What an absolutely crazy week! We welcomed our little granddaughter into this world last Sunday! It is such a blessing to have these sweet little spirits come into our lives! This is why I am so late in getting my post out. Grandma duties called me away.
Last time we left off with the noise that is in the diagram. We mentioned three different kinds of noise barriers that interfere with our listening abilities. There was Environmental, Physiological, and Psychological.
Environmental barriers are things such as sounds, uncomfortable surroundings like heat, and phones/electronics, smells etc. We might not be able to remove these from our surroundings but we can try to manage them. We can put our electronics down or ignore them for the moment, move to a quieter location or a not so smelly area. I think the biggest thing is being aware of what might be distracting us from listening and try to eliminate or change it somehow.
Physiological barriers come from hearing deficiencies such as poor hearing. Processing difficulties apply here also such as auditory discrimination, sequencing, or memory problems. Our brains can process up to 500 words per minute but we speak around 125 words per minute. This is why it can become so easy to wander with our minds. This is difficult to manage but if we are aware of someone’s hearing deficiencies then we can try to accommodate them more. Example: I have a brother in law that deaf in one ear. I either need to speak louder or speak to his good ear.
Psychological barriers are the ones that can be the most destructive in our listening abilities. Some of these include preoccupation (business and personal concerns), message overload (interruptions from texts, emails, etc), egocentrism (working on your next comment instead of listening), ethnocentrism (bias, prejudices, ignorance, accents), fear of appearing ignorant (appear as they understand). Haha, I have certainly appeared that I understand some jokes that I totally don’t get! I think at one time or another we have experienced all of these. Being aware of them hopefully will help us to mentally put ourselves more in the conversation.
Effective listening is vital to the communication process and has been proven to have been the most important communication skill in studies performed. If we are aware of these listening/noise barriers that affect our abilities to listen then we can try to manage, eliminate and adjust our situations to become better listeners! There are more things I will be posting about listening next time! Have a great weekend everyone!
Adler, R., Elmhorst, J., & Lucas, K. (2012). Communication at work. Mcgraw Hill. Pg 62 & 63