Ineffective listening
Name
Institution
Author’s Note
Ineffective listening
Introduction
Ineffective listening can be described as one’s ability to respond to superficial content in a message (Graham, 2016) while missing out on the essential emotional information that may not be displayed directly. We practice these ineffective listening in our day to day interactions at times. It might be knowingly; when listeners shift their focus to something else or unknowingly whereby listeners are exhausted or bored. Generally, there are seven types of ineffective listening methods. These are Pseudo Listening, insensitive listening, stage-hogging, ambushing, selective listening, defensive listening, and insulated listening. In this Journal entry, I am going to discuss these Ineffective listening techniques relating to my past incidents at school, work, and friends.
Pseudo-Listening
This is a type of non-listening whereby the listener appears attentive in the conversation while they are apparently ignoring or partially listening to the speaker. Pseudo listening intends to cater to the listener’s other personal needs and not really to grasp the information being passed by the speaker. This has been happening to me quite often while in school during lectures. At one instance, during an English lesson, when the teacher mentioned acting, I started wandering around thinking about all the movies I had watched and the various actors. I had lost concentration but was maintaining eye contact awaiting the lesson to end. At home, I also practice pseudo listening when I attempt to talk on the phone with my friends while watching the television.
Stage Hogging
This is when a listener is only interested in expressing their ideas without considering what anyone else has to say. There was this one instance when I was stage hogging with my mum after returning home late. She tried asking why I had returned late, but I diverted the conversation, complimenting her and inquiring about how she had spent her day; luckily enough, the stage hogging worked out for me.
Selective Listening
This is a phenomenon that transpires when we only view what we want to see and listen to only what we want to hear. It is considered as a mode of mental filtering whereby we phase out someone’s ideas or opinions if they don’t align with ours. This has proven to be my weakness, especially at home. At the same time, I am busy at my phone, and my sister is trying to tell me something, then I find myself prioritizing what I am doing on the phone and only nodes and making affirmation signals to the person talking to me.
Insulated Listening
Insulated listening is considered to be avoiding or ignoring information or specific aspects of a conversation. Listeners tend to turn off particular topics when they arise in a conversation. I have experienced this with my friends when they try to talk about my emotional attachments to my pet. Last week, while walking home from school, John wanted to ask me why I spent so much time with my pet, my response was diverting him and asking him what he values most from his friends and family.
Defensive Listening
This is when a person views an innocent comment from someone as a personal attack on them (Itzchakov, 2018). Such people create a wrong impression from honest answers and comments from people. They don’t listen to understand but rather listen to respond, blame, or defend. My recent experience was at work when my colleague asked me to do some extra work, and I told her she was being disrespectful.
Ambushing
This is described as listening carefully with the intention of attacking. The listener is usually very attentive but not to gain knowledge; instead, ambushers only listen to gather ammunition that they use in attacking speakers. I realized that this is common with me while in class, I am usually quick to ask questions and challenge my teachers.
Insensitive Listening
This involves disregarding the speaker’s emotions and feelings and only grasping the literal meaning (Manfredi, 2018). A recent experience was with my sibling; I often joke around a lot with her, not taking serious whatever she is saying.
Based on the above mentioned ineffective listening examples, I would not categorize myself as a mindful listener. I usually thought of myself as an attentive listener. Still, after careful analysis of the above, there is a lot to work on in terms of considering the speaker’s feelings.
To improve my listening skills, it would be essential to stop criticizing the speaker’s delivery and pay more attention to the speaker’s information. Being defensive is unacceptable if I am to achieve careful listening.
References
Graham, S. (2006). Listening comprehension: The learners’ perspective. System, 34(2), 165-182.
Itzchakov, G., & Kluger, A. N. (2018). The power of listening in helping people change. Harvard Business Review.
Manfredi, M., Cohn, N., Andreoli, M. D. A., & Boggio, P. S. (2018). Listening beyond seeing: Event-related potentials to audiovisual processing in visual narrative. Brain and language, 185, 1-8.