Andrea J. Vickery

The Role of “Active Listening” in Informal Helping Conversations: Impact on Perceptions of Listener Helpfulness, Sensitivity, and Supportiveness and Discloser Emotional Improvement

Undergraduate students were randomly assigned to disclose a recent upsetting problem to either a trained active listener (n = 41) or an untrained listener (n = 130). Active listeners were trained to ask open questions, paraphrase content, reflect feelings, and use assumption checking as well as be nonverbally immediate. Verbal and nonverbal active listening behaviors were rated as signaling more emotional awareness and promoting a greater degree of emotional improvement but did not affect perceptions of relational assurance or problem-solving utility. On average, the set of verbal behaviors were more important in the prediction of outcomes compared to the nonverbal behaviors. Results contribute to the larger literature on enacted support, suggesting particular roles for active listening techniques within troubles talk.

Examining the Construct Validity of Enacted Support: A Multitrait–Multimethod Analysis of Three Perspectives for Judging Immediacy and Listening Behaviors

Scholars of supportive communication are primarily concerned with how variations in the quality of enacted support affect individual and relational health and well-being. But who gets to determine what counts as enacted support? There is a large degree of operational heterogeneity for what gets called enacted support, but little attention has been afforded to the issue of whether these assessments are substitutable. In two studies we use self-reports, conversational partner-reports, and third-party ratings of two quintessential behavioral support indicators, namely, listening and immediacy. Using a multitrait–multimethod (MTMM) design, Study 1 found (1) little association between the enacted support assessments and (2) a high degree of common method variance. A second study found moderate-to-high degrees of effective reliability (i.e., consistency of judgments within a set of judgments, or mean judgments) for enacted support evaluations from the perspective of unacquainted and untrained third-party judges. In general, our data provide cautionary evidence that when scholars examine evaluations of enacted support, perspective matters and might ultimately contribute differently to well-being and health.

The Nature of Supportive Listening, I: Exploring the Relation between Supportive Listeners and Supportive People

Supportive listening is recognized as an important element of supportive interactions, yet there is little research on the specific behaviors and characteristics of supportive listeners. Moreover, the terms supportive person and supportive listener are used interchangeably. This study sought 1) to investigate how supportive people and supportive listeners are described and 2) to assess similarities and differences among these categories. To answer our research questions, one group (n = 206) described unsupportive/supportive persons, and a second group (n = 211) described unsupportive/supportive listeners. Thought units from these data were then categorized and compared for similarities between these two types of supportive individuals. Results indicate supportive individuals, both listeners and persons, were described similarly, though several notable differences were identified. In general, the label supportive listening may be best described as a set of behavioral responses, whereas the term supportive person seems to represent a broader, overarching cognitive category used to organize various behaviors which include listening.

The Temporal Stability and Situational Contingency of Active-Empathic Listening

This article presents three studies furthering validity evidence for a self-report measure of active-empathic listening (AEL). Study 1 investigates the temporal stability of the AEL scale, revealing a statistically sound model with no decline in general fit over time, supporting the scales measurement of an individual trait-like difference. Studies 2 and 3 investigate the contribution of trait-level AEL and various characteristics of situations to the utilization of AEL. A general discussion focuses on areas for future research with respect to how AEL might help (or hinder) the development and maintenance of close, personal relationships.

The Roles of Personality and Trait Emotional Intelligence in the Active-Empathic Listening Process: Evidence from Correlational and Regression Analyses

This study presents a multivariate individual difference model to address personality and stable trait associations with active-empathic listening. Participants (N = 394) completed a measure of active-empathic listening, as well measures of emotional intelligence and personality (EPQ). Results indicate moderate, positive associations between emotional intelligence and the AELS, and small, negative associations between psychoticism and the AELS. Regression analyses revealed that emotional intelligence is a predictor of each subscale of the AELS. The discussion section highlights how the current study adds to the growing body of literature on traits and behaviors associated with active-empathic listening. This research was conducted by Michelle E. Pence (M.A., University of Missouri-St. Louis, 2007), a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication Studies and research fellow at The Louisiana State University, and Andrea J. Vickery (M.A., The Louisiana State University, 2012), doctoral student in the Department of Communication Studies, The Louisiana State University.

Patterns of Nonverbal Adaptation in Supportive Interactions

This study seeks initial evidence for the patterns of nonverbal adaptation predictive of emotional improvement after a troubles talk conversation. A total of 128 dyads composed of two unacquainted individuals engaged in a 5-minute conversation about a stressful event, and the nonverbal behaviors of both the supportive listener and discloser were coded for immediacy. We detected a general pattern of matching between interlocutors, which was positively associated with disclosers’ reported emotional improvement above and beyond listener immediacy. Importantly, we found primary support for a discloser-matching model whereby emotional improvement is a function of disclosers matching highly immediate listeners but no support for a listener-matching model whereby emotional improvement is a function of listeners matching disclosers to signal empathy.

Intrapersonal Communication and Listening Goals: An Examination of Attributes and Functions of Imagined Interactions and Active-Empathic Listening Behaviors

Using data from 485 college student participants, this study investigated relations among mental representations of conversations and reported tendencies towards active-empathic listening (AEL). Results showed that low usage of imagined interactions (IIs) for rehearsal and self-understanding and high usage of IIs as compensation were associated with lower reported active-empathic responding. In describing IIs, low levels of proactivity and variety were associated with lower reported AEL processing and responding, suggesting individuals who do not engage in IIs before conversations or imagine a variety of potential conversations to gain understanding do not report engaging in behaviors that act to acknowledge partners in conversation. The primary contribution of these findings is to forward an empirical integration of social cognitive and listening research and theory.

The Daily Use of Imagined Interaction Features

Imagined interactions (IIs) refer to a process of social cognition in which individuals imagine, and therefore, indirectly experience themselves in anticipated and/or past communicative encounters with others. In this manuscript, two groups of participants kept diaries of their daily IIs. In the first study, rehearsal and proactivity were the most frequently reported features. Half of the entries reported only one function for the II. In the second study, catharsis and proactivity were the most frequently reported features, and there were positive associations between the number of II functions and II attributes featured in the diary and the interpersonal cognitive complexity of the participant. The contributions of these findings are discussed in regard to II theory and intrapersonal communication.

Supportive Communication and the Adequate Paraphrase

The active listening paradigm recommends that helpers paraphrase the thoughts and feelings of support seekers. But how? This study compared evaluations of four types of paraphrase messages derived from the work of Polanyi. Results showed that certain forms of paraphrasing are evaluated as more helpful, sensitive, and supportive than others, though differences were not in full alignment with theoretical predictions, and results were dependent on narrative prompt. Our study provides initial empirical data that question the practical advice given to informal help providers found in our academic scholarship and textbooks. Formal and informal helping relationships have many similarities and differences that should be acknowledged and tested with a variety of methods and populations.

“Listening Enables Me to Connect with Others”: Exploring College Students’ (Mediated) Listening Metaphors

Metaphors employ figurative expressions to capture similarities between otherwise separate and distinct objects, events, or processes. The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate what metaphors people use to describe listening and then explore if these metaphors apply to mediated settings. Students (N = 41) first generated listening metaphors and then evaluated and discussed 10 listening metaphors in class-based discussions of listening and mediated listening; these themes are summarized and discussed. Evaluations of listening metaphors in mediated contexts largely depended on the conceptualization of mediated listening presented. Limitations and future directions are discussed for listening metaphors.