| Name |
Description |
| Active listening |
Listening in a way that demonstrates interest and encourages continued
speaking. |
| Appreciative listening |
Looking for ways to accept and appreciate the other person through
what they say. Seeking opportunity to praise. Alternatively listening to
something for pleasure, such as to music. |
| Attentive listening |
Listening obviously and carefully, showing attention. |
| Biased listening |
Listening through the filter of personal bias. |
| Casual listening |
Listening without obviously showing attention. Actual attention may
vary a lot. |
| Comprehension listening |
Listening to understand. Seeking meaning (but little more). |
| Content listening |
Listening to understand. Seeking meaning (but little more). |
| Critical listening |
Listening in order to evaluate, criticize or otherwise pass judgment
on what someone else says. |
| Deep listening |
Seeking to understand the person, their personality and their real and
unspoken meanings and motivators. |
| Dialogic listening |
Finding meaning through conversational exchange, asking for clarity
and testing understanding. |
| Discriminative listening |
Listening for something specific but nothing else (eg. a baby crying). |
| Empathetic listening |
Seeking to understand what the other person is feeling. Demonstrating
this empathy. |
| Evaluative listening |
Listening in order to evaluate, criticize or otherwise pass judgment
on what someone else says. |
| False listening |
Pretending to listen but actually spending more time thinking. |
| Full listening |
Listening to understand. Seeking meaning. |
| High-integrity listening |
Listening from a position of integrity and concern. |
| Inactive listening |
Pretending to listen but actually spending more time thinking. |
| Informative listening |
Listening to understand. Seeking meaning (but little more). |
| Initial listening |
Listening at first then thinking about response and looking to
interrupt. |
| Judgmental listening |
Listening in order to evaluate, criticize or otherwise pass judgment
on what someone else says. |
| Partial listening |
Listening most of the time but also spending some time day-dreaming or
thinking of a response. |
| Reflective listening |
Listening, then reflecting back to the other person what they have
said. |
| Relationship listening |
Listening in order to support and develop a relationship with the
other person. |
| Sympathetic listening |
Listening with concern for the well-being of the other person. |
| Therapeutic listening |
Seeking to understand what the other person is feeling. Demonstrating
this empathy. |
| Total listening |
Paying very close attention in active listening to what is said and
the deeper meaning found through how it is said. |
| Whole-person listening |
Seeking to understand the person, their personality and their real and
unspoken meanings and motivators. |
