“Andrew? Andrew? … Hello?” Shockingly, I received no response. He was looking directly at the TV during our entire conversation and I could have sworn he was listening by the way he kept nodding his head as I spoke, but clearly he wasn’t.

Andrew is my roommate of three years, who has a terrible habit of pseudo-listening. Pseudo-listening is ineffective listening behavior where an individual appears to be listening to what a speaker is saying but is actually not attending to their words (McCornack, 2009). Almost every conversation I have with Andrew that occurs after 10PM eventually gets interrupted by him using this type of listening. He blames it on being tired most of the time, which is a common reason given for pseudo-listening, but I always interpret the act as disrespectful.  I remember one occurrence of his pseudo-listening that occurred this past April. It was half past ten at night and Andrew and I were in his room watching “How I Met Your Mother” on Netflix. While watching we were discussing our upcoming schedule; it was finals week and we both had a lot going on. I was very stressed about the final I had on that Thursday in SCOM 245 because how well I did on the test was going to determine if I was admitted in the School of Communications or not. “I have enough time to prepare for it, but I’m nervous that I won’t get the grade I need,” I said hoping to receive some sort of support in return. “You’ve done well on your previous two exams in this class dude. I think you’ll be just fine,” Andrew said back. Happy with his response and fact that he was focused I started to tell him about he topics that were going to be on the final. “I know all the information from the chapters, but in class he described the power of definition differently than the book did and I don’t want to get confused between his interpretation and the books,” I said. Andrew nodded along and I continued to tell him the differences between the two. As I was explaining I noticed his head nodding was patterned. He was just nodding at every pause in my speech regardless of what I had said before it. So I said “Actually it would make more sense if you just took this final for me,” to make sure he was still with me. Unfortunately, I found out he wasn’t. He just nodded along to the suggestion. Next, I screamed “Andrew WAKE UP!” He responded in saying “Sorry, I did it again.” He knew that he had fallen victim to his horrible habit of pseudo-listening once again.

This story shows how pseudo-listening can be deceptive. By continuing to give nonverbal regulators Andrew made me believe he was attending to my words when he was not. Continual use of regulators is common when pseudo-listening and McCornack says the deceptiveness it causes makes pseudo-listening unethical, which is a quality that she links with ineffective listening (McCornack, 2009). In order to be an effective listener and speaker it’s important to always be appropriate, effective and ethical in all interactions.

Andrew’s use of pseudo-listening is an example of one type ineffective listening. I view it as the most annoying type because of how often I have to deal with it and the fact that it is deceptive. What are some other types of ineffective listening? Which have you dealt with when talking with family or friends?

 

McCornack, S. (2009). Reflect and relate: An introduction to interpersonal communication. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.