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

by Kate Murphy

communication is fundamentally a cooperative endeavor, so if we perceive our partners aren’t keeping up their ends of the bargain, we are going to feel cheated and want out of the deal. Grice summarized our conversational expectations in four maxims: Maxim of Quality—we expect the truth. Maxim of Quantity—we expect to get information we don’t already know and not so much that we feel overwhelmed. Maxim of Relation—we expect relevance and logical flow. Maxim of Manner—we expect the speaker to be reasonably brief, orderly, and unambiguous. Some scholars have argued for the inclusion of politeness and fairness in turn taking,4 but Grice’s four maxims are widely recognized as what most people expect in civilized society, even if they aren’t aware of it.