The Relative Effectiveness of Active Listening in Initial Interactions

TLDR

Active listening is a key communication skill, yet few studies compare partners’ perceptions of it with other listening styles. The experiment involved 115 participants interacting with 10 confederates who delivered either active listening, advice, or simple acknowledgements. Participants who received active listening reported feeling more understood than those who received advice or simple acknowledgements, and while both active listening and advice increased conversational satisfaction and perceived social attractiveness relative to simple acknowledgements, there was no significant difference between active listening and advice.

Abstract

Although active listening is considered an important communication skill in a variety of occupational and therapeutic fields, few experiments compare dyadic partners' perceptions of active listening with other types of listening responses. This study involves 115 participants engaged in interactions with 10 confederates trained to respond with active listening messages, advice, or simple acknowledgements. Results indicate that participants who received active listening responses felt more understood than participants who received either advice or simple acknowledgements. Further, participants who received either active listening responses or advice were more satisfied with their conversation and perceived the confederate to be more socially attractive than participants who received simple acknowledgements, although the effect sizes for these differences were small. Conversational satisfaction and social attractiveness did not differ between participants receiving active listening responses and participants receiving advice, however.