How To Become A Better Listener

Discover how effective listening can transform your interactions, as Anna Seewald is joined by expert guest Guy Itzchakov, an associate professor at the University of Haifa. Together, they explore the boomerang effect, barriers to effective listening, and the benefits for both the speaker and listener.

Listen in as they discuss the art of effective listening, the impact of listening quality on feedback perception, and the importance of introspection in facilitating learning. Learn valuable tips for improving your listening skills and fostering more constructive conversations within your family and relationships. Embrace the power of listening in your everyday life, and enhance your connections with your loved ones.

Transcript

I am Anna Seewald and this is Authentic Parenting,

A podcast about personal development in the context of parenting,

Where I explore how you can find a more calm connection and join parenting through the process of self-discovery and inner growth with a trauma-informed lens.

I'm a parent educator and my mission is to help children by helping parents.

The motto of this podcast is Raising Our Children,

Growing Ourselves.

Today,

How to become a better listener.

I believe that listening is one of the most important skills,

Especially when it comes to parenting,

Listening to our partners and to our children.

How would you rate yourself as a listener?

According to my guest,

It turns out most people over-evaluate their listening skills.

I am speaking with Guy Itzhakov,

An associate professor at the University of Haifa,

Department of Human Services,

Where he directs the Interpersonal Listening and Social Influence Lab.

He obtained his PhD from the School of Business Administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2017 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto,

Rutman School of Management in 2018.

His research focuses on the effects of high-quality listening,

Attentive,

Empathic,

And nonjudgmental on facilitating a change in speakers' emotions,

Cognitions,

And behavior.

In addition,

He conducts field experiments in organizations that examine the effects of listening training on the relationship between employees and their downstream effects on organizational outcomes.

His research has appeared in leading journals in applied and social psychology,

Such as the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior,

European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology,

Applied Psychology,

An International Review,

Harvard Business Review,

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,

And in 2023,

He received the Early Career Research Award from the Attitude and Social Influence Interest Group from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology.

I truly enjoyed speaking with Guy,

And I learned so much.

It's a fun and enlightening conversation on what makes listening powerful,

The benefits of listening for the speaker and the listener,

On asking good questions,

How to change someone's attitude without arguing,

Barriers of good listening,

And tips for improving listening.

I hope you'll enjoy this episode as much as I did.

Please enjoy.

Guy,

Thank you so much for joining me today for the podcast.

I am super excited about this topic.

I love this topic and I can't wait to get some of your amazing information and tips for the listeners.

I want to begin by asking you what the boomerang effect is.

So the boomerang effect is from the persuasion literature,

And it refers to a process when a person tries to persuade another person to change their attitudes.

And usually it refers to when people argue with one another.

And the boomerang effect is,

In short,

When you try to persuade someone and you get an attitude change in the opposite direction.

So if I wanted to change your attitude to be more positive towards a certain topic,

I would actually get your attitude more negative by trying to present positive arguments in favor of the topic.

So you get the change,

Which is in opposite of the direction that you wanted,

Because the recipient of the persuasive message feels a sense of defensiveness.

And when we feel defensive,

We process information in a way that reinforces our original perspective.

So we become less open-minded and able to think about diversity,

Diverse perspectives and our thinking becomes more narrow because we feel that we need to defend ourselves.

So like if someone would physically enter my personal space,

I would defend myself the same way when someone enters my psychological space.

I need to defend myself,

So I will do it by counter-arguing with this person.

So instead of having a constructive disagreement and or instead of listening genuinely to the provider of the message,

I would actually be,

While they are talking,

I would be thinking about how to respond.

So basically,

Instead of a constructive conversation,

It would be an exercise in how to bolster my original attitude.

This is important information for parenting,

I think,

Specifically,

Because oftentimes we want to change the attitudes and opinions of our partners about parenting,

Right?

Because let's say I read a parenting book and my partner parents differently.

I want my partner to parent the same way as I do.

I am enlightened.

I am awake.

I say,

You need to parent this way.

You need to read this book.

You need to listen to this podcast.

And I come from this,

My higher position,

Sort of.

And that's useful in this situation to know that that's not going to work or be helpful.

And another aspect is when we're trying to influence our children,

We always say,

We sort of believe that we know better what's good for our children.

And we come,

You need to do this.

This is how you should do.

And so,

Of course,

We lose our influence right away because,

As you said,

People become rigid,

Threatened.

They feel unsafe.

We're violating their psychological space.

I love that term to think about,

You know,

Physical space and psychological space.

I think it's a good visual to remember that.

And I work with couples who go through divorce.

Oh boy,

Do they argue and fight?

You know,

I do co-parenting,

Counseling,

And I always try to bring them together to create more understanding,

Listening,

Compassion,

Because if you're stuck in your position,

You hold on to your position with your whole force and life.

And like you said once,

I heard in an interview,

You asked a question to the interviewer.

You said,

Has there been a time that someone changed your attitude or your mind about something by arguing?

And that's a really good question.

No,

Right?

Never.

Yeah,

This is and I think especially when we talk about,

As in your case,

When we talk about romantic couples,

It becomes even more challenging because you have another person that knows you very well,

And you are exposed to more criticism,

Which is many of it is true.

And so it's a very difficult barrier to open up and listen when first the topic is important.

So the more the important the topic,

The more difficult it is to change attitudes.

For example,

We can talk about something that you and I don't really care about,

And we can convey a message and we might persuade one another because our attitude is not so strong.

But in the case of,

As you mentioned,

Having a dispute with our romantic partner about what we some kids decision regarding the kids.

This is a topic that is important to both parents.

And so it will be more difficult to to elicit change.

And so this is one with regard to the especially if you are arguing,

I would I would predict that the boomerang effect would be prevalent in this situation.

And the other thing you mentioned about the counseling with the parents with the couples,

It's you know better than I do how much defensiveness it is,

It involves and a lot of it is because we are we respond usually,

Usually the average person responds in a,

I wouldn't say negatively,

But reluctantly to feedback.

We don't,

Again,

On average,

Some people are more,

Some people are less,

But when people are telling us things about ourselves,

Of course,

When they're negative,

It is very,

Very disturbing for us.

Yeah,

I read your article in the Business Harvard review about feedback,

Which is pretty fascinating.

Is there a difference still when we receive feedback,

For example,

On our work or the quality of our work?

Is there a difference as opposed to when or do we take it personally?

I mean,

Feedback could be different,

Right?

If I'm giving you a piece of I wrote an article and I say,

Hey,

Guy,

Can you give me feedback on this article?

And you do provide feedback.

It's not about me,

Right?

But people still take it as it's about them as a personal attack,

Some sort of I think you have to kind of separate yourself and see it as a neutral thing about your writing.

Is there a difference between the?

Yes,

Yes,

Totally.

There are two key differences that come into mind.

The first,

There is a difference between seeking feedback and receiving unsolicited feedback.

So in your example of when you write a paper and you want a colleague to give you their thoughts,

You're seeking the feedback.

So you would basically be more open to it because you were the one that requested it.

On the other hand,

If you did not request the feedback,

For example,

When you had a difficult day at work and you want to talk about it with your partner and then your partner gives you an advice about what you should have done without you asking for it.

This is unsolicited feedback and you would probably not like it so much.

So this is the first difference.

And the second difference is we get a lot of feedback types in our lives.

And the more the feedback is on a topic that is relevant to ourselves,

The more self-threatening it is.

So if it's,

For example,

Feedback about my work,

We perceive our role,

Our work as something very focal of our identity.

So performance feedback is often very self-threatening.

However,

Other forms of feedback,

For example,

Something that is less relevant to my sense of myself,

If I would sing and someone would tell me,

Well,

You're a horrible singer.

I know I'm not doing it for a living.

So it's less relevant to my identity.

It would be less threatening and less because I would describe less importance to it.

Yeah,

So I guess then when we say something to our partner,

Especially when it's unsolicited advice or feedback,

That's very,

Very threatening.

It's good to know that.

But nevertheless,

What would be a good way then to sort of invite our partner into the way we want them to parent?

Or I read a book,

Like I said,

I listened to a podcast or I want to parent more consciously.

What do you think needs to happen in order for that partner to sort of come into our camp?

How can we influence them and then later change their mind?

Because you're not going to change their mind right away.

That should not be the goal.

So I think if we're talking about,

When we talk about listening,

At least how I see it,

You said that,

Okay,

So you want to change your partner's attitude,

But you need to be ready that you might also realize that they might change your attitude.

And it might be less correct than what you originally thought.

So because listening is a reciprocal process,

If you come to.

.

.

Like when organizations are.

.

.

Many organizations are trying to do what's called active listening,

Like trying to.

.

.

I'm not saying all organizations,

But many organizations deviated from the original purpose of active listening and try to manipulate customers by getting them to the point that they initially wanted to.

So it's not a authentic conversation.

So if you have a prior agenda,

Which we often have,

I'm not saying we often have,

I need to be realistic.

But we also need to have a sense of intellectual humility in the sense that I want to talk with about this book or this podcast or whatever information I receive,

I want to talk with my partner about that.

I don't want to preach to my partner about it.

I want to talk and I want to get their perspective.

So if I want to change someone else,

I often need to also be ready that I might change.

And this is,

By the way,

This is one of the barriers to listening that we often do not listen because consciously or subconsciously,

We are afraid that if we really listen,

We might need to change.

And if it doesn't come through unsolicited,

As we mentioned before,

This might be threatening.

So I would say,

I would say,

Just present,

Talk about it as you talk openly.

But you know,

It's easier said than done.

I'm thinking in my head and I'm thinking about all the mistakes I've made.

It's not that I'm absent from mistakes,

The opposite.

But we do need to be open to the fact that I want to tell you about the podcast.

I want to tell you about the book.

And if you're excited and you're,

They will feel it.

So I would say just be genuine and open about it without a prior agenda that I'm going to make my partner think.

I know it's difficult,

Especially when we want them to,

Because it's so good.

I want them to also understand why this is so good.

But then we are coming to the conversation with a relatively closed mindset,

Like a persuasion mindset rather than a learning mindset.

Wow,

That's really helpful and powerful.

Yeah,

No agenda,

Open mind,

Curiosity,

And also be ready to be changed yourself,

Which is an interesting idea.

What are barriers to listening?

You mentioned already one.

So let's talk about a few other barriers.

Sure.

One of them is fear of intimacy.

One barrier is fear of intimacy.

So listening is an intimate process.

It requires closeness and opening up to another person and let this person into our inner self.

And not everyone are comfortable with such intimacy.

And so in one of our studies,

We found that speakers who are high on avoidant attachment style,

Meaning that they do not like too much closeness and intimacy,

They try to avoid it.

So they gain less psychological safety from being listened to than speakers who have secure attachment style because they feel that the listener is violating their comfort zone.

So this is so this I'm ready to open up until a certain level and this listening is,

And if I'm avoidant,

My threshold will be relatively low.

And now you're really listening to me and you're asking me really profound questions and you try to really understand me and this might be above,

Beyond the accepted threshold of closeness and intimacy that I'm willing to accept.

And this might be even threatening for me if I have an avoidant attachment style.

So this is one barrier of listening.

So it's an individual difference between people on fear of intimacy.

Another one is listening is a resource.

It takes time.

It takes energy.

And these are limited resources.

We don't have all the time in the world.

We don't have all the energy.

We know that it's not unlimited.

So often we do not have the capacity or the time nor the willingness to give the capacity of the time to listen to everyone,

To each person that now wants to talk to us.

So this is another barrier.

Listening is a resource and we need to choose again,

Consciously or subconsciously,

We choose how to allocate it.

For example,

When often I hear from managers that,

You know,

This employee came to me while I was this very busy and distracted and I had a lot of pressure and a lot of things on my mind and one of my employees wanted to talk to me about something and I didn't have the capacity to really listen to them.

And this is their perspective.

And they say,

Well,

But if I said that they can't listen,

I would be perceived as rude.

And this is actually a misperception because speakers can grasp pretty quickly and pretty accurately if their listeners are really listening to them.

So if it's more than a small talk,

The employee will realize that the manager isn't really listening to him or her.

So my advice is usually to be upfront about it and say,

Look,

I really want to hear what you have to say.

Now is not a good time.

Let's schedule a time where I can really listen to you.

And usually employees appreciate it more.

So time is also a barrier or an enemy of listening.

Another one is a lack of a story.

We talk about the listeners,

But often,

You know,

There is also the speaker and it's not easy to listen to everyone.

Some people can talk and repeat themselves over and over or be very monotonous in their talking or be very boring.

And it's not easy to listen in this situation.

So the speaker also has an impact on how well the listening goes.

So lack of story.

This is how we call it,

Lack of a story.

It's an umbrella term for more constructs.

This is another barrier.

And one which I think is interesting is the issue of social status.

When you listen well,

You're going to lose something and you're going to gain something.

Now you're going to have a trade-off,

Which not everyone is happy to or willing to accept.

So specifically,

You will lose your dominance because as a manager or even as a consultant at a council,

Well,

As a council,

You're expected to listen,

But as a manager,

It's more obvious.

As a parent,

When you listen to your kid.

Exactly.

So as a parent,

When you listen,

You're less dominant.

You're not controlling the conversation,

You equate yourself with the child.

So then you actually cancel the hierarchy.

So you will lose dominance,

But you will gain prestige.

This is what I'm saying comes from research about managers and employees.

So I want to be upfront and transparent about the fact that I do not know if it holds for parenting.

I think it does to some extent,

Yeah,

Because I'm not an expert on parenting,

But there is also an issue of asymmetry,

Right?

So we also talk about some asymmetry.

But I can speak at least with regard to manager and employees,

That you have a trade-off.

So you lose some form of social status dominance,

But you gain another form of social status,

Prestige.

Now,

Not everyone are willing to do it.

For example,

If I have a high need for power,

I will usually be a relatively poor listener because I would prefer to talk because when I talk,

I control the conversation.

I know where things are going.

When I listen,

I'm not passive by the way.

This is a misperception.

I'm not passive,

I am influencing the conversation,

But I'm not in charge of it.

I'm not the one holding the wheel.

So this is another boundary of why people don't listen.

There are a host of them,

But this is a three that would be easy to,

And very common.

Yeah,

I think the one that I like really the most is them recognizing how much time,

How much energy,

How much attention you have before you commit to listening,

Being upfront and honest with yourself and recognizing that and telling that to your partner,

To your kid.

I think it's such an honorable act,

Right?

Instead of pretending to listen and feeling agitated and stressed out because the other party will sense that you are exhibiting poor quality listening,

Right?

We've all experienced that when someone is trying to listen,

But we know they are stressed out.

And I think saying,

I would love to listen to you,

But I don't have capacity is so important with our partners and with our children,

Especially.

Recognizing the resources inside ourselves,

I think is so powerful.

When we listen,

You said we change both parties,

The speaker and the listener.

I'm wondering if you can speak about the benefits of listening for the speaker and for the listener,

Because there are benefits for both parties,

Right?

It's great when you feel listened to,

But what are the benefits for the other party?

Oh,

There is a lot.

There is a lot.

So give us some important points.

I'm trying to think of the one related to parenting.

So if I understand you correctly,

You're referring to the benefits for the listener,

Right?

Yeah,

Start with the listener.

And then we can say the benefits for the speaker as well.

Okay.

So,

Yeah,

Actually,

The speaker side has been studied much more frequently than the listener side.

So we know much more about the speaker than about the listener.

But we do know many things about listeners as well.

So if we start from listeners,

People who listen well are better liked by their speakers.

They gain more trust from the speakers.

They are perceived as leaders or people with a people leadership style,

Which is considered a very prestigious leadership style.

They also,

I'm thinking of like in one of my studies in 2020,

I found that service employees who listen well to angry customers,

After listening training,

They become actually more relaxed and are able to take the perspective,

They can really understand where their speakers are coming from and feel more competent.

As a result,

Good listeners also perform better when we talk about the workplace.

I don't know if I'm trying to think of any research about it.

I can't recall at the moment,

But I will predict that they actually,

Yeah,

We had one study about parents and adolescents.

So adolescents who,

This is the speaker side,

But if I frame it on the listener side,

Parents who listen well to their kids gain more information from them,

Which is a huge advantage.

Better relationship satisfaction for listeners,

More benefits.

We just finished,

We're now writing up a meta-analysis about all the effects on listening in the workplace,

But we also reviewed recently,

Because I'm from organizational behavior,

So I tend to think about the workplace,

But we also wrote about all other fields as well.

Good listeners help their speakers remember more information and even talk more fluently.

It's just an example of a few examples of why it's beneficial to be a good listener.

I think this is enough for the listener,

For speakers,

A better mood,

More positive emotions,

Less negative emotions,

Less depression when we have good listeners around us,

Less anxiety,

And more clarity with regard to our attitudes when we speak,

When we talk to a good listener,

They help us clarify what we mean and gain self-insight into ourselves,

Help us understand ourselves better.

We feel a higher sense of autonomy when we as speakers are listening to well,

So autonomy is about feel free to express our true selves and a higher sense of relatedness with the speaker and higher self-esteem.

We feel when,

Because when someone listens to us well,

They send a,

It's called a meta message that you're important,

You're important to me.

And as a result,

We feel that we're more competent,

Have higher self-esteem,

Our wellbeing is higher when we listen or are listened to well.

There are so many.

We again perform better at work,

Our attitudes become less extreme as we talked about before.

So listening is very important for depolarization or for bridging divides,

My major research line we found in a study that speakers who talked about a social group towards which they were prejudiced and so became less prejudiced when they talked to a listener who exhibited high quality listening behavior relative to a listener who exhibited moderate quality listening behavior.

So it's also with regard to depolarization of attitudes.

With regard to relationships,

I know this is an interest for your audience.

So listening is one of the most important predictors of relationship satisfaction,

Commitment,

Authenticity.

We just found that out of all the,

I'll say it in lay terms,

The explanations for why is listening beneficial,

The strongest explanation is the impact of listening on relationships and constructs that are part of the relationship family.

For example,

In one study,

We found that when speakers are listened to well and they disclose an experience of social rejection,

Like with a child,

We didn't send the children,

We put them with adults.

But for example,

When they,

But many of them actually recalled an experience from their childhood.

So when we asked them to recall an experience where they felt socially rejected,

And then we had them talk with a confederate,

A research assistant who either was exhibited high quality listening behaviors or let's say average or moderate quality listening behaviors.

And as a result,

When people experience high quality listening,

They felt less lonely when they talked about social rejection.

And so I think this has a lot of implications for parenting because we know that social rejection is,

I call it a disease of our current times.

And we just had such an unfortunate case in Israel that a 13 year old child committed suicide because he was socially rejected.

You know,

This stuff breaks your heart when you hear about this stuff.

And then listening is a remedy.

Listening is a remedy for so many destructive social phenomena.

And that is a remedy that I think we don't use it enough in our lives.

But this is just an example of benefits.

I can talk for an hour just about the benefits.

Speaking of boring stories,

I think it will become very monotonous.

But if you want a benefit for a specific area,

So just ask me and I'll try to think of anything.

So many things running through my head right now from 12 years of research about this topic.

So I will try to be more specific if you're interested in a specific area.

This is wonderful.

This is great.

I think this is very applicable for parenting.

So you mentioned high quality listening,

Poor quality listening,

And average kind of listening.

How can we train ourselves to become better listeners?

Is it hard if someone is a poor listener?

What are the characteristics of poor listening?

Maybe we can give a description.

Who is a poor listener?

If you ask most people,

I think,

I have this conversation with my husband all the time.

He says,

Oh,

You never listen,

Anna.

I always tell him,

That's my job.

I get paid for listening.

Well,

Clearly when I'm at home,

Probably I'm exhausted because I'm so taxed by listening to other people.

And when it comes to my family,

I give unsolicited.

I do all of the barriers that you mentioned,

Right?

I'm human.

But I think most people would overestimate,

Right?

And say,

I'm a better listener.

Always people will say.

So can you say a few words about the characteristics of poor listening versus high quality listening?

Sure.

So I wouldn't say like,

Who is a better listener,

But what is better or poor listening?

Because it's less dispositional,

Less related to personality or something chronic,

But more the behavior.

So for example,

Examples of poor listening would be having our distractions while we listen.

For example,

When I just check my smartphone to see if someone just texted me,

Not even answering the message,

Just checking.

Because when we converse with our speakers,

They are not looking at us the entire time.

Every few seconds,

They look back at us.

They don't even know when it's going to happen.

But if they see that we are now doing something,

Distracted or being distracted by something,

Whatever it is,

They perceive that we did not pay attention this entire time.

So distractions,

Hurt listening,

Dual tasking,

Including for women,

I know usually get well,

But women are better at multitasking,

Which is correct.

But the effect of,

And women are on average better listeners than men,

But the effect is not so strong.

And actually the effect of distraction on listening is much stronger than the effect of being a woman on listening.

So also women are also hurt by multitasking with regard to their listening abilities.

Asking irrelevant questions is a sign of poor listening.

We often have,

And it's difficult,

I'm not saying it's easy,

Because often we want to ask something that we are interested in or that satisfies our curiosity.

And this is not necessarily the question that promotes the needs of the speaker.

For example,

I can ask you now a question about something that you said 10 minutes ago after you finished talking.

So you would probably feel very frustrated by that I probably waited until you finished talking so I can ask what I wanted initially.

So this is irrelevant questions.

Interruptions of course,

Very common in Israel,

Or even waiting impatiently for your turn to speak.

And a lot of it is in the listening,

In the verbal and nonverbal behaviors.

So these are the verbal behaviors,

But some nonverbal behaviors,

For example,

When you raise our eyebrows in like a judgmental way,

It affects the listener,

The speakers a lot.

When we,

And often listeners don't notice it when,

Often when we disagree,

We can see it in the body posture of the listener.

So I would lean back,

Maybe fold my arms,

I become,

Because like I become more closed minded.

And this,

This host of behaviors are called back channel behaviors through which the listeners affect the conversation.

Because the speakers notice like,

Why are they raising their eyebrows right now?

Or why are they folding their arms?

Why are there,

I often see that like people even without noticing it,

They nod in disagreement,

Like that,

Like with their head,

You know,

To left and right.

They don't even know that they're doing it,

But,

But speakers are noticing it.

So there are like,

It's easy to,

Very easy.

And we've done it in many experiments to,

To,

To distract.

The listening process is very easy.

The more difficult thing is how to create better than average listening.

This is a challenge.

I'm thinking about more behaviors that,

For example,

When you try to get in the speakers and sentences,

It can be like in substance cues.

But for example,

When someone is talking,

Like when I try to cut lanes in the road,

So let's say that you're talking like,

Yeah,

Yeah.

And you know,

When they're like,

Even,

I know,

I can't stand that,

Especially if it's a podcast interview.

The host always does that.

And I'm like,

Oh,

Would you let the speaker speak,

Please?

You know,

It's,

It's very distracting to listen to that.

I would imagine as a speaker,

You know,

It's disturbing too.

Yeah.

Because it,

Because it interrupts the flow.

Yeah.

I even,

I often find even people who,

Who frequently say yes,

Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

Or,

Or right,

Right.

They say,

Right,

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

So I,

I,

I often find it distracting,

But it can be with good intention,

By the way,

It just,

It can hurt the process of listening.

So there are like these hostile behaviors,

But it's a lot in the,

Depending on the specific listener speaker diet,

It is what we were finding that some people that,

At least 50% of what,

Of how you will perceive the quality of listening depends on the specific partner that you're conversing with.

So you,

For example,

You can say,

I can be a horrible listener to you and a great listener to my wife.

I wish it was true,

But this is the,

What we found in our research that we,

Our question was,

Well,

Who,

What is the source of good listening?

Is it the speaker?

Is it the listener?

Like something about the listeners that like their personality that like,

Who are the people that everyone will say are good listeners?

Or maybe it's because of the speakers,

Like who are the people that it's the easiest to listen to them because they're maybe very interesting,

Charismatic and et cetera.

Or perhaps this is a relationship construct,

Like depending on the diet,

The speaker,

Listener diet,

Like,

And,

And,

And the results consistently showed that most of the effects come from the unique speaker,

Listener diet.

There is like,

There is some agreement on as to when a person that all of the,

Their speakers will report that they are great listeners and the same for speakers.

But most of the effect is from the specific person that you interact with.

So we all have our better listeners for us in this sense.

Interesting.

I hope it's not too complicated.

No,

No,

It's not.

It's pretty fascinating.

I find that really fascinating and,

And,

And,

And so true.

I'm looking at my relationships,

You know,

With certain people,

You know,

You are a better listener than with others.

You said that women are better listeners than men.

Are there studies about this?

Yeah,

There are some studies from what I can recall.

And this,

This might not be accurate at this moment because we are currently like revisiting all the literature around it.

But for what I remember,

The correlation between gender and listening is about 0.

20,

Meaning that women are,

Let's say,

Moderately better listeners than men on average.

But again,

If we think about listening as a dyadic process,

It's much more important about the specific,

About who is your specific person that you're talking to.

So yeah.

So the answer is yes,

But it's complicated.

I would love for you to say a few words about the power of asking good questions.

You mentioned irrelevant questions.

I find that asking questions is key in,

In,

In,

In deep listening.

Right.

I can give you an example.

One day my daughter came home and she said she was very angry and upset.

She said,

Mom,

And she knows that I listen and we talk.

She always says,

Let's go for a walk.

I have things to share.

She sets a time for us to talk because she knows that I listen.

And my husband is a good listener too.

They have a good relationship.

But one day she came home and she says,

I need to talk to you.

I'm very upset with dad.

Why?

What happened?

Well,

I was sharing the same thing,

She says,

That I'm about to share with you.

And he was just listening.

And I said,

So what's wrong with that?

He was listening.

He was being present and mindful and he was just listening.

And she said,

No,

I don't want someone just to listen.

I want someone to say something,

Feedback.

I want questions.

She says,

You do that well.

And so we went on a walk and,

And I listened and,

And,

And that got me thinking that yes,

You know,

Listening is not just this passive act of sitting there nodding and,

And,

And receiving you actually need to ask insightful questions or non irrelevant questions.

So can you talk about the power of questions?

I'm a huge believer in the power of questions.

Like questions can change us,

How we think about things.

Absolutely,

If we ask the right questions,

It's so key for improving relationships.

Right.

So share what you know.

So first,

First,

As you mentioned,

Questions along with the power of phrasing is the most important components of the verbal aspect of listening.

As you mentioned,

Listening is not the same as being silent.

Silence is part of it.

That's not all of it.

And for your example,

With your husband and your daughter.

So first a question,

A good question conveys that you really listened to the speaker.

And because every,

Every person has a need to feel understood,

Which is by the way,

Feeling understood is the most important,

This is the strongest predictor of romantic relationships and not how,

Not actual understanding,

Not how your husband thinks that he understands you,

But your perception of how he understands you,

Which are not the same.

This is the most important predictor.

So with the questions like,

How do we,

How do we show that we understand the speakers well?

And many people are,

Will say something like,

Yeah,

I understand what you,

I understand what you mean.

And actually saying,

I understand what you mean is a sign of not listening.

Because it's like telling you,

Trust me.

You won't trust me.

I need to show you that you can trust me.

Same with,

With,

Um,

Understanding.

And this is where questions come in.

Because when you ask a good question,

You show your speaker that you really understood them.

Uh,

You cannot ask a good question if you did not,

If you didn't listen.

A good question helps the speaker look at themselves from the side,

Like a third party and gain more knowledge into themselves.

Um,

Because like,

I often get asked,

Wait,

Why do you need the list?

Why can't just a person introspect by themselves?

And we see from our research that you need the other person because like through questions is one of the most important ingredients through good questions.

Um,

I as a speaker can,

Can understand myself better.

Um,

So this is one thing,

Um,

Showing understanding,

Um,

Questions help us as speakers,

Uh,

Think more in a deeper manner when we get stuck.

This is often what I see when we are conducting experiments in the,

In,

In,

In the laboratory that you know,

Give most of the topics,

I call it automatic pilots.

People can talk for like about three minutes about any topic in two or three minutes.

Um,

They can talk about anything.

The question is what happens when they're out of words.

And this is where the questions are very,

Very handy because using questions,

You can have the person,

Uh,

Introspect,

Uh,

Better.

Um,

Questions are,

Um,

Uh,

A better way.

We talked about the device before,

Uh,

Questions are a much more constructive way of,

Um,

I won't say give advice,

But checking if,

If,

Um,

Or presenting it,

Let's say presenting an idea because I can tell you,

Well,

I think that you should do this and that,

And that this will be giving advice.

Or I can ask you,

Anna,

Would it be helpful if you would do this and that,

What do you say?

Um,

And,

And,

And this actually is much more acceptable by speakers because I'm not forcing you my opinion on you,

But I'm asking you,

Would it be,

Would it help you?

Uh,

Will it help you if you would,

Uh,

I don't know,

Go to your husband and tell him this and that.

So when it's,

When,

When a content is phrased as a question,

It,

Um,

At least it's more openness than when it is phrased as an advice or a statement.

Um,

For example,

If we're talking about parenting,

There is a difference between it's how we ask the question is a lot about how the tone of which we ask the question and,

And the words we use,

For example,

Um,

When we ask,

Why did it happen versus how did it happen?

So usually a why question evokes more defensiveness because There is like a judgmental tone to it,

Right?

Yeah,

Exactly.

So,

So the child will be like,

Well,

Why,

You know,

When kids are little,

Like,

Why did it fall?

Because it fell.

This is a fact.

But,

But,

But how is more,

Uh,

We can,

You give more,

More space for the speaker to explore themselves.

Um,

When,

When good questions,

I think,

Um,

Are very important ingredients into building connection with the speaker,

Because when we ask a good question,

Um,

We had,

We,

We give us,

We give the perception,

The speakers,

The perception that we are trying to get what they're saying,

We're trying to understand them and,

And,

And,

And this creates interpersonal chemistry.

So like questions,

Questions,

Sense a lot of meta messages,

Um,

To the speaker,

Um,

And,

And they actually,

Um,

Control where the conversation will go.

They are very powerful.

Through irrelevant question,

I can take the conversation left and through relevant question,

I can take the conversation right.

Or take the conversation or,

Or let's say the level of the conversation,

We can stay in a very artificial level.

If I ask you mundane,

Banal questions,

But if I ask you good questions,

Our conversation will reach a much more deep level.

So they completely navigate also where and how deep our conversation will go and how much you're going to,

How much I'm going to learn about you and how much you're going to learn about yourself.

Pretty good.

I love,

I love this tips for improving listening.

I think,

Um,

That would be my final,

Um,

Question because we all want to improve after you gave us all this good information.

We all want to improve the quality of the listening that we provide for our partners and children.

Give us some tested proven tips.

So,

Okay.

One would is,

Um,

Provide reflection when you talk to your,

Your kid,

Um,

Try some more briefly summarize what you heard and ask them if you understood them correctly.

And if you missed anything,

Um,

This is a great practice for listening,

Uh,

Because it forces you to listen.

Um,

One,

The second is we talked about questions,

Ask questions that you think will benefit your kid rather than your,

Uh,

Curiosity or need as a parent to prove something.

And another one,

Um,

He would be,

Which I think is the most important one is there is an exercise I give my students in my class,

You know,

Because with,

With children is easy because we love our children.

It's not easy to listen to our children.

I know it's not,

But,

But we have love for our children.

So it's less difficult to,

To take interest in what they're saying.

Not all the time,

Of course,

Not all the time.

I have three girls,

They talk a lot.

Uh,

Often I need just to be silent and not interrupt.

Um,

But well,

An exercise I give my students,

Um,

Is set a goal each day this week to learn one new thing about the colleague.

And when we are,

And then we are,

When we have this mindset,

This learning mindset,

We naturally listen better when we try to learn something.

Um,

And,

And then I think this is like the most important tip,

Um,

Try to learn something new.

Um,

Often we think that,

Uh,

I get reactions such as,

Well,

I know this,

I know her very well.

We've been studying together since our first year as undergraduates.

And when I give them a listening exercise,

They suddenly realize things about one another that they didn't know before.

I think the same,

The same with our kids.

When,

Well,

Like if we set the goal to learn one thing about our child,

Or it can be something that happened to happen to them today,

But learn not react,

Not,

Um,

This would be,

This would be a sign of very good listening.

Um,

Withhold judgment,

Very difficult with kids I know.

Um,

But if you really want to reach our kids,

You know,

Kids learn from behaviors,

Not from words.

I can tell my,

My daughters don't do this and that and that and that.

And if they see me do it one time,

I ruined everything.

It's like the impact of one destructive behavior is much more impactful than all the words I can say.

So,

Um,

Be present.

I think this is what,

Be present when,

When you listen to your kids,

Don't be,

Don't be a half listener,

Uh,

Like a partial listener.

Be now,

Now,

And we talked about listening as a resource,

Um,

Decide that now you are listening to your kid,

Meaning that now my phone is not next to me,

Uh,

Not on vibrant,

Not on silent.

I,

I'm just listening,

I'm there for them.

I'm present.

Um,

For,

For,

I don't know,

Five minutes for 10 minutes,

But I'm just with them.

And this will improve the quality.

So be present is another tip.

Um,

There are so many,

You know,

When there are so many,

It's hard to pick.

Um,

Let's do our last one.

And let's do,

I mean,

The fifth one.

Um,

I gave so much tips over the years that you usually send them,

I guess,

The Harvard business review.

Usually I send people to these places when I know they're going to ask for tips,

But also,

Uh,

I'm trying to be unique here and not repeat myself from previous times.

As you,

As we say that you need to be nonjudgmental towards the speaker,

But also be nonjudgmental towards yourself when you realize that you're not such a good listener as you saw,

As we,

I thought I am,

Um,

Be accepting also towards yourself,

Because this is a learning process.

We are not,

Most of us are not born good listeners.

Listener,

Listening is,

Is a muscle that requires training.

And as we,

With every skill that requires training,

When we start,

We don't,

We don't have all the,

The skill that is needed.

So be also nonjudgmental towards yourself and willing to learn and willing to improve.

This is the first thing about,

I think the most important tip I can be towards yourself,

Because when you are being nonjudgmental towards yourself,

It will be easier to be nonjudgmental towards others.

These are great.

Um,

What's,

What's,

Uh,

Your current research about listening?

What are,

What are your interests?

What are you doing currently?

Can you say a few words about that?

Yeah,

There are a lot.

So,

Um,

My focal line of research at present is about listening during disagreements and how it can change,

Uh,

How and,

And,

And to which mechanisms can change speakers attitudes.

We have another project about,

Uh,

Um,

That one of my PhD students is leading about,

Uh,

How listening during disagreement can lead to well-being of speakers,

Uh,

By satisfying their basic psychological needs.

Um,

We have work about,

Um,

Listening and,

Um,

Where we test whether listening can help speakers learn from sharing experiences of guilt or they felt guilty.

Um,

In other work,

We are examining,

Uh,

Listening and helping behavior.

So,

Um,

Can listening increase,

Um,

And through,

And how and,

And when,

Uh,

Whether they want to call it,

It's called moderators can listening create more helping behavior in the workplace.

And in general,

We have a lot of,

Uh,

A lot of research on,

Uh,

On,

On teachers,

On school teachers.

Um,

Another one is listening and the construct called Kama Muta,

Which is,

Uh,

A relatively new construct in the emotion literature about positive emotions.

That is,

Um,

An emotion of it's a complex emotion that convey also positive,

But also that involves connection and insight.

Are there so much,

Uh,

Another thing of the things,

Um,

That trying to think of the papers I need to write listening and feedback quality,

For example.

So do speakers who experience good listening,

When they receive feedback,

Do they,

Um,

Do they also experience the feedback is better regardless of like the same feedback.

But when you listen,

When as the feedback provider,

When you listen better,

Will your feedback be perceived as better feedback about the listening or feedback on general,

For example,

Uh,

We give them a task to do,

And then we give them the same feedback,

But,

Um,

We,

Um,

Uh,

We create different listening conditions.

So we will say some in one condition,

We give them this feedback after we listened well to them.

And in another condition,

We give them the feedback after we listened moderately well to them and we wanted to,

And we were testing,

We found support for,

Uh,

In,

In four studies so far that when speakers perceive the listening to be good,

They also perceive the feedback to be of higher quality,

Even if it's the same feedback.

Wow.

That's fascinating.

Some of the research we're working on at present.

I,

I,

I,

The,

The one that stood out to me was the one about sharing guilt,

Sharing stories about guilt,

Uh,

And whether that minimizes the sense of guilt that people have after listening experiences.

Is that,

Yeah,

That's how I'm.

Yeah,

I can,

I can,

I can connect you to,

It's a project of,

Uh,

My,

Um,

One of my thesis,

A master of thesis students,

And he's,

Uh,

Actually he works in,

Uh,

In,

Um,

In the field of education.

So he's really interested in education and parenting,

Um,

And we,

We have so far two studies that support,

Um,

The,

Our hypothesis that when speakers receive high quality listening,

They,

Um,

When they,

When they share an experience of guilt,

They gain more self insight.

And as a result,

They are more motivated to learn from the experience.

So we're not,

We also found in one of the studies that they feel less guilty,

But this is actually not our focal interest.

Our interest is to test if they learn from sharing the experience.

Uh,

This is what we were,

So like it's,

It's called,

Um,

Um,

Learning motivation,

I think.

Yeah,

Motivation to learn from,

From,

From the experience,

This is what we're interested in.

And so we also find that their self esteem is higher.

Sometimes they feel less guilty,

But most importantly,

The,

The,

The,

The mechanism that we're interested in is by listening and the introspection,

Can they,

Uh,

Can it facilitate learning?

Yeah.

And one final thing,

Can you give the listener of this podcast,

Uh,

An exercise for,

Uh,

Improving their listening,

Like some,

Um,

Activity or a challenge or a practice to do today,

Tomorrow,

Um,

To improve the quality of their listening to test themselves or something of this nature?

Is there anything simple and easy?

Um,

Yeah,

One simple as easy.

Let's do this.

Um,

Choose one conversation per day.

And after the conversation,

Whenever you decide,

Whenever you have time,

Sit with yourselves and write down your reflection about the conversation,

Especially,

Um,

How did you do as a listener,

But,

Uh,

What points did you miss and how can you improve for the next conversation in the next day?

Uh,

It's very important to write it down,

By the way,

Not only to think about it,

But to write it down because we learn a lot when we write things down.

So choose one conversation a day that you want to reflect on and write down,

Um,

A reflect one paragraph,

Um,

About,

Um,

How did you do,

How can you improve?

What points did you miss?

Um,

Anything that comes up in your mind about your listening process and do this like for a week and see how,

Whether you feel that it improved your listening.

And what keeps you going in this research?

What is your,

How come your interest is deepening and not evaporating?

What keeps you going?

Do you think this topic is so important to you?

Um,

So first I have a lot of investment in it.

I've been studying it for 12 years,

So,

Um,

And my research became,

I also study other stuff,

But as time,

Time goes,

I become more focused somehow about listening.

So my research becomes very programmatic.

And now even all my research students are doing only listening studies,

Um,

Because I also studied attitudes and attitude behavior relationships and goal setting.

But with time,

I feel like I have more,

My,

My,

My identity as a researcher is more,

Is mostly about listening.

Um,

So first,

Um,

I have a lot of investment needs so many years,

Um,

I feel it's very important.

I see it's so important.

Um,

And I feel that this is some sort of a mission that,

Um,

You know,

We do a lot of,

Uh,

We,

We do research in the academia and we try to publish it.

And,

Uh,

But the question is at the end of the day,

Did I really make,

Made an impact?

Did I make an impact,

Um,

Outside of,

Of,

Of this little ivory tower?

So,

Um,

I,

I really want to make an impact,

Um,

Um,

Uh,

About for the community for,

For improving practical,

Like every,

Um,

For,

For,

For people.

So I think this is what keeps me motivated because I,

I have this,

Um,

I have this remedy,

Um,

Which everyone knows about,

But they don't know how powerful it is.

Um,

And I feel that,

Um,

Um,

Major part of my job as a researcher is to communicate this knowledge to the broader public and to,

To make it practical and not to stay,

You know,

In the journals that only academic reads.

So this is,

I think what keeps me motivated.

Great.

Well,

Thank you so much for joining me today,

For sharing all the wonderful things about listening.

I am going to do that exercise myself and,

And I hope I was a good listener.

I really enjoyed our conversation.

Oh,

You're listening.

I talk about listening,

Which is ironic.

Thank you so much,

Guy.

I really appreciate it.

Take care and,

And many,

Many good wishes in your future academic endeavors.

And hopefully I'll connect again when you have interesting studies published.

Happy to.

Thank you,

Annette,

For that.

Take care.

That concludes today's conversation,

My dear listener,

And I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

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