When thinking about interpersonal communication, listening and nonverbal communication is not the first aspects to come to my mind. Yet listening, with the help of nonverbal communication, is absolutely crucial for effective interpersonal communication. How one conveys a message is important, but can be ineffective without proper listening skills. Consequently, I was the most intrigued when learning about the intricacies of listening and nonverbal communication.Listening is such a basic action it can easily be overlooked by the other parts of interpersonal communication.
It should be noted that hearing and listening are commonly misunderstood to have the same meaning, when in fact they are distinct. Hearing is automatic, but listening is not. Instead, listening is “the active process of making meaning out of another person’s spoken message” (Floyd 2011). According to Floyd (2011), college students spent more time listening than any other type of communication activity. Depending on the situation, there are different styles of listening. The three basic types are informational listening, critical listening, and empathetic listening.
Informational listening, simply put by Floyd (2011), is listening to learn something. A student listening to a professor lecture is a common example of this type of listening. The focus of informational listening is to learn new information rather than examining what the speaker says. On the other hand, critical listening has “the goal of evaluating or analyzing what one hears” (Floyd 2011). This is the type of listening that involves examining the speaker’s message. Listening to a political debate would be a suitable example of critical listening.
Finally, the third type of listening is empathetic lis. .ect how others perceive you, but I believe clothes affect how you act as well. If I wear sweatpants and a hoodie, I feel much more likely to slouch in my chair compared to wearing a button down shirt and dress pants. I like to cross my arms and legs because I find it more comfortable, but I am aware that it makes me look more closed off. In more professional or even just social situations, I have been trying to avoid this and maintain more open body positions.
Since I feel like I tend to be fairly oblivious to nonverbal communication, it was interesting to learn about. Interpersonal communication is much more than just about talking. Listening and nonverbal communication are crucial parts of being competent at interpersonal communication. Listening can be enhanced by nonverbal communication and vice versa. The more subtle areas of communicating are just as important.
