listening: This is similar to active listening. It is about not only understanding what a speaker is saying but responding to and elaborating on what the speaker has said. The listener encourages the speaker to continue and will show that they are listening.
Takeaways
These examples from the listening field focus on the way people understand language and form relationships with others. It’s important to reflect on what listening types you regularly use and when they are used. Not all types will be appropriate for every situation.
For instance, while intensive listening can be helpful in a learning setting, it can be rude in conversation. A speaker may feel as though you are only interested in one particular point they are making and disregard the rest of what they are saying.
Conversely, comprehensive listening is an excellent tool for absorbing as much information as possible, but it often means the listener is not responsive to the speaker. They are listening but not engaging. You can damage professional and social relationships without good judgment about when to engage in the suitable listening types.
For this reason, we might learn from the examples of Barker and Mills. You can think about what listening type is appropriate by the context you are in and respond according to whether it is a serious or social setting. For instance, in a social environment, such as an interview, date, or meeting, you should consider:
- Are you asking questions that are relevant to what the speaker has said?
- Are you actively listening, or are you defensive?
- Does your body language match the tone of the conversation?
- Are you giving the speaker a full chance to speak without interruption?
These might seem like common courtesy, but sometimes in difficult situations, we may not realize that our behavior can be off-putting. The act of listening is about attuning yourself to another person, reading the atmosphere, and creating productive and emphatic dialogue. And, in turn, by practicing these skills, you might notice other people give you more attention in kind.
Read more:
- The “Touch” Love Language: Explanation & Ideas
- The “Gifts” Love Language: Explanation & Gift Ideas
- 30 Words of Affirmation Examples for Loved Ones
Do you like this post?