7.2 Speaking and Listening

We are constantly interacting with people. We interact with our family and friends. We interact with our teachers and peers at school. We interact with customer service representatives, office coworkers, physicians/therapists, and so many other different people in average day. Humans are inherently social beings, so speaking and listening to each other is a huge part of what we all do day-to-day.

The Importance of Everyday Conversations

Most of us spend a great deal of our day interacting with other people through what is known as a conversation. According to Judy Apps, the word “conversation” is comprised of the words con (with) and versare (turn): “conversation is turn and turnabout – you alternate” (Apps, 2014, p. 12). As such, a conversation isn’t a monologue or singular speech act; it’s a dyadic process where two people engage with one another in interaction that has multiple turns. Conversation is an important part of the interpersonal experience. Through conversations with others, we can build, maintain, and terminate relationships.

Coming up with an academic definition for the term “conversation” is not an easy task. Instead, Donald Allen and Rebecca Guy offer the following explanation: “Conversation is the primary basis of direct social relations between persons. As a process occurring in real-time, conversation constitutes a reciprocal and rhythmic interchange of verbal emissions. It is a sharing process which develops a common social experience” (Allen and Guy, 1974, p. 11). From this explanation, a conversation is how people engage in social interaction in their day-to-day lives. From this perspective, a conversation is purely a verbal process. For our purposes, we will use a definition provided by Brennan (2013, p. 202): “Conversation is a joint activity in which two or more participants use linguistic forms and nonverbal signals to communicate interactively.”

There is growing concern that in today’s highly mediated world, the simple conversation is becoming a thing of the past. Sherry Turkle is one of the foremost researchers on how humans communicate using technology. She tells the story of an 18-year-old boy who uses texting for most of his fundamental interactions. The boy wistfully told Turkle, “Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a conversation.” (2012). When she asks Millennials across the nation what’s wrong with holding a simple conversation:

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with having a conversation. It takes place in real-time and you can’t control what you’re going to say.” So that’s the bottom line. Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body–not too little, not too much, just right.

We should not take communication for granted. Communication is a vital component of our lives. A few years ago, a prison decided to lessen the amount of communication inmates could have with each other. The prison administrators decided that they did not want inmates to share information. Yet, over time, the prisoners developed a way to communicate with each other using codes on walls and tapping out messages through pipes. Even when inmates were not allowed to talk to each other via face-to-face, they were still able to find other ways to communicate (Duck, 2007).

Types of Conversations

Angel (2016) states that conversations can be categorized based on directionality (one-way or two-way) and tone/purpose (cooperative or competitive). One-way conversations are conversations where an individual is talking at the other person and not with the other person. Although these exchanges are technically conversations because of the inclusion of nonverbal feedback, one of the conversational partners tends to monopolize the bulk of the conversation while the other partner is more of a passive receiver. Two-way conversations, on the other hand, are conversations where there is mutual involvement and interaction. In two-way conversations, people are actively talking, providing nonverbal feedback, and listening.

In addition to one vs. two-way interactions, conversations can be broken down on whether they are cooperative or competitive. Cooperative conversations are marked by a mutual interest in what all parties within the conversation have to contribute. Conversely, individuals in competitive conversations are more concerned with their points of view than others within the conversation. Angel (2016) further breaks down his typology of conversations into four distinct types of conversation (Figure 7.5).

Discourse

The first type of conversation, discourse, is one-way cooperative. The purpose of a discourse conversation is for the sender to transmit information to the receiver (Angel, 2016). For example, a professor delivering a lecture or a speaker giving a speech.

Dialogue

The second type is what most people consider to be a traditional conversation: the dialogue (two-way, cooperative). The purpose of a dialogue is to establish rapport and build relationships through information exchange (Angel, 2016). On a first date, the general purpose of most of our conversations in this context is dialogue (Figure 7.6).

Debate

The third type of conversation is the two-way, competitive conversation, referred to as a debate. The debate conversation occurs when the ultimate goal of the conversation is to win an argument or persuade someone to change their thoughts, values, beliefs, and behaviors (Angel, 2016). Imagine you’re sitting in a study group and you’re trying to advocate for a specific approach to your group’s project. In this case, your goal is to persuade the others within the conversation to your point-of-view.

Diatribe

Lastly, Angel (2016) discusses the diatribe (one-way, competitive). The goal of the diatribe conversation is “to express emotions, browbeat those that disagree with you, and/or inspires those that share the same perspective.” For example, imagine that your best friend has come over to your dorm room, apartment, or house to vent about the grade they received on a test.

Communication Needs

There are many reasons why we communicate with each other, but what are our basic communication needs? The first reason why we communicate is for physical needs. People who communicate their problems, feelings, and thoughts with others are less likely to hold grudges, anger, hostility, which in turn causes less stress on their minds and their bodies.

Another reason why we communicate with others is that it shapes who we are or our identity needs. Perhaps you never realized that you were funny until your friends told you that you were quite humorous. Sometimes, we become who we are based on what others say to us and about us.

The third reason we communicate is for social needs. We communicate with others to initiate, maintain, and terminate relationships with others. These relationships may be personal or professional. In either case, we have motives or objectives for communicating with other people.

The last reason we communicate is for practical needs. To exchange information or solve problems, we need to talk to others. Communication can prevent disasters from occurring. To create and/or sustain a daily balance in our lives, we need to communicate with other people. Hence, there is no escaping communication. We do it all the time.

Sharing Personal Information

One of the primary functions of conversations is sharing information about ourselves. Berger and Calabrese (1975) believed that when we meet new people, we are fraught with uncertainty about the new relationship and will seek to reduce this uncertainty and its resulting anxiety. As verbal communication increases between people when they first meet, the level of uncertainty decreases. Specifically, the type of verbal communication generally discussed in initial interactions is called self-disclosure (Sprecher, Treger, Wondra, Hilaire, & Wallpe, 2013). Self-disclosure is the process of purposefully communicating information about one’s self. We can also think of self-disclosure as permitting one’s “true self” to be known to others (Jourard, 1971).

As we introduce the concept of self-disclosure in this section, it’s important to realize that there is no right or wrong way to self-disclose. People self-disclose for a wide range of reasons and purposes. Ignatius and Kokkonen (2007) list several influences on the ways that people self-disclose including:

• Personality traits (shy people self-disclose less than extraverted people)
• Cultural background (Western cultures disclose more than Eastern cultures)
• Emotional state (happy people self-disclose more than sad or depressed people)
• Biological sex (women self-disclose more than men)
• Psychological gender (androgynous people were more emotionally aware, topically involved, and invested in their interactions; feminine individuals disclosed more in social situations, and masculine individuals generally did not demonstrate meaningful self-disclosure across contexts)
• Status differential (lower status individuals are more likely to self-disclose personal information than higher-status individuals)
• Physical environment (soft, warm rooms encourage self-disclosure while hard, cold rooms discourage self-disclosure)
• Physical contact (touch can increase self-disclosure, unless the other person feels that their personal space is being invaded, which can decrease self-disclosure)
• Communication channel (people often feel more comfortable self-disclosing when they’re not face-to-face; e.g., on the telephone or through computer-mediated communication)

As you can see, there are quite a few things that can impact how self-disclosure happens when people are interacting during interpersonal encounters. So, what ultimately motivates someone to self-disclose? There are two basic reasons for self-disclosure: social integration and impression management (Ignatius and Kokkonen, 2007).

Social Integration

The first reason people self-disclose information about themselves is simply to develop interpersonal relationships. Part of forming an interpersonal relationship is seeking to demonstrate that we have commonality with another person (Figure 7.7). For example, let’s say that it’s the beginning of a new semester, and you’re sitting next to someone you’ve never met before. You quickly strike up a conversation while you’re waiting for the professor to show up. During those first few moments of talking, you’re going to try to establish some kind of commonality. Self-disclosure helps us find these areas where we have similar interests, beliefs, values, attitudes, etc. As humans, we have an innate desire to be social and meet people. And research has shown us that self-disclosure is positively related to liking (Collins and Miller, 1994). The more we self-disclose to others, the more they like us and vice versa.

However, when we first meet someone, we do not expect that person to start self-disclosing their deepest darkest secrets. When this happens, then we experience an expectancy violation. Expectancy violation theory (EVT) analyzes what happens when individuals communicate nonverbally in a manner that was unexpected, such as standing too close while talking (Burgoon and Jones, 1976; Burgoon and Hale, 1988). Over the years, EVT has been expanded by many scholars to look at a range of different situations when communication expectations are violated. As a whole, EVT predicts that when individuals violate the norms of communication during an interaction, the interaction will be evaluated negatively. However, this does depend on the nature of the initial relationship. If we’ve been in a relationship with someone for a long time or if it’s someone we want to be in a relationship with, we’re more likely to overlook expectancy violations (Bachman and Guerrero, 2006).

So, how does this relate to self-disclosure? Mostly, there are ways that we self-disclose that are considered “normal” during different types of interactions and contexts. What you disclose to your best friend will be different than what you disclose to a stranger at the bus station. What you disclose to your therapist will be different than what you disclose to your professor. When you meet a stranger, the types of self-disclosure tend to be reasonably common topics: your major, sports teams, bands, the weather, etc. If, however, you decide to self-disclose information that is overly personal, this would be perceived as a violation of the types of topics that are normally disclosed during initial interactions. As such, the other person is probably going to try to get out of that conversation pretty quickly. When people disclose information that is inappropriate to the context, those interactions will generally be viewed more negatively  Frisby and Sidelinger, 2013).

From a psychological standpoint, finding these commonalities with others helps reinforce our self-concept. We find that others share the same interests, beliefs, values, attitudes, etc., which demonstrates that how we think, feel, and behave are similar to those around us (Giles, Coupland, & Coupland, 1991).

Impression Management

The second reason we tend to self-disclose is to portray a specific impression of who we are as individuals to others. Impression management involves the use of verbal and nonverbal techniques of self-presentation to create as favorable of an impression of ourselves as possible (Ignatius and Kokkonen, 2007). Basically, we want people to view us in a specific way, so we communicate with others in an attempt to get others to see us that way. We commonly use six impression management techniques during interpersonal interactions: self-descriptions, accounts, apologies, entitlements and enhancements, flattery, and favors (Gardner and Martinko, 1988; Schlenker, 1980;  Ignatius and Kokkonen, 2007).

Self-Descriptions

The first type of impression management technique we can use is self-descriptions, or talking about specific characteristics of ourselves. For example, if you want others to view you professionally, you would talk about the work that you’ve accomplished. If you want others to see you as someone fun to be around, you may talk about the parties you’ve thrown. In both of these cases, the goal is to describe ourselves in a manner that we want others to see.

Accounts

The second type of impression management is accounts. Accounts are explanations that attempt to minimize the severity of events (Schlenker, 1980). Accounts occur when an individual is attempting to explain something that their interactant may already know. However, they may try to deny that the event occurred or offer excuses or justifications for what occurred (Gardner and Martinko, 1988).

For the purposes of initial interactions, imagine that you’re on a first date and your date has heard that you’re a bit of a “player.” An account may be given to downplay your previous relationships or explain away the rumors about your previous dating history.

Apologies

The third type of impression management tactics is apologies. According to Barry Schlenker, Apologies occur when someone admits that they have done something wrong while attempting to downplay the severity of the incident or the outcomes (Schlenker, 1980).

Imagine you just found out that a friend of yours told a personal story about you during class as an example. Your friend could offer an apology, admitting that they shouldn’t have told the story, but also emphasize that it’s not like anyone in the class knows who you are. In essence, the friend admits that they are wrong, but also downplays the possible outcomes from the inappropriate disclosure of your story.

Entitlements and Enhancements

The fourth type of impression management tactic is the use of entitlements and enhancements. Entitlements aid in emphasizing someone’s role or responsibility for an event occurring (Gardner and Martinko, 1988). For example, imagine that you’re talking to a new peer in class and they tell you about how they single-handedly organized a wildly popular concert that happened over the weekend. In this case, the individual is trying to maximize their responsibility for the party in an effort to look good.

Enhancements aid in emphasizing the favorability of an event itself (Gardner and Martinko, 1988). For example, imagine that in the same scenario, the individual talks less about how they did the event single-handedly and talks more about how amazing the event itself was. In this case, they’re aligning themselves with the event, so the more amazing the event looks, the better you’ll perceive them as an individual.

Flattery

The fifth impression management tactic is the use of flattery, or the use of compliments to get the other person to like you more. In this case, there is a belief that if you flatter someone, they will see you in a better light. Imagine there’s a new player on your basketball team. Almost immediately, they start complimenting you on your form and how they wish they could be as good as you are. In this case, that person may be completely honest, but the use of flattery will probably get you to see that person more positively as well.

Favors

The last tactic that researches have described for impression management is favors. Favors involve an attempt to gain another person’s approval by doing something nice for them (Gardner and Martinko, 1988). One way that we get others to like us is to do things for them. If we want our peers in class to like us, then maybe we’ll share our notes with them when they’re absent. We could also volunteer to let someone use our washer and dryer if they don’t have one. There are all kinds of favors that we can do for others. Although most of us don’t think of favors as tactics for managing how people perceive us, they have an end result that does.

Listening

When it comes to daily communication, we spend about 45% of our communication listening, 30% speaking, 16% reading, and 9% writing. However, most people are not entirely sure what the word “listening” is or how to do it effectively.

Hearing refers to a passive activity where an individual perceives sound by detecting vibrations through their ears (Figure 7.8a). Hearing is a physiological process that is continuously happening. We are constantly hearing sounds in the world around us, unless we are hearing impaired. Even in a sound-proof room, other sounds that are normally not heard like a beating heart or breathing will become more apparent as a result of the blocked background noise.

Listening, on the other hand, is generally seen as an active process. Listening involves focusing attention on the words of a speaker to understand the intended meanings of their speech (Wrench, Goding, Johnson, & Attias, 2017). From this perspective, hearing is more of an automatic response when we perceive sound; whereas, listening is what happens when we purposefully attend to different messages to understand their meanings.

We can even take this a step further and differentiate normal listening from critical listening. Critical listening involves using systematic and careful reasoning to determine whether a message is logical based on factual evidence (Wrench, Goding, Johnson, & Attias, 2017). From this perspective, it’s one thing to attend to someone’s message, but something very different to analyze what the person is saying based on known facts and evidence to determine if the message is accurate or trustworthy.

Listening Styles

Now that we have a better understanding of how listening works, let’s talk about four different styles of listening. Listening styles involve our beliefs and attitudes about the various aspects of receiving and encoding information such as who, what, where, when, and how (Watson, Barker, & Waver, 1995). There are four different styles of listening; people, content, action, and time.

People-Oriented

The first listening style is the people-oriented listening style. People-oriented listeners tend to be more focused on the person sending the message than the content of the message. As such, people-oriented listeners focus on the emotional states of senders of information. One way to think about people-oriented listeners is to see them as highly compassionate, empathic, and sensitive, which allows them to put themselves in the shoes of the person sending the message.

People-oriented listeners often work well in helping professions where listening to the person and understanding their feelings is very important (e.g., therapist, counselor, social worker, etc.). People-oriented listeners are also very focused on maintaining relationships, so they are good at casual conservation where they can focus on the person.

Action-Oriented

The second listening style is the action-oriented listener. Action-oriented listeners are focused on what the source wants. The action-oriented listener wants a source to get to the point quickly. Instead of long, drawn-out lectures, the action-oriented speaker would prefer quick bullet points that get to what the source desires. Action-oriented listeners appreciate speakers who are direct and organized (Bodie and Worthington, 2010).

When dealing with an action-oriented listener, it’s important to realize that they want you to be logical and get to the point. One of the things action-oriented listeners commonly do is search for errors and inconsistencies in someone’s message, so it’s important to be organized and have your facts straight.

Content-Oriented

The third type of listener is the content-oriented listener. Content-oriented listeners focus on the content of the message and process that message in a systematic way. Of the four different listening styles, content-oriented listeners are more adept at listening to complex information. Content-oriented listeners focus on the entire message before forming an opinion about the content of the message, whereas action-oriented listeners display frustration if they believe the speaker is wasting time (Bodie and Worthington, 2010). When it comes to analyzing messages, content-oriented listeners really want to dig into the message itself. They want as much information as possible in order to make the best evaluation of the message.

Time-Oriented

The final listening style is the time-oriented listening style. Time-oriented listeners are sometimes referred to as “clock watchers” because they’re always in a hurry and want a source of a message to speed things up a bit. Time-oriented listeners are vocal about the amount of time they have available to listen and are likely to interrupt the speaker or display nonverbal signals of disinterest (Bodie, Worthington, & Gearhart, 2013).

Time-oriented listeners often feel that they are overwhelmed by so many different tasks that need to be completed (whether real or not), so they usually try to accomplish multiple tasks while they are listening to a source. Of course, multitasking often leads to someone’s attention being divided, and information being missed.

Hopefully, this section has helped you further understand the complexity of listening. Many people do not only engage in one listening style or another. It’s possible to be a combination of different listening styles. However, some of the listening style combinations are more common. For example, someone who is action-oriented and time-oriented will want the bare-bones information so they can make a decision. On the other hand, it’s hard to be a people-oriented listener and time-oriented listener because being empathic and attending to someone’s feelings takes time and effort.

Types of Listening Responses

Who do you think is a great listener? Why did you name that particular person? How can you determine that someone is a good listener? You probably recognize a good listener based on the nonverbal and verbal cues that they display. We don’t all listen in the same way. Different contexts often require a distinct listening response that is appropriate for that situation. Adler, Rosenfeld, & Proctor II, 2013) found different types of listening responses: silent listening, questioning, paraphrasing, empathizing, supporting, analyzing, evaluating, and advising (Figure 7.9). We will examine each of these.

Silent Listening

Silent listening occurs when you say nothing. It is ideal in certain situations and awful in other situations. However, when used correctly, it can be very powerful. If misused, you could give the wrong impression to someone. It is appropriate to use when you don’t want to encourage more talking. It also shows that you are open to the speaker’s ideas.

Sometimes people get angry when someone doesn’t respond. They might think that this person is not listening or trying to avoid the situation. But it might be due to the fact that the person is just trying to gather their thoughts, or perhaps it would be inappropriate to respond. There are certain situations such as in counseling, where silent listening can be beneficial because it can help that person figure out their feelings and emotions.

Questioning

In situations where you want to get answers, it might be beneficial to use questioning. You can do this in a variety of ways. There are several ways to question in a sincere, nondirective way (Table 7.1).

You might have different types of questions. Sincere questions are ones that are created to find a genuine answer. Counterfeit questions are disguised attempts to send a message, not to receive one. Sometimes, counterfeit questions can cause the listener to be defensive. For instance, if someone asks you, “Tell me how often you used crystal meth.” The speaker implies that you have used meth, even though that has not been established. A speaker can use questions that make statements by emphasizing specific words or phrases, stating an opinion or feeling on the subject. They can ask questions that carry hidden agendas, like “Do you have $5?” because the person would like to borrow that money. Some questions seek “correct” answers. For instance, when a friend says, “Do I look fat?” You probably have a correct or ideal answer. There are questions that are based on unchecked assumptions. An example would be, “Why aren’t you listening?” This example implies that the person wasn’t listening, when in fact they are listening.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is defined as restating in your own words, the message you think the speaker just sent. There are three types of paraphrasing. First, you can change the speaker’s wording to indicate what you think they meant. Second, you can offer an example of what you think the speaker is talking about. Third, you can reflect on the underlying theme of a speaker’s remarks. Paraphrasing represents mindful listening in the way that you are trying to analyze and understand the speaker’s information. Paraphrasing can be used to summarize facts and to gain consensus in essential discussions. This could be used in a business meeting to make sure that all details were discussed and agreed upon. Paraphrasing can also be used to understand personal information more accurately. Think about being in a counselor’s office. Counselors often paraphrase information to understand better exactly how you are feeling and to be able to analyze the information better.

Empathizing

Empathizing is used to show that you identify with a speaker’s information. When you are able to view the information from the speaker’s perspective, you can gain a better understanding of the meaning of their message. However, you are not empathizing when you deny others the rights to their feelings. Examples of this are statements such as, “It’s really not a big deal” or “Who cares?” This indicates that the listener is trying to make the speaker feel a different way and passing judgment.

Supporting

Sometimes, in a discussion, people want to know how you feel about them instead of a reflection on the content. Several types of supportive responses are: agreement, offers to help, praise, reassurance, and diversion. The value of receiving support when faced with personal problems is very important. This has been shown to enhance psychological, physical, and relational health. To effectively support others, you have to make sure that your expression of support is sincere, be sure that other person can accept your support, and focus on “here and now” rather than “then and there.”

Analyzing

Analyzing is helpful in gaining different alternatives and perspectives by offering an interpretation of the speaker’s message. However, this can be problematic at times. Sometimes the speaker might not be able to understand your perspective or may become more confused by accepting it. To avoid this, steps must be taken in advance. These include tentatively offering your interpretation instead of as an absolute fact. By being more sensitive about it, it might be more comfortable for the speaker to accept. You can also make sure that your analysis has a reasonable chance of being correct. If it were inaccurate, it would leave the person more confused than before. Also, you must make sure the person will be receptive to your analysis and that your motive for offering is to truly help the other person. An analysis offered under any other circumstances is useless.

Evaluating

Evaluating appraises the speaker’s thoughts or behaviors. The evaluation can be favorable (“That makes sense”) or negative (passing judgment). Negative evaluations can be critical or non-critical (constructive criticism). Two conditions offer the best chance for evaluations to be received: if the person with the problem requested an evaluation, and if it is genuinely constructive and not designed as a putdown.

Advising

Advising differs from evaluations. It is not always the best solution and can sometimes be harmful. In order to avoid this, you must make sure four conditions are present: be sure the person is receptive to your suggestions, make sure they are truly ready to accept it, be confident in the correctness of your advice, and be sure the receiver won’t blame you if it doesn’t work out.

Remix/Revisions featured in this section

• Small editing revisions to tailor the content to the Psychology of Human Relations course.
• Remix combining 2 Elements of Interpersonal, Communication 2.5 Interpersonal Communication Skills, and 6.4 Improving Intercultural Communication Skills (Interpersonal Communication – Milne Publishing) into one chapter on interpersonal communication.
• Added all images and provided links to locations of images and CC licenses.
• Reformatted in-text citations and references to comply with APA 7^th edition formatting reference manual.

Attributions

CC Licensed Content, Original
Modification, adaptation, and original content. Provided by: Stevy Scarbrough. License: CC-BY-NC-SA

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Interpersonal Communication: A Mindful Approach to Relationships Authored by: Jason S. Wrench; Narissra M. Punyanunt-Carter; and Katherine S. Thweatt. Published by: Milne Publishing Located at: https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/interpersonalcommunication/ License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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