Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

If we achieve
discriminative listening,
then we can progress to
comprehensive listening.
“Comprehensive
listening requires the
listener to use the
discriminative skills
while functioning to
understand and recall the
speaker’s information.” 43
If we go back and look
at Figure 7.4, we can
see that comprehensive
listening essentially aligns
with understanding and
remembering.
Wolvin and Coakley
argued that discriminative
and comprehensive
listening are foundational
levels of listening. If these foundational levels of listening are met, then they can progress to the other
three, higher-order levels of listening: therapeutic, critical, and appreciative.
Therapeutic listening occurs when an individual is a sounding board for another person during an
interaction. For example, your best friend just fought with their significant other and they’ve come to you
to talk through the situation.
The next aspect of listening is critical listening, or really analyzing the message that is being sent.
Instead of just being a passive receiver of information, the essential goal of listening is to determine the
acceptability or validity of the message(s) someone is sending.
Lastly, we have appreciative listening, which is when someone simply enjoys the act of listening or the
message being sent. For example, let’s say you’re watching a Broadway musical or play or even a new
movie at the cinema. While you may be engaged critically, you also may be simply appreciative and
enjoying the act of listening to the message.
Listening Styles
Therapeutic, Critical,
& Appreciative
Comprehensive
Discriminative
Figure 7.5 Taxonomy of Listening
Now that we have a better understanding of how listening works, let’s talk about four different styles of
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Interpersonal Communication