Question 1

Pseudolistening is something that we are all guilty of (at least I would bet on that) to some degree. We know at this point that effective listening is a skill that involves mindfulness, and this type of listening involves those situations where others think we are listening to them because we may be making eye contact and appearing to listen, but we are tuning them out while they are speaking. I have done this before in class when I have anxiety over something else such as a speech I have to give, etc. and everything the Professor says up until that point is "in one ear out the other" because I am not actually listening even though my eyes are on them. Monopolizing is something a friend of mine is great at. This is when the listener always finds a way to turn the subject of the conversation back to their own experience as the focus. Selective Listening is when we are hearing what we want to hear out of communication. Someone might be talking about 6 different things that they believe are important, and the listener may only hear one or two of these things that they find important. Defensive Listening is when people take offense to others communication because of our own defense issues. My mom would do this when she would make dinner growing up by asking us if we liked something, and if we said something like "Yeah this is good, Jessica's mom makes this too" and my mom would hear that as we like the other one better, so she would often respond with something like "You don't really like it do you?"  It turns out that she has always been insecure about her cooking because my grandma has always told her she is not a great cook. I always loved my mom's food. Ambushing is the kind of listening where people have motives of listening well. They are waiting for the opportunity to speak back with an attack on the speaker. They often listen to hear something they are already anticipating to be a reason to get upset with the speaker. Literal Listening when people are listening to someone without having a connection beyond the content. Similar to the example in our text, my employers used literal listening recently when I asked them for an ergonomic assessment for our work station. I have been in a lot of pain, and I have developed carpal tunnel syndrome from the job. When I was explaining to my supervisor that I had been experiencing this pain, and that I was wondering if they could buy some wrist pads for support on the computer, she just replied with "Wow, I am not sure what we would be able to do about that." She didn't say anything in regard to the pain that I have been experiencing or make any comments that made me feel as though she cared about what I was saying. In my communication I am guilty of Pseudolistening in some interactions, and also of selective listening. I plan to fix this buy being mindful of the negative consequences that can happen from both of these types of listening. When I catch myself pseudolistening I will have to focus my attention on the speaker. For selective listening I will have to concentrate on the fact that I am missing out on great conversations that I may have more to relate to simply because I am selecting what I want to hear from them.