Chapter 7 Listening in Groups

Active Listening

You’ve probably experienced the odd sensation of driving somewhere and, having arrived, have realized you don’t remember driving. Your mind may have been filled with other issues and you drove on autopilot. It’s dangerous when you drive, and it is dangerous in communication. Choosing to listen or read attentively takes effort. People communicate with words, expressions, and even in silence, and your attention to them will make you a better communicator. From discussions on improving customer service to retaining customers in challenging economic times, the importance of listening comes up frequently as a success strategy.

Here are some tips to facilitate active listening:

• Maintain eye contact with the speaker
• Don’t interrupt
• Focus your attention on the message, not your own internal monologue
• Restate the message in your own words and ask if you understood correctly
• Ask clarifying questions to communicate interest and gain insight

When the Going Gets Tough

Our previous tips will serve you well in daily interactions, but suppose you have an especially difficult subject to discuss. In a difficult situation like this, it is worth taking extra effort to create an environment and context that will facilitate positive communication.

Here are some tips that may be helpful:

• Special time. To have the difficult conversation, set aside a special time when you will not be disturbed. Close the door and turn off the TV, music player, and instant messaging client.
• Don’t interrupt. Keep silence while you let the other person “speak their piece.” Make an effort to understand and digest the news without mental interruptions.
• Non-judgmental. Receive the message without judgment or criticism. Set aside your opinions, attitudes, and beliefs.
• Acceptance. Be open to the message being communicated, realizing that acceptance does not necessarily mean you agree with what is being said.
• Take turns. Wait until it is your turn to respond, then measure your response in proportion to the message that was delivered to you. Reciprocal turn-taking allows each person have their say.
• Acknowledge. Let the other person know that you have listened to the message or read it attentively.
• Understanding. Be certain that you understand what your partner is saying. If you don’t understand, ask for clarification. Restate the message in your own words.
• Keep your cool. Speak your truth without blaming. Use “I” statements (e.g., “I felt concerned when I learned that my department is going to have a layoff”) rather than “you” statements (e.g., “You want to get rid of some of our best people”).

Finally, recognize that mutual respect and understanding are built one conversation at a time. Trust is difficult to gain and easy to lose. Be patient and keep the channels of communication open, as a solution may develop slowly over the course of many small interactions. Recognize that it is more valuable to maintain the relationship over the long term than to “win” in an individual transaction.

Preferences, Purposes, and Types of Listening

People speak for various reasons and with various goals in mind. Likewise, the ways we listen vary according to our preferences and purposes. Several theorists have identified types of listening which can help us understand our own behavior and that of others.

Galanes and AdamsGalanes, G., & Adams, K. (2013). Effective group discussion: Theory and practice. New York: McGraw-Hill. wrote that people fall into four possible orientation categories as they listen to one another in groups. People-oriented listenersListening directed toward detecting and preserving positive emotional features of a relationship., also known as “relational listeners,” direct themselves toward detecting and preserving positive emotional features of a relationship. For instance, best friends are probably people who practice nonjudgmental listening in an effort to understand and support each other. In a group, people-oriented listeners may share their feelings openly and strive to defuse anger or frustration on the part of other members.

Action-oriented listenersListening which focuses on accomplishing group tasks., by comparison, prefer to focus on tasks that they and their fellow communicators have set for themselves. (Think back to chapter 1, where we differentiated between the “task” and “relationship” sides of group interaction). Action-oriented listeners will generally retain and share details and information which they believe will keep a group moving.

Content-oriented listenersListening directed toward specifics and factual elements of a discussion. are those who care particularly about the specifics of a group’s discussions. They tend to seek, provide, and analyze information that has been gathered through research. What they primarily choose to hear and to share with others, thus, is material that they consider to be factual.

Time-oriented listenersListening directed toward schedules, deadlines, and other time-bound features of a group. concern themselves above all with how a group’s activities fit into a calendar or schedule. They may listen and watch especially for signs that other group members want to accelerate the pace of the group’s activities. Their preference is usually for short, concise messages rather than extended ones.

In the real world, few people fit neatly and completely into a single category within Galanes and Adams’s typology of listeners. Instead, each of us embodies a mixture of the four preferences depending on the topic a group is dealing with, the developmental stage of the group, and other factors.

Like Galanes and Adams, Waldeck, Kearney, and PlaxWaldeck, J. H., Kearney, P., & Plax, T. (2013). Business & professional communication in a digital age. Boston: Wadsworth. proposed four purposes which they believe people have in mind as they listen to others. First, we may want to acquire information. Students listening to class lectures are pursuing this purpose. Second, we may listen in order to screen and evaluate what we hear. For instance, we may have the radio on continuously but listen especially for and to stories and comments which are relevant to our work or study. Third, we may listen recreationally, to relax and enjoy ourselves. Perhaps we listen to music or watch and listen to video images on a mobile device, or we might attend a concert of music we enjoy. Finally, just as Galanes and Adams indicated, we may listen because it helps other people or ourselves from the standpoint of our relationships. When we listen attentively to friends, classmates, or work colleagues, we demonstrate our interest in them and thereby develop positive feelings in them about us.

Beebe and MastersonBeebe, S.A., & Masterson, J.T. (2006). Communicating in small groups; Principles and practices (8^th ed.). Boston: Pearson. cited Allan Glatthorn and Herbert AdamsGlatthorn, A.A., & Adams, H.R. (1984). Listening your way to management success. (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman). as identifying the following three types of listening:

Type one: hearing. This is the simple physical act of having sound waves enter our ears and be transmitted into neural impulses sent to our brain. In 1965, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel sang in “The Sound of Silence” about “people hearing but not listening,” and this is really what Glatthorn and Adams were referring to.

Type two: analyzing. Beyond simply receiving sound waves, listeners may employ critical judgment to ascertain the purpose behind a speaker’s message(s). In so doing, they may consider not only the content of the message, but also its stated and unstated intent, its context, and what kind of persuasive strategy the speaker may be using it as part of.

KellyKelly, M.S. (2006). Communication @ work: Ethical, effective, and expressive communication in the workplace. Boston: Pearson. offered a helpful elaboration on this type of listening. She suggested that “analyzing” may also involve discriminating—that is, distinguishing—between information and propaganda, research and personal experience, official business and small talk, and simple information and material which requires a listener to take action.

Type three: empathizing. Empathizing requires that a listener not only discern a speaker’s intention, but also withhold judgment about that person and see things from his or her perspective. Once this is accomplished, it may be possible to respond to the speaker with acceptance.

The Listening Process

Even though listening is a natural human process, and one in which we spend most of our communication time, it may not occur to us how complex the activity really is. Many authorities have proposed models which comprise what they consider to be steps in the process. We’ll consider one such model.

Engleberg & WynnEngleberg, I.N., & Wynn, D. R. (2013). Working in groups (6^th ed.). Boston: Pearson. described the HURIER modelA model of the listening process comprising hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating, and responding., an acronym developed by Judi Brownell. Brownell, J. (2010). Listening: Attitudes, principles, and skills (4^th ed.). Boston: Pearson Allyn & Bacon. That model proposed that, in listening, people first hear; then understand; next interpret (including the emotional grounds/status of the speaker); evaluate (including whether the message is meant to persuade, and if so whether it should do so); remember; and finally respond. Among the strengths of this model for application to group settings are that its steps take a group’s goals into account and that it recognizes both the task and relationship elements of communication.

Foundations for Good Listening

Each of us can probably think of a few people whom we consider to be outstanding listeners. What makes them that way, and what attitudes and behaviors do they display in their listening that we most appreciate? Let’s consider some answers that various theorists have offered concerning the strengths of good listeners.

First, the famous educator and philosopher John DeweyDewey, J. (1944). Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan. exhorted people to show what he called “intellectual hospitalityJohn Dewey’s term for an active disposition to welcome new viewpoints..” By this, he meant “an active disposition to welcome points of view hitherto alien.” If a person is willing to entertain perspectives outside his or her previous experience, listening can proceed on favorable ground.

Objectivity represents a related initial ingredient in good listening. As RohlanderRohlander, D.G. (2000, February). The well-rounded IE. IIE Solutions, 32 (2), 22. wrote, people should be prepared to weigh facts and emotional elements in their listening “on imaginary balanced scales.”

Stewart and ThomasStewart, J., & Thomas, M. (1990). Dialogic listening: Sculpting mutual meanings. In J. Stewart (Ed.), Bridges not walls (5^th ed.) (pp. 192–210). New York: McGraw-Hill. coined the term “dialogic listeningStewart and Thomas’s name for ideal listening behavior, including four active, empathetic qualities.” to identify what they considered to be ideal listening behavior. They characterized dialogic listeners in these ways:

1. They are “deeply in” the transaction with those with whom they communicate.
2. They deal with present topics and concerns.
3. They consider the speaking and listening process to be a shared enterprise—“ours” rather than “yours” or “mine.”
4. They see speaking and listening as being open-ended and playful.

Whatever models they propose, and whatever vocabulary they use, all the authorities who write about listening share the belief that listening needs to be active rather than passive. We’ll provide specific steps later in this chapter for how to engage in active, positive listening.

Negative Kinds of Listening

Now for some unfortunate news. There is a rich array of ways to be a bad listener.

Adler and TowneAdler, R.B., & Towne, N. (2002). Looking out/looking in (10^th ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. named and described several of these ways. The first is pseudo-listeningAppearing to be listening but not really doing so.. You’ve seen this many times in your own life, and probably you’ve even done it. It’s the act of seeming to be listening while your mind is actually somewhere else. When you’re pseudo-listening, you may nod your head and emit periodic sounds of approval, just as you would if you were really paying attention, but those actions are for show.

Then there’s “stage-hoggingAlso known as disruptive listening. Attending only minimally and butting in persistently to insert views or express needs.,” also known as “disruptive listening.” This is an active behavior—but the action isn’t good, since the listener attends only minimally to what the other person is saying and butts in persistently and repeatedly to insert views or express needs of his or her own.

The first panel of a “Far Side” cartoon by Gary Larson shows a man scolding his dog. He starts out by saying, “Okay, Ginger” and then goes on at length. Once or twice more in the harangue the man says Ginger’s name. In the second panel, the “speech balloon” of the master is altered to show what the dog hears: “Blah blah Ginger. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah…” In this case, the fact that Ginger is a dog means that she can only detect the sound of her own name in her master’s speech. Selective listeningListening only to the parts of someone else’s communication that are personally important to the listener. among human beings, on the other hand, consists in listening only to the parts of someone else’s communication that are personally important to us—even though we could certainly understand and respond to the rest of it if we chose to.

Insulated listeningTaking in a responding to everything the speaker says except what’s unpleasant to the listener. is, in a way, the reverse of selective listening. In this self-protective behavior, the listener takes in and responds actively to everything the speaker says except what’s unpleasant to him or her.

Defensive listeningInterpreting much or most of another person’s statements as personal attacks. is performed by a person when he or she interprets much or most of another person’s statements as being personal attacks. A defensive listener is apt to ignore, exclude, or fail to accurately interpret parts of a speaker’s comments.

Face-value listeningPaying considerable attention to terminology in a speaker’s message but little attention to intentions or feelings. can be described as aural nitpicking. That is to say, the face-value listener pays a great deal of attention to the terminology of someone else’s message and very little to the person’s intentions or feelings.

Davis, Paleg, & FanningDavis, M., Paleg, K., & Fanning, P. (2004). How to communicate workbook; Powerful strategies for effective communication at work and home. New York: MJF Books. identified three further ways to be a bad listener: rehearsing, identifying, and sparring. Rehearsing is the practice of planning a response to another person’s message while the message is still being delivered. Identifying takes place when a large portion of a speaker’s message triggers memories of the listener’s own experiences and makes the listener want to dive into a story of his or her own. Finally, a listener who engages in sparring attends to messages only long enough to find something to disagree with and then jabs back and forth with the speaker argumentatively.

Challenges of Listening in a Group

Although all of us get practice at it for years as students and eventually as employees, listening in a group isn’t easy. It presents more of a challenge to each member, in fact, than does listening to one other person at a time. Why? We’ll consider seven reasons, all of which stem from the inherent differences between groups and pairs of people.

First, in a typical one-on-one conversation you’re probably going to listen about 50% of the time, right? Compare that to your participation in a group, in which you’re likely to spend between 65% and 90% of your time listening.Steil, L.K. (1997). Listening training: The key to success in today’s organizations. In M. Purdy & D. Borisoff (Eds.), Listening in everyday life (pp. 213–237). Landham, MD: University Press of America. If you listen with the same depth of energy and concentration in the group that you do with a single conversation partner, you’re going to get tired out a lot more quickly.

Second, unless you know each of the other members of a group very well, you may not adequately gauge their knowledge and perspectives on a given topic before it’s discussed. This may make you less likely to be receptive and responsive to their views on a topic, especially a contentious one. You may also have to work harder to understand their viewpoints.

Third, it may be difficult to keep up with changing levels of engagement on the part of other members of your group. People’s attention and involvement may fluctuate because they’re anxious about the circumstances of a discussion, about a particular message that’s being sent, or even about extraneous factors in their lives that come to mind. At some moments in a group’s activities, everyone may be attentive and actively involved; at others, they come and go both mentally and physically. Because all the members are rarely simultaneously “firing on all cylinders,” you’ll need to work particularly hard to distinguish between vital messages and routine, mundane, or irrelevant ones.

Fourth, in a group you have less of an opportunity to influence others’ thoughts and actions than you do in one-on-one communication. Deciding when to cease listening and interject your viewpoints so that they’ll be most likely to be received positively by the largest possible proportion of group members is hard, especially if conversation is fast and free-wheeling.

Fifth, listening for long periods prevents you from releasing some of your own energy. Because you speak less in a group than in a one-on-one conversation, this build-up of energy may frustrate you and interfere with your ability to process what other people are saying.

Sixth, in a group you have lots of time to daydream. People talk at about 100–150 words per minute, but your mind can process information at up to 600 words a minute.Wolvin, A., & Coakley, C.G. Listening (3^rd ed.). Dubuque, IA: 1988. You may not be compelled or feel a need to listen actively all the time that a group is interacting, nor do you have to worry about other people’s assessment of your behavior if you’re not the one speaking at a particular time. Thus, you’ll be able to fill in the gap between other people’s talking speed and your own thinking speed with thoughts of your choice…or with thoughts that just float into and out of your consciousness. You may even be tempted to surreptitiously glance at reading material unrelated to the group’s activities, or to send or receive text messages.

Seventh, it may be harder to listen in a group because of the existence of social loafingThe tendency for each member of a group to devote less energy to a task than she or he would alone because it’s possible to let others take responsibility for getting things done.. This is the tendency for each member to devote less energy to a task than she or he would alone because it’s possible to let others take responsibility for getting things done.

Advantages to Listening in a Group

Now that we’ve reviewed some of its challenges and pitfalls, we should note that listening in a group offers potential benefits as well. Let’s consider two major kinds.

The first big advantage to listening in a group is that it embodies the possibility of taking one of the characteristics that we earlier said could be used negatively—i.e., that you have time and opportunity to think about and react to what you hear—and using it in a positive way. Rather than using that surplus time to daydream or plan a rebuttal to other group members’ messages, you can try in your mind to empathetically interpret the messages and decide whether and how to respond in ways that promote the well-being of the speakers and the whole group. Here’s an illustration with a cross-cultural dimension (and with the person’s name changed):

Yukio Sakai was a young Japanese man enrolled in a college public speaking class. Whatever went on in class, Yukio watched and listened raptly…and silently. Often the instructor posed open-ended questions to the group as a whole, such as, “What do you think John did well in his persuasive speech?” When such questions were posed, almost anyone in class except Yukio would pipe up with an opinion. To a casual observer, Yukio would seem to be “just sitting there.”

If the instructor directly asked Yukio one of the questions, however, what usually happened was that he replied without the slightest hesitation. Furthermore, his answers conveyed insight, sound reasoning, and common sense. It would have been a mistake to take his apparent lack of activity at any given moment as a sign of incapacity.

As we discovered earlier in our chapter on intercultural and international group communication, someone from a high power distance culture such as Japan’s may not outwardly react to messages from an authority figure such as a college instructor. What appears to be the person’s inert passivity, however, could actually be thoughtful analysis and reflection. (Of course, you don’t have to be Japanese to practice those good habits).

The second advantage to listening in groups is a product of the fact that there will always be more diverse perspectives and more interaction in a group than in a dyad. People can be fascinating, can’t they? And many times the product of discussion among different people, with their different backgrounds and values, is something entirely unexpected. What this means, if you’re a curious person at all, is that you should find lots to keep you entertained and educated as you listen to people in a group setting.

Listening in Digital Groups

As we mentioned earlier, digital groups can communicate either synchronously or asynchronously; that is, in real time or with delays between messages. If you use synchronous tools, such as Skype or some other form of audio or video conferencing, the same challenges and advantages apply to digital groups that we’ve already presented. The only difference may be that you and the other group participants aren’t physically in the same place.

On the other hand, group members who exchange oral messages asynchronously may confront more intense pros and cons.Davis, M., Paleg, K., & Fanning, P. (2004). How to communicate workbook; Powerful strategies for effective communication at work and home. New York: MJF Books. The good news is that you’ll have even more time than in a face-to-face group discussion to review and think about messages before reacting to them, which may yield wiser and calmer responses. The bad news is that the freshness and spontaneity of listening to each other’s comments in real time will be lost, which could tend to homogenize people’s attitudes and make it less likely for “aha moments” to take place.

Furthermore, if other group members can’t actually see you when you’re communicating, you may feign attentiveness or behave in unorthodox ways. One of the authors remembers being part of a group that was conducting a phone interview with a candidate for a job at a university many years ago. When the person in charge of the interview started the exchange by saying, “We know it may be uncomfortable for you to have to do an interview without being able to see us,” one of the candidates said, “That’s all right. I’m sitting here on my couch naked, anyway.”

First Things First

In the last few sections we’ve established that listening is a vital skill in groups. Now let’s review two fundamental points before we discuss specific steps for doing it well.

The first point is that before you can listen, you have to stop talking. This might seem self-evident, but in a culture like that of the United States, in which talking is highly valued, we may tend to overlook it.

The second point, though less obvious, is just as important. It is that both senders and receivers—both speakers and listeners—are responsible for effective listening. Listening actually transcends the mere reception of messages by listeners and imposes obligations on both senders and receivers in what Waldeck, Kearney, and PlaxWaldeck, J. H., Kearney, P., & Plax, T. (2013). Business & professional communication in a digital age. Boston: Wadsworth. called “sender-receiver reciprocityThe mutual obligation of speakers and listeners to create and understand meaning together..”

Senders should choose their messages according to the context or occasion. Furthermore, they should consider what media they will use to communicate them—for instance, face-to-face interaction or synchronous or asynchronous transmissions—and be mindful of the implications of their selection.

Image from http://www.public-domain-image.com

For their part, receivers must make an effort to listen, be prepared to provide feedback, and manage their responses to ensure relevance and civility. They should also practice what Beebe, Beebe, and IvyBeebe, S.A., Beebe, S.J., & Ivy, D.K. (2007). Communication: Principles for a lifetime (3^rd ed.). Boston: Pearson. labeled “social decenteringThe act of stepping away from one’s own thoughts in order to try to experience the thoughts of others.”—i.e., “stepping away from your own thoughts and attempting to experience the thoughts of others.”

The Physical Side of Listening

As we’ve already pointed out, good listening is an active process. As such, it requires energy. In fact, listening is work—and not just mental work, either. To do the work of listening, which generally consumes the majority of your time whenever you interact with a group, you should be sure you’re physically primed and ready to go. To confirm that your body is really prepared for high-quality listening, you should first check your posture. Assuming that you’re seated, sit up straight and lean slightly forward. Not only does good posture allow you to remain relaxed and alert, but it makes it more likely that other people will see you as competent and confident.Burgoon, J.K., & Saine, T.J. (1978). The unspoken dialogue: An introduction to nonverbal communication. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Next, notice your breathing. Be sure you’re inhaling and exhaling deeply. Also, identify any aches or pains that may interfere with your ability to take in other people’s messages. See if you can shift into a position which will allow you to remain comfortable and attentive throughout the communication process.

Listening Itself

All right. Let’s say the members of your group have physically and mentally readied themselves to listen, and you’ve begun a discussion. What do you need to do as the process unfolds? Here are some important dos and don’ts:

In listening, do…

1. Determine your purpose in listening, and keep it in mind. Thinking back to earlier in this chapter, are you listening to acquire information, to evaluate messages, to relax and enjoy ourselves, or to demonstrate empathy?
2. Identify the levels at which group members are communicating their messages—e.g., emotional, political, or intellectual.
3. Assess the relative significance of people’s comments and listen for main ideas rather than trying to take in everything on an equal plane. To help you do this, you may want from time to time to mentally summarize the message(s) you’re listening to.
4. When possible and appropriate, urge other members of the group to speak, especially those who are less dominant. Say things like “Please go on”; “Tell me more”; “Care to expand on that?” Remember that each person has a unique perspective that can add to the group’s ability to consider ideas and make decisions.
5. “Listen with your eyes.” Observe people’s body language and other nonverbal cues carefully, since those physical manifestations may add to or sometimes contradict their spoken words.
6. Show interest in others’ messages through your own nonverbal actions. Establish and maintain eye contact. Smile. Adopt an open posture. Avoid fidgeting or slouching.
7. Use “interactive questioningOpen-minded, open-ended questioning which serves to enhance mutual understanding among group members.”.Lumsden, G., & Lumsden, D. (2004). Communicating in groups and teams; Sharing leadership (4^th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson. Ask open-minded and open-ended questions to clarify ideas & information; to probe a speaker’s reasoning and evidence; and to expand incomplete information. Use and ask for examples so that the speaker can connect your questions with his or her own world of experiences.
8. Use tentative clarifying/confirming statements: e.g., “It sounds like…”; “You seem to think that…”; “As I get it, you…”
9. Make polite, “targeted” interruptionsLumsden, G., & Lumsden, D. (2004). Communicating in groups and teams; Sharing leadership (4^th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson. to get answers to pressing questions, or if you’d like establish your place in line to speak next. Be judicious and infrequent with interruptions, however.
10. Paraphrase. Don’t just see if you can accurately reflect what a person is saying; see if you can determine if your understanding of the person’s “inner world” is accurate and whether you see things as the other person is experiencing them at the moment.
11. Respond after listening, sincerely and constructively. Focus on content, ideas, & analysis rather than on personal matters.
12. Allow for, and be careful how you interpret, silence. Keep in mind that people may have many reasons, positive or otherwise, for not speaking at a particular time.

In listening, don’t…

1. Let listening be a dead end, in which you receive messages and don’t react at all.
2. Allow the listening behavior of others to sway your own. If they’re inattentive, don’t lose your own focus; if they’re especially positive or negative, don’t lose your objectivity or critical ability.
3. Cut off or put down a speaker.
4. Interrupt excessively.
5. Pose “counterfeit questionsA belligerent statement which appears superficially to be a question because its end with a question mark.”—belligerent statements masquerading as questions simply because they end with question marks.
6. Allow the tone of someone’s message, or how agreeable you find the person to be, to color your interpretation or reactions to it.
7. Express your interpretations of other people’s messages excessively. Why not? First of all, your interpretation may be wrong. Second, even if you’re right, you may arouse a defensive reaction that in turn leads to unproductive argumentation.

No matter how often you listen to people, and no matter how many groups you may be part of, each new listening situation will be unique. It’s your responsibility, shared with your fellow group members, to see that in each new conversation or discussion you exercise proper practices and skills in your listening.

Key Takeaway

To listen well in a group, it’s important to prepare properly and heed several dos and don’ts.

Exercises

1. Observe a televised, recorded, or live group discussion. Identify the listening processes which furthered understanding and those which impeded it. What suggestions would you make to the members of the group to improve their listening? Which person in the discussion listened most effectively, and how did she or he accomplish that?
2. Visit the website of the International Listening Association (http://www.listen.org) and read an article in one of the Association’s online publications. What discoveries did you make in your reading? How will you apply the discoveries to your future group interactions?
3. Who’s the best listener you know? What does the person do (or not do) that makes him/her so effective? Give an example of how the person has listened well.

Additional Resources

Explore the website of the National Association for Self-Esteem. http://www.self-esteem-nase.org/

Forum Network offers a wealth of audio and video files of speeches on various topics. Listen to a lecture titled “Selective Attention: Neuroscience and the Art Museum” by Barbara Stafford, Professor of Art History, University of Chicago. http://forum-network.org/lecture/selective-attention-neuroscience-and-art-museum

Explore the website of the journal Perception. http://www.perceptionweb.com/

Visit this About.com site to learn more about the Gestalt principles of perception. http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/ss/gestaltlaws_4.htm

Visit About.com to read an article by Kendra Van Wagner on the Gestalt Laws of Perceptual Organization. http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/ss/gestaltlaws.htm

Visit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s site to read about demographic traits and their relationship to environmental issues. http://www.epa.gov/greenkit/traits.htm

Philosophe.com offers a collection of articles about understanding your audience when you design a website. http://philosophe.com/understanding_users/

Read more about active listening on this MindTools page. http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm

Consider these academic survival tips provided by Chicago State University. http://www.csu.edu/engineeringstudies/acadsurvivaltips.htm

A collection of articles and other resources to assist in improving listening and other communication skills. http://conflict911.com/resources/Communication/Listening