2015 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Active Listening Can Make Other People Better Communicators Too
Authors : Tim Baker, Aubrey Warren
Published in: Conversations at Work
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
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The University of Massachusetts conducted an experiment in which they trained six students in “attending skills” — such as an interested posture and eye contact. Then they recorded a lecture the students attended with a visiting professor. The students were told to adopt typical non-attending student behaviors at the beginning of the lecture. The professor lectured from his notes, spoke in a monotone and paid little attention to the students. According to Ivey and Hinkle, “At a prearranged signal, however, the students began deliberately to physically attend. Within half a minute, the lecturer gestured for the first time, his verbal rate increased, and a lively classroom session was born. Simple attending had changed the whole picture. At another signal, the students stopped attending, and the speaker, after awkwardly seeking continued response, resumed the un-engaging lecture with which he began the class.”1