The Factors That Affect Listening

THE FACTORS THAT AFFECT LISTENING
When you think of what is involved in the process of listening most people think that it involves just spoken words and how those words are interpreted. But actually listening is more than just merely hearing words; the actual process of listening has many different factors that are involved. I’m going to summarize the ten most common factors that can affect the human listening process. The first factor that affects listening is culture. Culture is a factor that has affected almost everyone in today society. People from different cultural backgrounds often have a hard time understanding and communicating with each other’s. Many cross-cultural encounters are hard for each side to interpret because much of the misunderstanding between people can be traced to problems in listening. Gender is the second factor that affects listening. It affects how women and men listen differently. It is said that women hear more of the message actually how it is, where a men will reconstruct a message to say what they want it to. The third factor that affects listening is age. When a person gets older, their hearing will deteriorate and there will an increase difficulty for a person to receive messages. Attitudes are the fourth factor; a positive listening attitude and being open minded is a critical part of effective listening. The fifth factor that is known to affect listening is Hemispheric Specialization (brain). This factor shows how people listen different based on which side of the brain hemisphere is the dominant. Physical and Psychological state of a person is factor six. A person’s physical psychological state can have a profound influence on the way the person is listening. When a person has a physical or mental condition active listening can be interrupted. Factor seven is self-concept, a person who is positive and is not insecure about them self will be more willing to listen and accept a message that is being received. Factor