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Adapting Your Listening Purpose

The five functions that listening commonly serves are not mutually exclusive. We change between them frequently and fluidly. You might change your purpose for listening even within the same encounter. For example, you’re listening with appreciation at a concert when suddenly you realize one of the musicians is out of tune. You might shift to discerning listening (trying to isolate that particular instrument from the others) and ultimately to listening to analyze (trying to assess whether you are in fact correct about its being out of tune). If the musician happens to be a friend of yours, you might even switch to supportive listening following the event, as she openly laments her disastrous performance!

An essential part of active listening is skillfully and flexibly adapting your listening purposes to the changing demands of interpersonal encounters (Bunkers, 2010). To strengthen your ability to adapt your listening purpose, heighten your awareness of the various possible listening functions during your interpersonal encounters. Routinely ask yourself, “What is my primary purpose for listening at this moment, in this situation? Do I want to comprehend, discern, analyze, appreciate, or support?” Then adjust your listening accordingly. As you do this, keep in mind that for some situations, certain approaches to listening may be inappropriate or even unethical, like listening to analyze when a relational partner is seeking emotional support.