012 min
How active listening works in Harry Weger's experiment
Harry Weger led a 2014 experiment that tested active listening against two other common ways of replying. The study used 10 trained helpers and 115 participants. Each participant had a conversation with a helper, and the helper replied in one of three ways.
The first way was advice. The helper told the participant what they could do. The second way was a simple acknowledgement. The helper gave a short sign of attention, such as the words I see. The third way was active listening. The helper said the participant's meaning back in different words and named the feeling they thought was under it. The participant could then confirm that meaning or correct it.
The participants who got active listening replies felt more understood than the participants in the other two groups. The participants who got advice were just as satisfied with their conversation, and the gaps in satisfaction were small. Active listening did not make the conversation much more satisfying. It made people feel that the helper had understood them.
Carl Rogers and Richard Farson, who named the method in 1957, described why a reply of this kind works. They said that a message has two parts. One part is the content, meaning the facts. The other part is the feeling or attitude the speaker has about those facts. Advice answers only the facts, and the speaker can hear it as a push to change, so they say less. An acknowledgement shows attention but never tests what the listener took in. An active listening reply answers both parts and gives the speaker a chance to fix a wrong guess.
The helpers in the Weger study learned to reply this way, so active listening is a skill people can be taught. To spot it in any conversation, look at the listener's reply. Active listening is a reply that states the speaker's meaning and feeling, then waits for a yes or a correction.
023 min
How active listening works
Active listening works by replying to the feeling in a message as well as to its content. Suppose a product designer is interviewing a customer who stopped using a reporting feature, and the customer says, Honestly, I just gave up on it. The designer guesses at a fix and says, Was it the export button? We are fixing that next sprint. The customer shrugs and says, Yes, probably that. The notes now record the designer's guess, not the customer's reason. Suppose the customer says the same thing and the designer answers by naming the feeling instead of guessing at a fix. The designer says, You gave up. That sounds tiring. The customer pauses and then explains that every Friday went into a report that their manager never opened. The export button never comes up.
Rogers and Farson, the authors who named the method, explained why the second reply, naming the feeling, works. They said every message has two parts, the content and the feeling or attitude under it. Together these make the total meaning, and the listener tries to understand all of it. The first reply, the guess about the export button, answered the content only. The second reply answered the feeling, and the customer supplied the cause without being asked. Active listening is meant to reduce the difference between what a person says and what the listener takes from it.
Rogers and Farson described three habits that follow:
- Listen for total meaning. Take in what is said and how the person seems to feel about it.
- Respond to feelings. Sometimes the feeling matters more than the content, and a reply to the content alone misses the point.
- Note all cues. Hesitation, tone of voice, volume, facial expression, posture and breathing all carry part of the message.
Listeners turn these habits into a small set of moves:
| Move | What the listener does | A reply from the interview |
|---|---|---|
| Paraphrase | Says the point back in different words | You spent your Fridays on that report. |
| Reflect a feeling | Names the feeling the speaker seems to have | That sounds tiring. |
| Clarify | Asks about something unclear | What did you stop doing when you gave up? |
| Open question | Invites a long answer instead of yes or no | What happened the last time you tried? |
| Summarise | Gives the main points in a few words | So the work was heavy and nobody read it. |
| Short encourager | Makes a brief sound or word that says keep going | I see. |
Eye contact, a relaxed posture and a nod also show attention, but without a reply that checks the meaning they leave the listener guessing, as the designer's guess about the export button did.
032 min
Where active listening comes from
Active listening has known authors and a known date. Carl Rogers and Richard Farson published an article called Active Listening in 1957, through the Industrial Relations Center at the University of Chicago. Rogers was a psychologist who worked in counselling, and the article applied that way of listening to the workplace.
Rogers and Farson's main point was a correction. Many people think of listening as doing nothing, a pause before the real work of replying. The authors argued that listening is active, because a listener who works to understand can change how the speaker sees themselves and other people. They also wrote that active listening does not need long sessions. It is a way of handling the ordinary problems of a working day.
A machinist and a foreman
One of Rogers and Farson's own examples takes place in a factory. A machinist tells a foreman that the lathe setup is finished. A lathe is a machine that turns a piece of metal while a tool cuts it into shape, and a setup is the work of preparing the machine for a job.
Now take two versions of the news. In one, the machinist says only that the setup is finished. In the other, the machinist says they are finally finished with that terrible setup. The two versions give the foreman the same content, but the total meaning is different. The foreman answers the feeling in the message, not the task, for instance by asking whether the machinist is glad to have it over with.
Rogers and Farson point out that answering the feeling does not force the foreman to change the next assignment or to listen to a long complaint. The small extra attention is enough to improve the working relationship.
042 min
Why active listening changes what people say
Rogers and Farson argued that active listening works because ordinary replies to a person with a problem feel like pressure to change.
When someone describes a problem, listeners usually try to move them toward a better view. They argue, reassure, advise or correct. Rogers and Farson said the speaker then has to defend the way they see themselves, and while the atmosphere feels threatening, communication stays poor. Active listening removes the pressure. The speaker can look at their own view and decide how realistic it is.
Advice and judgment make people say less
Advice, information and judgment all read as efforts to change the person, so the person speaks less freely. A product designer who asks a customer that stopped using a reporting feature, Was it the export button?, offers a fix before the customer has described the problem.
Praise limits speech almost as much as criticism
Praise looks safe, but Rogers and Farson found it nearly as limiting as criticism. Telling someone they are capable or right can make it almost as hard for them to speak freely as telling them they are wrong. A positive judgment makes it harder for the person to talk about their faults and doubts.
A question can carry a feeling
Questions and challenges are often feelings in the form of a question. Say an engineer asks in a planning meeting whether the deadline is really fixed. The question may be a request to be heard about a worry, and an answer about the calendar would leave the worry unspoken. Rogers and Farson made this point: the surface question can matter less to the speaker than the feeling under it.
What the experiments add
Researchers have since tested active listening in the laboratory. Itzchakov, Kluger and Castro (2017) expected that being listened to well would lower a speaker's anxiety, reduce defensive thinking, and leave the speaker more aware of contradictions in their own views. Their four experiments gave consistent support, and in the fourth the effect on awareness of contradictions was stronger for people who were more anxious in social situations. A speaker who is listened to well tends to see their own position more fully, which is the reverse of what a speaker who feels attacked does.
People tend to answer in kind
Rogers and Farson also noted that people tend to reply in the same manner they were addressed. Anger is usually met with anger and argument with argument, and listening can be met with listening. A person who listens first sets the pattern for the rest of the conversation.
052 min
What studies find about active listening
Active listening began in counselling and workplace advice, and researchers have since tested it in ordinary settings.
Active listening compared with advice
In a 2014 experiment led by Harry Weger, 10 trained helpers talked with 115 participants and replied with active listening, with advice, or with a simple acknowledgement. Participants who received active listening replies felt more understood than those who received advice or a simple acknowledgement. Participants who received advice were as satisfied with the conversation as those who received active listening, and the differences in satisfaction were small. So listening is not the only reply people like, but it is the one that made them feel understood.
A supervisor's listening and workers' stress
A 2007 study in the Journal of Occupational Health surveyed 41 male supervisors and 203 of their subordinates. The supervisors completed a short form of the Active Listening Attitude Scale. Workers whose supervisors scored higher on listening attitude and listening skill reported more favorable stress reactions than workers whose supervisors scored lower. The data come from one survey, so they show a link and not a cause.
Doctors and the first 23 seconds
Medicine has measured how soon listeners redirect a speaker. Howard Beckman and Richard Frankel reported in 1984 that patients were redirected after about 18 seconds. In 1999 M. Kim Marvel and colleagues checked this on 264 audiotaped visits to 29 family physicians. Patients finished their opening statement of concerns in only 28 percent of the visits. Doctors redirected the patient's opening statement after 23.1 seconds on average, and patients who were allowed to finish used only 6 seconds more than those who were redirected. Waiting for a patient to finish the opening statement cost almost nothing.
062 min
Active listening in interviews and team talks
In a research interview the interviewer has a plan and a list of questions to get through, and active listening means not letting that plan push the participant along. Guidance for user interviews gives practical rules. The Nielsen Norman Group's guide to user interviews tells interviewers not to interrupt or rush participants, because doing so harms rapport.
The Nielsen Norman Group guide lists neutral acknowledgements such as I see, and echoing what the participant has said, among the ways to show that you are listening. It also warns that many leading questions damage the validity of the data. A leading question is one that suggests the answer the interviewer expects.
Stakeholder and team conversations
Active listening is not only for customers. In stakeholder interviews the person across the table is a colleague with a stake in the decision, and a quick guess from the interviewer can end the explanation early. Picture a staff engineer in a planning meeting who hears a product manager say that the date cannot move again. The engineer can defend the estimate, or reply that the last delay seems to have cost the manager something. Only the reply about the cost gives the manager a reason to explain what happened.
Listening for what you expect
A listener has to watch for confirmation bias, the habit of noticing what supports a view you already hold. A designer interviewing customers who already believes the export button is the problem will hear every complaint as proof. Saying the participant's point back and letting them correct it is a cheap test of whether the notes hold the participant's view or the interviewer's.
On a video call
On a video call a nod is small and a silence is hard to read, so the listener says a short acknowledgement aloud. A word such as I see does the work that a nod does in a room.
072 min
How to practise active listening
Active listening can be practised as a short loop, one reply at a time:
- Step 1Let the person finish, and wait a moment after the last word.
- Step 2Say the main point back in your own words.
- Step 3Name the feeling you think you heard, as a guess.
- Step 4Wait for the person to correct it or add to it.
- Step 5Ask one open question that uses their words.
The order matters. A reply that starts with a question skips the steps that check the meaning, and saying the point back with no pause gives the person no time to correct you. Two details help. Offer the feeling as a guess, not a fact. It sounds like that was tiring? leaves room for the speaker to say it was not. And change the words. Rogers and Farson wrote that repeating the speaker's exact words proves only that you heard them. Understanding shows when you can say the meaning differently and the speaker agrees.
A ground rule for heated discussions
Rogers and Farson proposed a ground rule for arguments. Before either person gives their own view, they must restate the other person's view aloud, in their own words, until the other person agrees it is accurate. They suggested trying the rule when a discussion gets heated and then watching how the emotional climate and the quality of the talk change.
What gets in the way
Four habits most often get in the way of active listening. The first is distraction, such as a phone or a second screen. The second is preparing your own reply while the other person is still talking. The third is a strong view of your own, which makes a different one hard to hear. The fourth is the urge to fix the problem, which Rogers and Farson tied to a need to steer other people toward our own view. Taking notes can keep attention on the speaker, but a short keyword is better than a full sentence, because the listener can look up between words. Some guides add short mindfulness exercises to train attention.
Learning the skill
Rogers and Farson called active listening a skill that is not easy to acquire. It demands practice and may require changes in our own basic attitudes. In the 2014 experiment led by Harry Weger, the helpers had been trained to reply with active listening, so the behaviour can be taught.
082 min
Common misunderstandings about active listening
Active listening is easy to copy badly, and Rogers and Farson's 1957 article and later research both say where.
Good listening is more than staying quiet
Zenger and Folkman wrote in 2016 that most people think good listening comes down to not interrupting, following along with facial expressions and repeating back what the speaker said. Not interrupting, following along with facial expressions and repeating back are real parts of active listening. On their own they show attention, but they do not show that the meaning arrived.
Active listening is not agreeing
Rogers and Farson's article says listening can show respect for a person's thoughts even when the listener does not agree with them. A product designer interviewing a customer who stopped using a reporting feature can say that the reports took every Friday, without promising to change anything. Reflecting a feeling states what was heard. It makes no promise.
Active listening is not a set of tricks
Rogers and Farson warned that active listening cannot work as a technique if the listener's attitude does not fit it, because the speaker will notice. A listener who only waits for the speaker to finish is using the words without the method.
Paraphrasing is not the whole method
Many guides teach paraphrasing first, so it is tempting to treat it as the part that does the work. Harry Weger, Gina Castle and Melissa Emmett tested this in 2010 with 180 undergraduate students in peer interviews, who received either a paraphrase or a simple acknowledgement. A paraphrase was linked to the listener seeming more socially attractive, but not to the speaker's satisfaction with the conversation or to feeling understood. A paraphrase alone added little beyond showing attention. The 2014 experiment led by Harry Weger, in which active listening replies made participants feel more understood than advice or a simple acknowledgement, suggests active listening works as a whole. The 2010 and 2014 studies differ in design, so that reading is a judgment and not a measured result.
092 min
Where active listening falls short
Research shows that active listening has limits, and they matter for how it is used at work.
The effect is not the same for everyone
A 2007 survey of 41 male supervisors and 203 of their subordinates found that the effects of a supervisor's listening on workers' stress varied with the subordinates' sex and age. A manager who adopts active listening should not expect the same result from every person on the team.
Who speaks and who listens
Emile Bruneau and Rebecca Saxe (2012) paired people from groups in conflict, and one person in each pair wrote about the difficulties of life in their society while the other summarised it accurately. Attitudes toward the other group improved more for Mexican immigrants and Palestinians after they gave their own perspective, and more for White Americans and Israelis after they summarised the other person's. The authors suggest this may reflect differences in power between the groups. In a meeting where seniority is uneven, the result hints that the junior person may gain most from being heard.
The listener takes a risk
Rogers and Farson wrote that real listening carries a personal risk. A listener who sees the world as the speaker does may end up changing their own view. A listener whose mind is already made up has little to gain, and the speaker is likely to notice.
Local norms differ
How much eye contact, silence or interruption feels respectful can differ between cultures. A habit that signals attention in one place can feel like pressure in another, so the steps for practising active listening are a starting point and not a script.
101 min
Active listening vs nearby concepts
Active listening is close to empathy, rapport and social listening, and each answers a different question.
| Concept | The question it answers | How it relates to active listening |
|---|---|---|
| This pageActive Listening | ||
| PsychologyEmpathy | ||
| PsychologyRapport | ||
| MarketingSocial Listening |
Active listening has other neighbours that need a short note. Passive listening means taking in someone's words without showing or checking what you understood. Many guides treat reflective listening as another name for active listening, and others use it only for the step of saying back what you heard, so check which meaning a writer intends. Guides also sort listening by purpose, such as listening to understand, to judge or to enjoy. Active listening serves the first purpose.
?3 questions
Questions people ask
Is active listening the same as reflective listening?
What should I say if I cannot tell what the person feels?
Can I use active listening on a video call or in a chat?
§10 sources
Sources
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Rogers, C. R., and Farson, R. E. (1957). Active Listening. University of Chicago Industrial Relations Center. Excerpt hosted by Gordon Training International.
Itzchakov, G., Kluger, A. N., and Castro, D. R. (2017). I am aware of my inconsistencies but can tolerate them: The effect of high quality listening on speakers' attitude ambivalence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(1), 105-120.
Weger, H., Castle, G. R., and Emmett, M. C. (2010). Active listening in peer interviews: The influence of message paraphrasing on perceptions of listening skill. International Journal of Listening, 24(1), 34-49.
Weger, H., Castle Bell, G., Minei, E. M., et al. (2014). The relative effectiveness of active listening in initial interactions. International Journal of Listening, 28(1), 13-31.
Mineyama, S., Tsutsumi, A., Takao, S., et al. (2007). Supervisors' attitudes and skills for active listening with regard to working conditions and psychological stress reactions among subordinate workers. Journal of Occupational Health, 49(2).
Marvel, M. K., Epstein, R. M., Flowers, K., and Beckman, H. B. (1999). Soliciting the patient's agenda: Have we improved? JAMA, 281(3), 283-287.
Beckman, H. B., and Frankel, R. M. (1984). The effect of physician behavior on the collection of data. Annals of Internal Medicine, 101(5), 692-696.
Bruneau, E. G., and Saxe, R. (2012). The power of being heard: The benefits of perspective-giving in the context of intergroup conflict. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 855-866.
Nielsen Norman Group. User Interviews 101.
Zenger, J., and Folkman, J. (2016). What great listeners actually do. Harvard Business Review, 14 July 2016.
