You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

by Kate Murphy

Gross also assures them before the interview starts that they are free to stop her at any time if she ventures into an area that feels uncomfortable.

And also respect boundaries by backing off if you suspect you’ve stumbled into a touchy area.

You can only be as intimate with another person as you are with yourself.

They pick up on subtle nonverbal cues and the deeper meanings in offhand comments to find out exactly what you most fear or desire. And with that understanding, they know exactly how to play you. But it

“Oh, I’d never fall for that,” not realizing how seriously their listening is impaired when they so want to believe somebody loves them or will make them rich or will cure what ails them.

Victims of cons are less motivated listeners because the fiction the con is feeding them at that moment in their lives is so appealing.

you think back to the times in your life when you were fooled, if you’re honest, there were likely things you missed or chose to miss. The too-urgent tone. The facts that didn’t quite add up. The hostility or exasperation in the person’s voice when you asked questions.

meant. People are also reluctant to ask for clarification lest they appear dense.

‘When you said X, I was confused.’”

The research suggests that the more people you listen to in the course of your life, the more sides to an issue you can argue in your head and

Who does your inner voice remind you of? What does it tell you? Does your inner voice sound different in different situations? Is it friendly? Is it critical? These are all important things to ask yourself because your inner voice influences how you ponder things, interpret situations, make moral judgments, and solve problems.

This, in turn, influences how you are in the world; whether you see the best or worst in people and whether you see the best or worst in yourself.

Our fixation on what needs to be fixed is why some people can’t abide downtime and always have to have something to do so they won’t think about what’s wrong. However,

More common was the shift response, which directs attention away from the speaker and toward the respondent. Less common, and Disraeli’s forte, was the support response, which encourages elaboration from the speaker to help

Shift responses are usually self-referential statements while support responses are more often other-directed questions.

open-ended questions like “What was your reaction?” not

The goal is to understand the speaker’s point of view, not to sway it.

Fill-in-the-blank questions are useful in this respect. “You and Roger got in a fight because…?” That way, it’s like you’re handing off a baton, allowing the speaker to ...

Where they were, what time, what they ordered—none of it matters as much as what happened and how it felt.

Good questions don’t begin with: “Don’t you think…?” “Isn’t it true…?” “Wouldn’t you agree…?” And good questions definitely don’t end with “right?” These are actually camouflaged shift responses and will likely lead others to

good interactions must outnumber negative ones by at least five to one for a relationship to succeed. It explains the instinct to shut out others rather than risk the disproportionate intensity of feeling hurt.

uncomfortable with others’ emotions, respond by trying to solve or explain away problems rather than listening and letting the upset or aggrieved feel what they feel and, through dialogue, find their own solutions.

Moreover, you shut people down when you start telling them what they should do or how they should feel. No matter how good your intentions or how sage you think your advice, people reflexively resist and resent directives, even if gently delivered.

career, repair a broken marriage, or emerge from the depths of despair. Your answer to someone else’s deepest difficulties merely reflects what you would do if you were that person, which you are not.

“When people tell you how you feel or what you should do, I think most of us know that it makes us defensive,”

Open and honest questions don’t have a hidden agenda of fixing, saving, advising, or correcting. “It

“Have you always felt this way?” or “What would quitting mean?” Look at it as an invitation to have a conversation, not as something to be fixed or get upset about.

The question can be as simple as: “What did you learn today?” Another good one is: “What was the best part and what was the worst part of your day?”

thirty-six expansive questions like: Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why? What would constitute a “perfect” day for you? When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else? If you were able to live to the age of ninety and retain either the mind or body of a thirty-year-old for the last sixty years of your life, which would you want?

listening to a stranger is possibly one of the kindest, most generous things you can do.

Elephants’ hearing is so sensitive they can hear approaching clouds.

reaction to it. You’ll flinch at a clap of thunder, but you won’t know why. Critical to the comprehension of speech is Wernicke’s area, located in the brain’s left hemisphere.

55 percent of the emotional content of a spoken message is, in fact, transmitted nonverbally. So, even if you’ve had your ears checked and your hearing is perfect, if you are looking at your phone or out the window while someone is talking to you, you’re not getting the whole story.

blind. Because nonverbal signals typically carry more than half, or 55 percent, of the emotional content of a message, if you take them out of the equation, you’re missing out on a lot of information.

listen to someone remotely, phone is better than text or email because as much as 38 percent of someone’s feelings and attitudes are conveyed by tone of voice. This means that during many conversations, you get just 7 percent of the meaning from the actual words,

people get jittery without their phones. Indeed, mental health experts say device dependency

has many of the same behavioral, psychological, and neurobiological components as substance abuse.

the end, none of it is as emotionally satisfying or as essential to our well-being as connecting with a live human being. And yet, like any addict, we keep tapping, scrolling, and swiping as if pulling a lever on a slot machine, hoping to eventually hit the jackpot.

This compulsion, driven by a fear of missing out, prevents sustained attention, making listening—or any task requiring thought—difficult. It’s hard to concentrate on what’s happening in the real world when you’re preoccupied with what could be happening in the virtual one. Experts have raised concerns that we are even losing our ability to daydream, as fantasizing, too, requires some level of attention.

People periodically check their phones rather than fully attending to whoever is talking, which only makes it more likely they’ll have slow and soul-sucking conversations. A study by psychologists at the University of Essex found that the mere presence of a phone on the table—even if it’s silent—makes those sitting around the table feel more disconnected and disinclined to talk about anything important or meaningful, knowing if they do, they will probably be interrupted.

the vast majority of caregivers ignored their children in favor of their phones.

difficult. The distraction makes customers more vulnerable to the hard sell and more prone to impulse buy. I can tell you from experience that you are at a disadvantage negotiating the price of car while Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” blares in the dealer’s showroom.

The ability to multitask is a delusion. Each input degrades your attention.

you dispose of a limited budget of attention that you can allocate to activities, and if you try to go beyond your budget, you will

you must cultivate the right environment if you want to truly listen, which is as much about a receptive physical space as a receptive state of mind. You need quiet and freedom from interruption. There shouldn’t be background noise, much less the intruding ping of a mobile device. It seems obvious, but how often do we actually do it?

sleep. You can choose quiet restaurants and silence your phone and keep it out of sight. You can find a park bench, take a walk on a quiet street, or just duck into a doorway away from the stream of pedestrian traffic to have a word. All are ways of signaling your receptiveness; your willingness to listen to what someone has to

you create a better opportunity to connect with that person and understand where they are coming from.

families eating together and sharing stories led to lower rates of substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and depression while improving kids’ vocabularies, grade point averages, resilience, and self-esteem.

to a nationwide initiative that provides resources, workshops, and tips on how to get families to share meals and have uninterrupted conversations. “I know you’re thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, have we gotten to the point where we need a workshop for that?’” said John Sarrouf, who was a director of the Family Dinner Project during its early years. “Yes, we have gotten to that point.”*

At a family dinner or any gathering, the gift of your full attention is a form of hospitality,