Hearing and listening are not the same thing. Hearing is the act of perceiving sound. It is involuntary and simply refers to the reception of aural stimuli. Listening is a selective activity which involves the reception and the interpretation of aural stimuli. It involves decoding the sound into meaning.

Listening is divided into two main categories: passive and active.

1. Passive listening is little more that hearing. It occurs when the receiver of the message has little motivation to listen carefully, such as when listening to music, story telling, television, or when being polite.
2. Active listening is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding

People speak at 100 to 175 words per minute (WPM), but they can listen intelligently at 600 to 800 WPM. Since only a part of our mind is paying attention, it is easy to go into mind drift - thinking about other things while listening to someone. The cure for this is active listening - which involves listening with a purpose. It may be to gain information, obtain directions, understand others, solve problems, share interest, see how another person feels, show support, etc. It requires that the listener attends to the words and the feelings of the sender for understanding.

It takes the same amount or more energy than speaking.

Take Action!

Begin to pay attention to which listening styles you use throughout the day. How often do you use a listening style other than active.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Stumble it!

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Word Verification (can't read it? try another!)

Please type the letters you see in the picture.

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail