How to Be a Better Listener

Sometimes conversations proceed at a rapid pace, with one partner nearly cutting off the other and finishing their sentences for them. Such conversations can be thrilling, providing the partners with a sense of intimacy, almost as if they were speaking from one mind.

At other times, conversations can be slow. Speakers choose their words carefully, and listeners pause long afterward to formulate their responses. Such conversations can at times be excruciating as we anxiously await our partner’s response.

Being a good listener is an important life skill, whether you’re trying to be an effective leader or just a good friend. But that doesn’t mean you should aim for an exciting, rapid-paced listening style on every occasion. Rather, as Dartmouth College psychologists Emma Templeton and Thalia Wheatley point out in an article that they recently published in the journal Current Opinion in Psychology, good listeners carefully select a “fast” or “slow” listening style as appropriate for the situation.

Listening in Fast Mode

Rapid-fire repartee is an exhilarating experience that can bring conversation partners together in emotional intimacy. In such fast-paced conversations, there’s almost no gap between the end of one turn and the start of the next. Often, the partners overlap each other as the listener finishes what the speaker is saying.

After such a conversation, partners often report feeling closer to each other, and there’s good reason for this. A rapid-paced conversation requires heightened degrees of arousal to maintain high levels of attention. The two partners must also be largely thinking along the same lines so that they can accurately predict what the other is going to say next. Because the partners are so tightly aligned in their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, it’s no wonder that fast-paced dialogue is often perceived as an intimate experience.

Even in one-off exchanges, people generally prefer a rapid response from their listeners. For instance, when people make a request, they interpret a rapid response as a willingness to meet the request. But if the listener hesitates, people generally interpret this as reluctance to comply, almost as if they were trying to think of a way to say no.

However, this doesn’t mean that rapid-response conversation will always bring the conversation partners closer together. For instance, when a couple argues, they leave little gap between turns, and the turns often overlap. But rather than being so in synch that they can predict what their partner is about to say, the two talk over and past one another, pushing their own agenda rather than listening to what the other person has to say.

Listening in Slow Mode

If you find yourself in an argument, a good way to reduce the “temperature” is to slow down your response rate. By pausing to listen to what your partner has to say, they feel heard and become calmer. When you listen to your partner in this moment, you increase your chance of being heard later on.

There are plenty of other situations in which listening in slow mode yields better results. This is especially true when the conversation topic is complex or is likely to elicit unpleasant thoughts or hurt feelings. For instance, if you’re consulting with your doctor, you’d much prefer careful, measured responses to your questions than rapid rejoinders. In this case, the “slow” listening mode indicates that the other person is thinking carefully about what to say next.

A similar situation plays out in the therapist’s office. During counseling, there are often long pauses between turns, and even the turns themselves are frequently punctuated with long silences. The purpose here is to create a safe environment that gives each person time to contemplate what the other has just said and what they want to say next.

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Ironically, this kind of slow listening mode also requires a high degree of attention, just as fast listening does, but it’s directed toward a different purpose. Instead of trying to predict what your partner will say next, you’re showing that you’re carefully considering what they’ve just said. In this way, slow listening can create a sense of emotional intimacy just as fast listening can.

However, the slow listening mode can also break a connection rather than build it. This is particularly true in casual conversations between strangers. In such cases, people expect a quick reply to what they have just said, and if the other person pauses, it’s interpreted as disinterest in continuing the conversation.

Selecting the Right Listening Speed for the Occasion

If you want to get to better know the person you’re talking to, you need to be able to come back with something new to say right away. People with social anxiety worry about saying the “right thing,” and they hesitate during conversations with strangers. But research shows that people in such situations care more about the warmth of what you say than about its content. As long as you say something relatively germane to the topic and positive in tone, your partner will be interested in continuing the conversation with you.

Rather than picking one listening style as default, skilled conversationalists know how to select a fast or slow listening style to suit the situation. The fast mode works well when the content of the conversation matters less than the shared experience. In contrast, the slow mode is more effective when the goal is to reach mutual understanding. In either case, you can build a close personal connection with your conversation partner by being the kind of listener they need in that moment.

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