Process of Listening

Listening is "the process of receiving, constructing meaning from, and responding to spoken and/or nonverbal messages". Hearing is one of the most coveted five senses we as humans own and with it we are able to fully listen. We are always listening, even if we're hearing nothing. Many benefits derive from using our ears. Most importantly we are able to learn new things; it is hard to be taught anything with zero verbal communication. It's also very nice socially to relate with others and maybe become friends, also very hard to do when you have a handicap of not being able to hear, a lot of people instantly will avoid contact with someone.

There is more to the ability to listen than one would think, there is a definite process of about five steps. You first must hear the message; then you must decipher and understand the meaning of what was spoken. It does no good if it goes in one ear and out the other so you must remember what you heard. Once you've remembered it, one must evaluate the message to finally respond to the speaker. This can be done verbally or nonverbally with body language.

Listening can often be confused with hearing. Listening never ends, you use more than your ears to listen, one must pick up subtle gestures and body language to fully listen. To understand, one must decide what the speaker is trying to say so that you can give a form of feedback. There are several ways to understand through listening, you can judge the speakers volume, emotional tone, facial expression and hand motions. Remembering is a whole different step entirely. In some cases you can help yourself remember by taking notes in one form or another but a lot of times this practice is either inappropriate or simply not time efficient. The human brain does not reproduce the exact model of what it has heard; rather it reconstructs messages that have been deemed important for one reason or another. Evaluating messages seems to be a place where a lot of people can misunderstand one another. If one were to miss a speaker's primary intent, you wouldn't be able to respond properly; which can happen when people infer meanings rather than distinguish facts. When responding properly, one should be supportive and use back-channeling cues to tell the speaker that you are being attentive.

Different cultures listen differently and are influenced in diverse ways. There are four different listening influences that include language and speech, nonverbal behaviors, feedback and credibility. People come from places all over the world and speak differently than one another, not just different languages but different meanings for their words. Diverse people also have different nonverbal behaviors and gestures on which you must pick up on, they may be exponentially different than what you are used too or may include interference and contradictory messages. Everybody also gives feedback in one way or another, depending on where you are from you may deliver your feedback in a particular way. Most people from the United States give an honest response of their reaction and understanding. However other countries such as Japan find its better to be more supportive than truthful so even if they get a negative reaction you would not necessarily notice it from the feedback. If someone is not always honest you have to determine their credibility. If you want honest feedback and someone who barely lies tells you that you've done a great job, you may have to pick up on their subtle gestures and body language to tell if they are lying and being credible with you. Just because a person works in a certain field or department doesn't always make them credible, you have to decide for yourself.

There are many different styles of listening, most of which is situational. Once again there are four main styles, including objective, nonjudgmental, surface and depth listening and active and inactive listening. Objective listening is the most common form done in every day life and is used in general conversation. There are key ways to use objective listening such as trying to understand both the thoughts and feelings of the speaker and don't attack or find fault the speaker. If the speaker is discouraged they won't be interested in communicating further. Nonjudgmental listening is similar to objective in that you must have an open mind toward understanding. It lets you understand messages better, helps to analyze and evaluate the messages. Simply not agreeing with the speaker does not mean they are wrong. Surface and depth listening is not done easily; mostly the speaker has a deeper meaning than that of what was literally said. To fully listen deeply, one must listen for both content and relational messages; make special notes of statements that refer back to the speaker and cannot disregard the literal meaning of messages in trying to uncover more hidden meanings. Active listening isn't one of the most common but it is more important. It is defined as "a process of sending back to the speaker what you as a listener think the speaker meant - both in content and in feelings". Essentially what active listening does is make sure you're aware of your understanding of what was said and meant. There is a lot that goes into listening, most of which is done subconsciously but being a good listener can help you live an easier life.