All the Things you did not know about Listening

Mitchell Skarban
Com 311
Wisconsin Lutheran College

Chapter 1: Gender Differences in

Listening

Introduction
Effective Listening is a very important fundamental element that benefits
everybody. Everybody has his or her own levels of listening effectiveness. This changes
based on gender as well. Men and women are two completely different beings that have
different viewpoints and different ways of listening to each other. Communication
between men and women has always been different and will remain separate.
Understanding that these to beings have different was of listening and communication is
only the first step. Gender differences have been an issue in our world forever. This
chapter will show you how the genders differ in their listening styles and communication
styles.

Gender Differences in Cultures

Males and females perceive the world in different ways from each other. Some
cultures have different sex roles and different responsibilities (Brownell, 353). This
means that something said in one culture could mean something else in another culture.
Some cultures have different meanings for words and different viewpoints on certain
topics. When you are in other cultures you need to be especially careful what you say and
how you say it. As we see in figure 1.1 there are both females and males from all
different cultures. These people needed to learn how to communicate and listen
effectively to each other in order to understand one another. These cultures each have
different stimuli that they may focus on more then other cultures (Brownell, 353). These
people need to take their time in communication and especially listening because it is

vital to understand exactly what they are saying. If you dont understand what they are
saying you need to have them clarify or
you may offend them. Understanding
exactly what the other person is trying to
convey to you is important. If you do not
interpret or do not understand what they
are trying to say it could lead to people
becoming offended.
Differences in genders across

Image 1.1

cultures could also be based on the games and stories that cultures have. From the earliest
years boys and girls have different social experiences. In many cultures boys play
competitive sports while girls play games where everyone gets a turn and winning isnt as
important (Brownell, 353). Gender communication and listening also varies across
cultures because of the different stimuli that are valued or appropriate to certain cultures.
In America for example, the stories I grew up with always seemed to have a girl
as the damsel in distress and a man would come in and save the day. These differences
are sex related stereotypes that we have been told through fairy tales and myths (Borisoff:
Merill, 1991; Marsnik, 1993; DeVoe, 1999, Brownell, 353). These stories are helping
shape our youth today. Many of these kids are growing up with the same stereotypes as
we did. I bet there movies like the ones we have here are in different cultures as well but
we cannot assume that they mean the same thing. We need to try as a society to create a
less gender stereotypical environment.

Verbal Differences in Gender Communication and Listening

Gender differences exist even inside of verbal communication and listening. The
physical dynamics of sound in a male and females voice are different. This is the most
basic difference that you will find between
the genders. We find that when men and
women listen, they do so for different
reasons. They seek different information
from the speaker; men focus on the facts
when women focus on the mood of the
communication (Canary, 1993). Men are
more focused on what is said while females are more

Image 1.2

focused on how it is said. Each gender has its own characteristics when it comes to
communication. Women tend to use significantly more disclaimers, interruptions and
attempted interruptions then men in bargaining situation (Smeltzer, 1986). This only
shows that when fighting women can become different people. Since each gender is
really only seeking one thing it is easier to see why men and women do not communicate
the best at times. If a male is really only listening for the factual information he may miss
some of the hints that his partner is actually saying. As women you may get mad at men
because they dont always pick up on your verbal hints. Men and women differ in how
they state ideas or give hints, men are much more direct about it. Women want you to
really think about what she said and try to figure out what she means.
Each partner needs to figure out a way that they can listen to their partner and
actually hear and understand what they mean. Each partner should learn to communicate

in the style of his or her spouse. For instance, a husband could learn to empathize and tell
his wife that she is right to feel angry, sad or disappointed (Scoresby, 2014). Eventually
when you live with your partner long enough you should be able to pick up on how they
communicate and you should be able to affectively listen to what hey are saying.

Nonverbal Differences in Gender Communication and Listening

Nonverbal communication is one of the most important elements of how people
communicate. When we interact with others, we continuously give and receive wordless
signals. All of our nonverbal behaviors, the gestures we make, the way we sit, how fast or
how loud we talk, how close we stand, how much eye contact we make, send strong
messages. These messages don't stop when you stop speaking either. Even when you're
silent, you're still communicating nonverbally (Segal; Smith; Boose, 2014). This research
shows how much nonverbal communication really is used in every single conversation
that we have. It doesnt even matter if we are speaking we are still sending the speaker
nonverbal signals. Eye contact is a big element and it varies with gender. Women tend to
look away when they are speaking and then make eye contact and smile when they are
listening (Brownell, 355). This makes women seem less confident in what they are saying
if they look away the whole time. It would be hard to keep up with them if they looked
away the whole time.
Touching is something that you should not do unless you are very comfortable
with the other person and they feel the same way. It is inappropriate to touch people on
their heads in almost any circumstance as seen in Image 1.3. Based on the nonverbal in
the image a person can tell that the woman is perfectly happy and comfortable. The man,

on the other hand, is not so thrilled about her touching his head. This is an incident where
the female did not read the males
nonverbal well. Women have been
known to smile more then men. Men
have much more forceful gestures,
like the frown or the just plain mad
look on their faces. Facial
expressions are universal throughout
cultures. The expressions for happy,
sad, angry, surprised, fear and
disgust are universal facial
expressions known through out the world in all

Image 1.3

cultures (Segal, 2014). Sometimes these facial

expressions can be hard to tell apart at times. Especially when a girl smiles at you. This
could mean a few different things and you are going to have to use different nonverbal or
contextual clues to interpret it correctly. Its hard to tell which facial expression conveys
which emotions. A smile could convey anxiety, happiness or also a cue to go on because
they understand (Hall, 2000). Using the other nonverbal and context information you
should be able to figure out what kind of smile it is and if it is positive or negative.
Body movement and posture are some other very important nonverbal that you
need to be aware of to become an effective listener. How you carry yourself and the
subtle little movements you do tell a great deal to the people around you (Segal, 2014).
These small movements that people do can tell somebody how open you are to

communicating. They can also shut down communication all together. If you have bad
posture and your walking around angry nobody is going to want to talk to you. Body
movements, or gestures, happen every day. Gestures that you would see on a typical day
would be waving and using our hands to tell a story or talk (Segal, 2014). Seeing the
nonverbals and understanding what they mean will help us with effective listening
between genders and in the same gender. Interpreting all of the different nonverbal can be
a challenge but many times you should be able to pick up on them if you are being an
effective listener.
Learning how to manage stress better will help you to become a better listener and
also a better communicator overall. Stress compromises your ability to communicate by
possibly making you misread a person or sending off confusing signals (Segal, 2014). If
you go into a conversation stressed out you may cause the other person to become
stressed out too. This will lead to confusing signals going in both directions and nobody
will get anything out of the communication. Managing stress can be pretty simple if you
know how to do it. Taking a deep breath and just trying to relax will help to ease some of
the stress and make the conversation acceptable (Sargent, 2003). Effective listening has a
lot to do with the nonverbal aspect of communication. Learning to read people and what
signals they are putting off will help you better listen and communicate with them.

Effective Cross Gender Listening

Effective cross gender listening is going to be a key component in our
communication both in the workplace as well as the home. Men are still the ones who are

mostly in the boss positions. This makes it tough for female workers to get respect from
their bosses because the men are not effectively listening to them they are only listening
for the major facts in her point. Women fail all the time to get a mans undivided attention
for very long at all (Aries, 2012). This is sad because women have just a valuable say in
business matters as the men do. As bosses in the workplace men need to work on
understanding the communication style of their female employees in order to listen to
them effectively.
The men could help themselves by looking at the nonverbal communication they
are putting off toward the female employees. If they can make their nonverbals fit into
how the females like to talk it would be for the best. It would be in the better interest of
men to have more pauses in their speech because women are not getting a chance to
respond to what the men are saying (Brownell, 357). Communication needs to be a two
way street so that both parties can get the most out of their experience. It doesnt help
anyone if only one person is doing all the talking. Both males and females need to take
turns listening to each other from a viewpoint that will help them understand what each
other is saying (Aries, 2012).
Gender differences in communication and listening are plentiful. The first step is
for males and females to realize that they do indeed think differently from one another.
When this is accomplished then they can start to try and understand each other. Verbal
communication and listening is another huge component because this is how people tell
you what they are actually feeling and can express it with their voices. Nonverbal
communication is almost as big as verbal communication because this is how people
show emotion, for the most part. Adding nonverbal communication to your effective

listening will help you to better interpret and understand what somebody is trying to
communicate to you. The last topic I went through was effective cross gender listening.
People need to try and learn new ways to effectively listen to opposite genders. This is
only going to make us stronger as a nation. Gender and listening is a problem in the
United States but I believe that if we really try and focus our attention on effective
listening it will help us better interpret and understand what each of us is trying to
communicate.

Resources
Aries, Elizabeth. Gender and Communication. Review of Personality and Social
Psychology. 2012. Pg. 149-176
Brownell, Judi. Listening: Attitudes, Principles, and Skills. Pearson Education, Inc.

2013. Pg 353-357.
Canary, D. J. & Hause, K. S. (1993). Is there any reason to research sex differences in
communication? Communication Quaterly, 41, 129-144.
Hall, Judith; Carter, Jason; Hargan, Terrance. Gender Differences in Nonverbal
Communication of Emotion. Cambdrige University Press. 2000. Pg. 74-79
Kayo, Mark. What Type of Conflicts Occur Between Man and Woman. Ehow.com. 2009
Lynn, Scoresby. Smash the Language Barrier: How to Communicate with the Opposite
Gender. 2014.
Sargent, S. L. & Weaver III, J. B. Listening Styles: Sex differences in
Perceptions of Self and others. International Journal of Listening. 2003, p2-18.
Segal, Jeanne; Smith, Melinda; Boose, Greg. Nonverbal Communication. HelpGuide.org.
November 2014.
Smeltzo, Larry; Watson, Kittie. Gender Differences in Verbal Communication During
Negotiations. Communication Resaerch. 1986. Pg. 74-82
Weitz, Shirley. Sex Differences in Nonverbal Communication. Social Research. 1976.