Listening is Listening is Listening: Employees' Perception of Listening as a Holistic Phenomenon. Issue 2 (3rd May 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lipetz, Liora; Kluger, Avraham N.; Bodie, Graham D.
• Is Part Of: International journal of listening. Volume 34:Issue 2(2020)
• Page Start: 71
• Page End: 96
• Publication Date: 2020-05-03
• Subjects: Listening -- Periodicals; Oral communication -- Periodicals; 302.2242
• DOI: 10.1080/10904018.2018.1497489
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1090-4018

Abstract

Abstract : Interpersonal listening research is marked by a wealth of conceptual definitions and measurement instruments, with a consensus about neither. Therefore, we sought to discover how laypeople, rather than theoreticians, construe listening, and to construct a scale that reflects these perceptions. In Study 1, laypeople listed the features and characteristics of interpersonal listening in four different contexts (general, romantic, colleague-to-colleague, and manager–subordinate). In Study 2, a second sample of individuals rated the centrality of the features found in Study 1 for the definition of listening. These centrality ratings were similar to the frequency of good-listening features in Study 1. In Study 3, we used the features identified in Study 1 and 2 and asked a sample of employees to rate each one regarding their experience with their supervisor or one of their work colleagues listening to them. These ratings yielded a single factor. Thus, we conclude that, although people can describe the complexities of listening, they seem to perceive it as a holistic and unitary experience. Practically, a small set of good items pertaining to perceptions of listening may yield an acceptable, or even excellent, unidimensional reliability estimate.