To speak or Listen? Taking a second look at our attitudes toward listening.
We are often given the choice to speak or listen in our daily communication. However, many people hold an implicit definition of listening that likely alters this decision. Due to this implicit idea people hold, there is a common idea that speaking is better suited for situations where any form of persuasion or debate is involved. Through our study, we set out to test if this is indeed a phenomenon. By using a questionnaire with varying situations, we hope to get a clearer picture on what exactly this implicit definition looks like.
We believe that in contrast to this implicit definition, listening is actually better suited than speaking in many situations that involve persuasion or debate. We plan on surveying a number of debate judges and asking if it was the better speakers, or the better listeners that won the given debate. We believe that the common consensus among judges will be that the better listeners won the debate.
Using these two sets of data, we hope to explore and explain the role of listening in communication.
COMM 370, Listening Behavior
Doyle Srader
Banquet Room
1:00 – 3:00 PM