Press Release

02/06/2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Meghan Erickson, merickson9@wisc.edu

RESEARCHERS DISCOVER EMOTIONAL BENEFITS OF VERBAL AND NONVERBAL ACTIVE LISTENING TECHNIQUES

MADISON, Wisconsin, February 4, 2020 - Listening is a part of everyone’s day to day life, whether it is a conversation, or simply saying hello to someone walking by. The one thing that all people hope for when interacting with someone is a response that signals they were listening. Being an active listener sends a reassuring message that you care.

Researcher Graham D. Bodie at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is discovering the emotional improvement an individual experiences when people perform verbal and nonverbal listening behaviors. This empirical research “is important to better understand supportive communication and the coping process” says Associate Professor Bodie.

The findings, supported by a grant from the Wisconsin Board of Regents, contribute to larger efforts on understanding how active listening plays a part in supportive conversations.

Undergraduate students from the Counseling program played the active listener role to ensure adequate variability. In the experiment, participants disclosed distressing events to a research assistant who then told them what event to share with either a trained listener or an untrained listener.

Trained listeners were given a sheet of paper reminding them of different actions such as nodding their head and paraphrasing what they hear back to the student.

The researchers looked at the immediateness of these behaviors. Eye contact, head nods, and vocal pleasantness were higher for those trained. Leaning forward and body orientation was more immediate for those untrained.

The first two hypotheses predicted active listening techniques contribute to conversations as helpful and supportive.

Groups with trained active listeners felt more comfortable and had emotional improvement. It was found that verbal and nonverbal active listening techniques have significant effects on emotional awareness as the result of conversation, yet it did not correlate to solving the problem.

Moreover, verbal communication was shown to be more powerful in creating feelings of support. This research among others indicates that specifically non-generic verbal behaviors, such as paraphrasing, greatly improve the outcome of a supportive conversation.

Examining supportive behaviors is important to understand supportive communication. Future studies can utilize this information to understand the effects of active listening behaviors within closer relationships as well.

Emotional stress and feelings greatly improve when participating in a supportive conversation. The listener must be perceived as helpful, supportive and sensitive, and create an effective change to be successful. These skills have proven to be successful in professional settings, but this research indicates they are also helpful in more casual situations.

You don’t need to be a counselor, social worker, or a therapist to actively listen and signal involvement and awareness to your peers.

READ MORE: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10570314.2014.943429

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-Meghan Erickson, merickson9@wisc.edu

University Communications

University of Wisconsin-Madison