Active listening is more than ‘hearing’ someone’s words. It means fully attuning to the feelings and views of the speaker, demonstrating unbiased acceptance and validation of their experience (Nelson-Jones, 2014).
When we practice active listening, we pay attention to what is being communicated both verbally and nonverbally. We focus on the content of the message, but also on the interpretation of the emotions conveyed through it and the speaker’s body language.
In addition, we make an effort to show our understanding of the message, acknowledging the speaker’s internal frame and reflecting back on their emotions (Miller and Rollnick, 2013).
Components of Active Listening
The concept has its roots in the work of psychologists Rogers and Farson (1957). They described active listening as an important tool for fostering positive change in dyadic, client-helper, and group interactions alike.
On their account, active listening rests on three main components.
- Listen for total meaning: a message carries two layers, its content and the feeling underneath it, and attuning to both helps a listener grasp its meaning accurately.
- Respond to feelings: once we have listened, responding to the feeling in the message at the right moment lets the speaker feel believed and supported.
- Note all cues: nonverbal signals, like facial expression, eye contact, posture, and tone of voice, reveal the speaker’s emotional state and level of comfort.
Put into practice, these three components create a climate of respect and acceptance that gives the speaker a sense of psychological security.
That security matters. It makes people more aware of what they have shared, and more open to considering alternative perspectives that can prompt personal change.
Ultimately, active listening, applied consistently, helps build deeper and stronger relationships between the listener and the speaker (Rogers & Farson, 1957).
How to Improve Active Listening Skills
Active listening calls on a set of skills that goes beyond the social skills we use in everyday interactions.
Building awareness of these behaviors improves the quality of our listening and serves the underlying values of empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard (Westland, 2015).
Paraphrasing
Restating what a person has said in our own words gives us the opportunity to understand whether we captured their point of view accurately. It also conveys interest in the content of the conversation and prevents potential miscommunications (Garland, 1981).
For example, what we might say is, “I understand that this X situation has caused Y,” followed by, “Is that correct?”.
In this way, we encourage the speaker to keep talking and further elaborate on their thoughts.
This paraphrasing builds closeness with the listener. It can increase perceptions of social attractiveness too, making the target person more likely to be seen as a pleasant member of one’s social circle (Weger, Castle, & Emmett, 2010).
Open-ended questions
Asking closed, “yes or no” questions can block access to the speaker’s internal frame of reference, reducing the amount of information shared and preventing the conversation from flowing.
Instead, open-ended questions do not contain predetermined answers and are, therefore, a more powerful tool for obtaining expansive responses.
In practice, we can replace “Do you think this was the wrong decision?” with an open version: “What do you think about this decision?”
“How could you have responded differently?” works too.
In general, questions starting with “What?”, “How?” and “Why” are less biased and more likely to generate a full answer.
Verbalizing emotions
Although similar to paraphrasing, verbalizing emotions refers less to the content and more to perceiving the feelings expressed by the speaker and reflecting them back (Miller and Rollnick, 2013).
It involves listening for words and phrases manifesting emotional states ranging from fear, lack of self-confidence, and boredom to cheerfulness and excitement.
For example, if a person says, sighing, “Tomorrow I have got an early shift at work,” we can verbalize their emotions by saying, “You don’t seem to be looking forward to it.” In this way, we encourage the other person to open up and evaluate their own feelings.
Verbal affirmations
Showing short, positive expressions of interest demonstrates our engagement in the conversation, motivating the person to keep talking without interruptions (Nelson-Jones, 2014).
Some affirmations that can act as small incentives are “I understand,” “I see,” and “That makes sense,” often accompanied by expressions of encouragement such as smiling and nodding.
Verbal affirmations work best when we offer them in response to content the speaker especially wants us to notice. They also increase the other person’s sense of being believed and supported.
Clarifying
Asking for clarification helps to gain a better understanding of concepts that are too vague or unclear. It delivers the positive intent of wanting to learn more rather than making assumptions that are based on our own interpretative structures.
Clarifying questions can also prompt further reflection and redefinition of ideas that have been shared, helping people to see things from an alternative angle. Some examples of clarifying questions are “What do you mean by this?”, “Can you give me an example?”.
Encouraging
Encouraging the speaker to provide further details on the topic of the conversation demonstrates our willingness to listen and dig deeper (Weger, Castle, and Emmett, 2010).
It facilitates greater openness from the speaker, fostering feelings of safety and acceptance.
During the narration of a story, we can, for example, ask, “What happened next?” or “How did this make you feel?”. We may also try to use a different intonation to express our interest or offer verbal prompts to elicit further reflection.
Non-verbal affirmations
Using positive body language also shows that we are present and willing to follow the conversation (McNaughton et al., 2008). Gently nodding our head, making eye contact, and smiling are simple, supportive cues that help the speaker feel listened to and comfortable.
Maintaining a still position also communicates concentration and focus. So it helps to avoid behaviors that broadcast distraction, such as glancing at our watch, multitasking, or daydreaming.
Awareness of our facial expressions also ensures that we are not conveying any negative or judgemental response.
Waiting to disclose opinions
Patiently waiting to disclose our opinion allows the other person’s train of thought to continue without interruptions.
It also limits the risk of “myside bias”: the tendency to interpret information in ways that confirm our own opinions (Stanovich, West, & Toplak, 2013).
Rushing to share our thoughts signals that the speaker’s ideas matter less than ours. It can read as boredom or impatience.
By temporarily suspending our responses, we provide more space for reflection to the speaker, and we can gain a complete picture of their point of view.
As licensed marriage and family therapist Esther Perel explains, real listening is an act of curiosity, not confirmation. Listening only to gather evidence for a conclusion we have already reached, she argues, is not really listening at all.
Barriers to Active Listening
Holding judgments
When practicing active listening, self-monitoring our thoughts can help us refrain from making judgments. Responses containing labeling or criticism can increase the other person’s defensiveness, making the free expression of thoughts more difficult (Robertson, 2005).
Other people’s ideas are shaped by many factors. Remembering this makes it easier to stay open and non-judgemental.
These factors include culture, educational background, religious belief, and the support system around a person (Nelson-Jones, 2014).
With this in mind, it is easier to create a climate of acceptance and use other people’s perspectives as opportunities to enrich our own.
Suggesting solutions
It can be tempting to suggest solutions. Although it might feel supportive, it is worth asking first whether the person airing a problem actually wants advice, or is simply looking for a space to be heard.
The distinction matters. Jumping to solutions can betray our own discomfort with what is being said. It can also tip the conversation’s power balance, discouraging the speaker from working out their own solution (Weiste & Peräkylä, 2014).
Alternatively, we can offer empathetic responses, such as “I understand this is causing frustration,” or reflect the speaker’s emotions.
Interrupting
Interrupting signals that we are not interested in what the other person has to say, or that we do not have time to listen.
It can also function as an attempt to dominate the conversation by imposing our own opinion, leaving the speaker less motivated to disclose anything deeper or more meaningful.
Waiting for natural breaks in the conversation or pausing for a few seconds before speaking are some strategies that can help maintain positive interactions with others (Lunenburg, 2010).
If we find ourselves interrupting, we might also allow the other person to continue speaking by saying, “Sorry for interrupting. Please go on.”
Diverting the conversation
Changing the subject shows that we are rejecting what the speaker is saying. It is a recognisable marker of unassertive communication (Weiste & Peräkylä, 2014). The message still lands.
If we feel uncomfortable talking about a specific topic, it is more respectful to say so directly and offer an alternative time to discuss it.
Diverting the conversation towards ourselves is also a major listening barrier.
Making statements such as “I had a similar situation when…” or “This is nothing compared to when I…” sends the message that our own experience matters more. It introduces unhelpful comparisons with the speaker.
Benefits of Active Listening
Practicing active listening can have a positive impact in many areas of life, including personal relationships, social interactions, and work collaborations.
Building trust
When a person feels listened to, it is easier to build a relationship grounded in trust and loyalty. Trust matters most under strain. Especially when someone is dealing with hardship, active listening lets us show compassion, making the other person more comfortable sharing their vulnerabilities (Doell, 2003).
In the workplace, active listening between team members strengthens working relationships. It also lifts engagement and information-sharing, both of which matter for group development (Rogers & Farson, 1957).
Resolving conflicts
Sometimes, we become so entrenched in our own beliefs that it is difficult to see other people’s perspectives. Active listening gives the opportunity to understand alternative viewpoints and identify possible areas of agreement to move forward toward a resolution (Phillips, 1999).
When neither party is listening, the conversation becomes formulaic, and there is a greater risk of misunderstanding.
As counselor educator Jude T. Austin II recounts, a client’s mother once stood up mid-session, shouting about her family’s situation, and walked out of the room.
He said nothing at first.
Rather than escalating, Austin waited, then applied active-listening skills: reflecting back what she had said and asking what he could do to support her. By his account, this de-escalated the confrontation, and she chose to continue therapy.
Broadening knowledge
Maintaining a good level of interest in the topic of the conversation can promote understanding and learning of a variety of subjects. In personal interactions, this approach helps incorporate new knowledge and opinions into our perspective, empowering our ability to see things with greater awareness.
In the workplace, it allows us to have a more in-depth approach when trying to assimilate more details about a topic or when planning a strategy for organizational improvement.
Anticipating problems
Making an effort to understand a speaker’s message correctly puts us in a better position to spot problems that are not immediately obvious. We can then devise a strategy to address them promptly (Phillips, 1999).
This can also limit the chance of errors occurring in the workplace, as we make sure we are not missing important information.
Promoting collaboration and empathy
Using validating words and feedback when listening to others’ experiences allows us to adopt a more empathetic attitude, resulting in greater emotional support and strengthening the quality of our relationships.
It also helps create a positive environment at work by encouraging open communication between colleagues and improving teams’ collaboration skills (Jonsdottir and Kristinsson, 2020).
Critical Evaluation
Active listening’s core claims hold up well under scrutiny. But recent research also reveals real limits to the evidence, worth understanding alongside the skill itself.
Contemporary Research
An experimental study offers the clearest test of what active listening actually does in a single conversation. Researchers randomly assigned 171 undergraduates to disclose a genuine problem to a partner trained in active-listening skills, or to an untrained partner.
Both verbal and nonverbal active-listening behaviors led to greater emotional improvement for the person disclosing. Verbal behaviors, like paraphrasing, mattered most.
The benefit ran specifically through emotional processing, not through solving the discloser’s problem or deepening the relationship in the moment (Bodie, Vickery, Cannava, & Jones, 2015).
The strongest evidence on active listening’s payoff at work comes from a large meta-analysis: a statistical pooling of 664 effect sizes from over 400,000 observations across the organizational-listening literature. The scale is unusual.
Being perceived as a good listener showed a robust positive link with work outcomes, notably stronger for relationship quality than for job performance directly. The link held even after isolating studies that avoided pure self-report, though it shrank once they were.
The pattern replicated. Listening appears to improve outcomes chiefly by improving the relationship between listener and speaker, which then benefits performance (Kluger et al., 2024).
A 2025 qualitative interview study asked what attentive listening feels like from the listener’s side. Twelve telephone-based nurses in Sweden described creating a sense of security for patients they could not see face to face.
Confirmation mattered most. They built that security through mutual understanding, staying attentive to the patient’s context, and keeping the conversation calm and unhurried.
Voice had to do the work. Eye contact and body language were unavailable over the phone. The verbal components of active listening had to carry that work alone instead (Larsson, Gillsjö, Sundberg, Zakrisson, & Eriksson, 2025).
Self-Report Limits
Much of this evidence still leans on self-report, with participants rating both how well they were listened to and the outcome it produced.
The concern is real. That correlation shrank by roughly half once self-report-only studies were excluded, though it did not disappear (Kluger et al., 2024).
An experimentally controlled study found comparable benefits using trained confederates, research assistants posing as ordinary participants, and independent behavioral coding, without relying on self-report at all (Bodie et al., 2015). The result still held.
This suggests the effect is real, even if its true size is smaller than headline correlations imply.
A direct comparison of behaviourally coded listening against matched self-report measures of the same conversations would help show how much of the correlation reflects listening itself. That comparison has not yet been done.
Cultural Bias
The active-listening literature is also disproportionately built on Western, English-speaking, university samples. Context matters.
Its most visible behaviors, like paraphrasing aloud and explicit verbal affirmation, reflect communication norms typical of low-context cultures: cultures where meaning is spelled out in words.
A high-context listener is instead expected to infer meaning from silence and shared background. The direction can flip.
The same paraphrasing that reads as attentive in a low-context setting could read as intrusive there (Hall, 1976). These same behaviors are teachable enough to be used for other ends too.
Sales pitches and negotiation tactics can mimic empathy without its substance.
Neither caveat undercuts the skill’s real value. Both are worth keeping in mind, especially when applying the skill outside a familiar cultural context.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between active and passive listening?
While in active listening, the listener pays complete attention to the content of the conversation and responds accordingly, in passive listening, there is no reaction or comment to the information that has been shared.
A passive listener simply consumes the message without showing interest in the content and neglects the details that allow a full understanding of the speaker’s intention, including nonverbal cues and hidden meanings.
An indication of passive listening is the person not being able to fully absorb the content of the message and recall it in the future.
How can active listening help to avoid miscommunication?
Miscommunication typically occurs when there is a mismatch between our understanding and the real meaning of the message, increasing the risk of problems and conflicts.
One of the most effective active listening skills that can help avoid miscommunication is restating what the person has said, as it will clarify whether the information has been understood properly, as well as asking relevant follow-up questions.
In addition, fully engaging in the conversation and avoiding distractions will allow most of our attentional resources to be directed toward the speaker, noticing the nuances of their opinions more accurately.
How can active listening improve a relationship?
Listening is an emotional skill that enables us to be sensitive to what others are saying, prioritizing their expression of thoughts and feelings over ours.
Through active listening, we deliver the message that we want to be there for that person, providing a safe space where they will not be judged, disbelieved, or criticized.
When we show understanding and the ability to remember information that is relevant to the other person, we can create stronger bonds and healthier relationships based on trust and empathy (Bodie et al., 2015).
Key Takeaways
- Not Innate: Active listening is a learnable skill set, not just a personality trait.
- Two Layers: It targets both what someone says and the feeling underneath it.
- Core Skills: Paraphrasing, open questions, and reflecting emotions build the skill.
- Common Barriers: Judging, interrupting, and jumping to solutions all undermine it.
- Real Benefits: It builds trust, resolves conflict, and strengthens relationships at work and at home.
- Evidence Caveat: A 2024 meta-analysis found its workplace benefits run mainly through relationship quality, and much of the evidence still relies on self-report.
References
Austin, J. T., II, & Austin, J. A. (2023). Doing counseling: Developing your clinical skills and style. American Counseling Association.
Bodie, G. D., Vickery, A. J., Cannava, K., & Jones, S. M. (2015). The role of “active listening” in informal helping conversations: Impact on perceptions of listener helpfulness, sensitivity, and supportiveness and discloser emotional improvement. Western Journal of Communication, 79(2), 151-173.
Doell, F (2003). “Partners’ listening styles and relationship satisfaction: listening to understand vs. listening to respond.” Graduate thesis. The University of Toronto Psychology Dept.
Garland, D. R. (1981). Training married couples in listening skills: Effects on behavior, perceptual accuracy and marital adjustment. Family Relations, 297-306.
Jonsdottir, I. J., & Kristinsson, K. (2020). Supervisors’ active-empathetic listening as an important antecedent of work engagement. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(21), 7976.
Two recent studies deepen this picture.
Kluger, A. N., Lehmann, M., Aguinis, H., Itzchakov, G., Gordoni, G., Zyberaj, J., & Bakaç, C. (2024). A meta-analytic systematic review and theory of the effects of perceived listening on work outcomes. Journal of Business and Psychology, 39(2), 295-344.
Both point the same way.
Larsson, M., Gillsjö, C., Sundberg, A., Zakrisson, M., & Eriksson, I. (2025). Attentive listening and confirmation: Key aspects in health promotion encounters with patients in telephone counselling. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 39(4), Article e70141.
Lunenburg, F. C. (2010). Communication: The process, barriers, and improving effectiveness. Schooling, 1(1), 1-10.
McNaughton, D., Hamlin, D., McCarthy, J., Head-Reeves, D., & Schreiner, M. (2008). Learning to listen: Teaching an active listening strategy to preservice education professionals. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 27(4), 223-231.
Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change. Guilford press.
Nelson-Jones, R. (2014). Nelson-Jones’ theory and practice of counselling and psychotherapy (6th ed.). Sage.
Perel, E. (2024, March). A live conversation with Esther Perel and Trevor Noah: Where should we begin? [Video]. SXSW. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NrHb_nLY38
Phillips, B. (1999). Reformulating dispute narratives through active listening. Mediation Quarterly, 17(2), 161-180.
Robertson, K. (2005). Active listening: More than just paying attention. Australian Family Physician, 34(12), 1053–1055.
Rogers, C. R., & Farson, R. E. (1957). Active listening. Industrial Relations Center, University of Chicago.
Stanovich, K. E., West, R. F., & Toplak, M. E. (2013). Myside bias, rational thinking, and intelligence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(4), 259-264.
Weger Jr, H., Castle, G. R., & Emmett, M. C. (2010). Active listening in peer interviews: The influence of message paraphrasing on perceptions of listening skill. The Intl. Journal of Listening, 24(1), 34-49.
Weiste, E., & Peräkylä, A. (2014). Prosody and empathic communication in psychotherapy interaction. Psychotherapy Research, 24(6), 687-701.
Westland, G. (2015). Verbal and non-verbal communication in psychotherapy. W. W. Norton & Company.
