Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

process by which you interact with other people.
7.3 Listening
Exercises
Create a self-penetration diagram for yourself. What topics are you open to talk
about? What are you not willing to discuss? Then compare with another student
in class. How were you similar or dissimilar? Why do you think these differences/
similarities exist?
Think of a time when you’ve used the six different impression management
techniques. How effective were you with each technique? What could you have
done differently?
Draw your own Johari Window. Fill in each of the window panes with a topic of
self-disclosure. You will probably need to ask a close friend or family member to
help you with the unknown self pane. Why did you put what you put? Does it
make sense? Why?
Learning
Outcomes
When it comes to daily communication, we spend about 45% of our listening, 30% speaking, 16%
reading, and 9% writing. 36 However, most people are not entirely sure what the word “listening” is or how
to do it effectively.
refers to a passive activity where an individual perceives sound by detecting vibrations through
an ear. Hearing is a physiological process that is continuously happening. We are bombarded by sounds
all the time. Unless you are in a sound-proof room or are 100% deaf, we are constantly hearing sounds.
Even in a sound-proof room, other sounds that are normally not heard like a beating heart or breathing
will become more apparent as a result of the blocked background noise.
, on the other hand, is generally seen as an active process. Listening is “focused,
concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the meanings expressed by a [source].” 37 From
this perspective, hearing is more of an automatic response when your ear perceives information; whereas,
listening is what happens when we purposefully attend to different messages.
We can even take this a step further and differentiate normal listening from critical listening.
is the “careful, systematic thinking and reasoning to see whether a message makes sense in
light of factual evidence.” 38 From this perspective, it’s one thing to attend to someone’s message, but
something very different to analyze what the person is saying based on known facts and evidence.
Let’s apply these ideas to a typical interpersonal situation. Let’s say that you and your best friend are
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Interpersonal Communication