Selective listening: features, techniques and recommendations

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

How often do you find yourself unable to understand what a person is saying to you. It turns out so due to the fact that you came up with the position of your opponent in advance, and now you cannot get used to the idea that the interlocutor does not behave according to your plan. In this case, not everyone can accept the situation, some resort to selective hearing. What it is, read below.

Definition

The brain is a very energy-consuming organ of the human body. It can work at full capacity for a short time and only in case of emergency. The rest of the time a person lives on the machine. In this he is helped by stereotypes and beliefs. Having thought about something once, a person draws some conclusion and no longer bothers himself with further thoughts on this topic.

Selective listening is the ability to hear what you want to hear. A person will ignore everything that he considers unnecessary or contrary to him.judgments. It is precisely because some people cannot listen that not all individuals can get along with each other. They are hindered by prejudices, stereotypes and beliefs. For example, you cannot convince a heavy smoker at once that he needs to quit his bad habit. From your lecture, a person will hear only that many people smoke, and there is no exact evidence regarding the connection between lung cancer and cigarettes. A person will not hear a word about the dangers of habit. The lecture will be inaccessible to his mind.

Distortion of information

Selective listening can be divided into techniques that a person resorts to in order to somehow miss out on some information. One of them is called distortion. How does a person's consciousness work when he empathizes with someone? He, connecting his emotions, cannot reason sensibly, especially when it comes to a loved one.

For example, take a situation in which a wife and husband had an argument and the man kicked the woman out of the house. The lady came to her friend in tears and began to tell that her husband is a tyrant, and indeed, does not understand anything in life and does not let her go anywhere. Who will sympathize with in this situation? Naturally, a woman. Sympathy will cause the whole appearance of a tearful girl. Even having clarified the cause of the scandal, which was that the woman spent the last money from the family budget to buy expensive perfume, the friend will still believe that the man is wrong. Why? Emotions, backed up by a visual picture, will not allow a girl to endure a sittingin front of her is a lady's sentence that she acted badly.

Prove you are right

Selective listening is also different in that a person who has some idea of the situation in advance is unlikely to deviate from his original position, even if it fails. People don't like to admit they're wrong. They will do their best to prove that their opinion was originally correct. Let's take an example. A journalist goes to interview a famous singer. The interviewer is sure that the girl does not have any vocal abilities, she just has a good team that helps her draw weak notes and create high-quality tracks.

A man wants to get a frank confession from a star that she can't sing, and her main goal is to earn as much money as possible. The journalist had a subjective attitude towards the singer even before the conversation began. Therefore, during the interview, the questions sounded as if the singer really did not know how to sing, and this is a fact. Therefore, the girl had to make excuses. The journalist wrote that the lady was shy in front of him the whole conversation, blushed and made excuses, and in the end she could not stand it and left. The journalist did not blame himself for being tactless and talking to the girl too rudely.

Attribute distortion

What is the selective listening effect? This effect appears when the person who is talking to you, based on some of his conclusions or rumors,made a conclusion regarding your spiritual qualities, abilities, and so on. The opponent is not going to part with his prejudices. If you do not show the behavior that the interlocutor expected to see from you, then he will think that you are faking. For example, the rumor was that you were a rude and uneducated type. If you talk to a person kindly and pompously, he may think that you are mocking him, since your manners are far from ideal. This attributive distortion, like all selective listening, becomes stronger when emotions come into play. A person who cannot think soberly will become so entrenched in his stereotypes that later it will be simply impossible to change his mind.

Harm

Based on the above examples of selective listening, we can conclude that such a line of behavior is simply ineffective. Using it, you will not be able to understand the interlocutor, and you yourself limit yourself from the receipt of new information. Only a very limited person agrees to live in a cozy world of stereotypes. After all, you don’t have to think for yourself. Everything that is important will be told on TV. But it's impossible to live like this.

A person must make decisions adequately and independently. And so that there is no juggling of facts in your head and you do not give a biased assessment of any action, you need to be very critical. Question any of your principles, especially those that relate to people. Never judge a person by his eyes without knowing the reason for his act. Motivation is always important to understand and accept someone's end result.activities. Otherwise, you can live with people all the time, without understanding who they are and what is important for them in life.

Benefit

Think a selective hearing is the worst thing in the world? But then why does every person have stereotypes and why do all people actively use them? All this happens because a person has to hear too much information. If we perceived everything and then processed it, we would have spent too much energy on all sorts of nonsense. The brain automatically filters out what a person needs to hear from what can be dispensed with. For example, when you are riding a minibus, you can disconnect from the mental chatter of two teenagers who are standing next to you. You are not interested in the topic they are discussing, and you care little about the essence of the conversation. Therefore, you are immersed in your thoughts, and until someone distracts you, you can not pay attention to what is happening around.

Negative and selective listening

A person can perceive information differently. Also, in different ways, he is able to not perceive it. The second way of "perceiving" is negative listening and selective listening. If we have de alt with the second type, then we need to understand what is the meaning of the first. Negative listening is a type of perception of information when a person is sure in advance that he will be deceived, slandered or scolded. Briefly described, we can say that the interlocutor does not trust his opponent and does not understand him. Where can I see examples of this?hearing? Go to any store and find the most incompetent salesperson there. How to detect it? A person who will not listen to you, but will tell you with a confident look what exactly you need, fits the type of people with negative listening perfectly.

Negative listening corresponds to selective listening? No, these are different types of perception of information. In the first case, a person is immediately ill-disposed toward his opponent, and in the second, he can be sure that the opponent will be right.

Active and selective listening

The only kind of listening, when a person perceives what the opponent is saying, is the active kind. How is selective listening different from active listening? These are two different types of perception of information. In the first case, it does not reach the human mind, but in the second it does. A person who is not biased towards his interlocutor and does not have any stereotypes about the topic of conversation can actively listen to his opponent. What is the technique of interested and active listening?

1. Quote. To understand a person better, you need to repeat his words. Then you will be able to understand what is being said to you without attributing your own judgment to the words.
2. Clarification. Do you want to understand a person better? Don't be afraid to ask him questions. This will help you clear your mind and find out what interests you.
3. Summary. At the end of the conversation you want to remember, you need to summarize everything that was said. Then you and your interlocutor will be aware of whichthe conclusion you came to.

A person who wants to be understood must speak clearly and slowly. You shouldn't rant. Otherwise, the interlocutor will think that you are afraid of not having time to speak.

How to fight

You must be able to adequately perceive information. To do this, you should turn off the value judgment and get stereotypes out of your head. At first it will be very difficult to do this, but soon you will get used to questioning everything and not being sure of anything. Do you think this idea sounds absurd? Not at all. The more you doubt, the better the truth comes to your mind.

How to deal with negative listening? How to sell something to a person or to strengthen some idea in his head? First, you should convince him that the stereotype he is currently using is fundamentally wrong, and then try to replace the existing representation with any other.