Page 83 - Essentials of Human Communication

62 Chapter 3 Listening in Human Communication

● Show empathy with the speaker. Demonstrate that you understand and
feel the speaker’s thoughts and feelings by giving responses that show this
level of understanding—smiling or cringing or otherwise echoing the
feelings of the speaker. If you echo the speaker’s nonverbal expressions,
your behavior is likely to be seen as empathic.
● Maintain eye contact. In much of the United States this is perhaps the sin-
gle most important rule. If you don’t maintain eye contact when someone
is talking to you, then you’ll appear not to be listening, and definitely not
listening politely. This rule, however, does not hold in all cultures. In
some Latin and Asian cultures, polite listening would consist of looking
down and avoiding direct eye contact when, for example, listening to a
superior or much older person.
● Give positive feedback. Throughout the listening encounter, perhaps
especially after the speaker’s turn (when you continue the conversation as
you respond to what the speaker has said), positive feedback will be seen
as polite and negative feedback as impolite. If you must give negative
ViewPOintS feedback, then do so in a way that does not attack the person’s negative
Listening and Politeness face: For example, first mention areas of agreement and what you liked
Much of the thinking and research on listening and about what the person said and stress your good intentions. Then, when
politeness has focused on them as face-to-face commu- you give negative feedback, it is important to do it in private. Public criti-
nication skills. How would you describe listening polite- cism feels especially threatening, and the original speaker will surely see
ness on the phone or on social network sites? Are the it as a personal attack.
same principles applicable or do we need an entirely
different set to describe social networking listening A somewhat different slant on politeness and listening can be seen in
politeness? “forcing” people to listen when they don’t want to. Generally, the polite
advice is to notice when the other person wants to leave and to allow the
person to discontinue listening. Closely related to this is the “forced” listening that many cell
phone users impose on others, a topic addressed in Table 3.5.

Table 3.5 Politeness and the Smartphone
The ubiquity of the smartphone has led to enormous increases in telephone communication and texting, but it has also
created problems, many of which are problems of politeness. Because much smartphone use occurs in public spaces,
people often are forced to hear conversations that don’t involve them.
general Rule Specifics Adjustments
Avoid using cell phones where Especially avoid calling in restaurants, hospi- If you must make or take a call when in these
inappropriate. tals, theaters, museums, commuter buses or various situations, try to move to a less public
trains, and in the classroom. area.
Silence your cell. Put your phone on vibrate mode, or let your When you can’t avoid taking a call, speak as
voicemail answer and take a message when quietly as possible and as briefly as possible.
your call might interfere with others.
Avoid unwanted photo-taking Don’t take pictures of people who aren’t Of course, if you’re involved in or are a wit-
posing for you, and erase photos if the ness to an accident or a robbery, you may
person you photographed requests it. want to photograph the events.
Avoid extended talking when Talking on your cell on a crowded street will In an emergency, caution trumps politeness.
your reception is weak. probably result in poor reception, which is
annoying to the other person.
Consider the other person. It’s easy to assume that when you have As with any phone call, it’s wise to ask if this
nothing better to do, the person you’re is a good time to call—a strategy that helps
calling also has nothing better to do. maintain the autonomy (negative face) of the
person you’re calling.