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Understanding Listening Styles

Culture and gender affect listening styles

When Fred Rogers first began hosting his children’s show, he intentionally adopted a nonthreatening listening style that put children at ease and helped them feel safe. His listening style reflected his religious practice of contemplative silence, which emphasizes responding empathically to others. While Rogers’s trademark listening style has earned ridicule from some quarters of our popular culture, it proved extremely effective in the context of his show and with his chosen audience.