7 Types of Listening Styles

There are a few different methods of effective listening, and each one is suited to specific circumstances.
Here are descriptions of the main types of listening and the scenarios in which you would be likely to use
them:

Discriminative listening: Discriminative listening is the first form of listening humans develop as babies.
This basic type of listening precedes the understanding of words and relies on tone of voice and other
subtleties of sound to understand meaning and intention. Babies don’t understand words, but they rely
on their discriminative listening to understand who is speaking and what mood is being communicated.
As an adult, you may find yourself relying on discriminative listening when people around you are
speaking a foreign language that you don’t understand. Though you may lack the language skills to
understand the words being spoken, you can rely on the tone of voice and inflection to derive a vague
meaning. When you can only rely on discriminative listening, you may turn to visual stimuli. The
mannerisms, facial expressions, and body language of a speaker help clue you in to the speaker’s
message.

Comprehensive listening: Comprehensive listening is the next level of critical listening skills that humans
usually develop in early childhood. Comprehensive listening requires basic language skills and
vocabulary to understand what is being communicated through a speaker’s words. Comprehensive
listening is the overall category that covers most other forms of listening that critical listeners utilize.
Through the course of their day-to-day lives, people use comprehensive listening paired with verbal cues
to understand what messages are being communicated to them.

Informational listening: Informational listening (or informative listening) is the type of listening people
use when they are trying to learn. Informational listening builds upon basic comprehensive listening and
requires a high level of concentration and engagement to understand new concepts and comprehend
technical jargon. Informational listening has less to do with the emotional content of what is being
communicated and more to do with critical thinking and following a logical sequence as it is
communicated. When you try to learn important skills that are being taught to you, it’s vital that you
pay attention and use informational listening skills.

Critical listening: Critical listening is the style of listening people use when they are trying to analyze and
judge complex information that is being communicated to them. You might use critical listening if you’re
problem-solving on the job and trying to decide if you agree with a proposal being floated by one of
your coworkers. The word “critical” has multiple meanings, but in this case it simply means that you are
evaluating information—not necessarily passing judgment.

Biased listening: Biased listening (or selective listening) is a type of listening behavior demonstrated
when someone is just listening for information that they want to hear. Biased listening is different from
critical listening because the listener is not honestly evaluating the validity of the speaker’s opinions, but
rather is looking to confirm previously-held biases. People are often unaware that they are using a
biased listening process. Biased listening can lead to a distortion of facts in the mind of a listener who is
not tuned in to what a speaker intends to communicate.

Sympathetic listening: Sympathetic listening is an emotionally-driven type of relationship listening,

wherein a listener processes the feelings and emotions of a speaker and tries to provide support and
understanding in return. You might use sympathetic listening when a child tells you about trouble they
had at school. In this case you use a sympathetic listening style to make the child feel heard and give
them support and comfort. Sympathetic listening is an important type of listening to use when trying to
establish a deep connection with another person, especially when that person is experiencing adversity.

Therapeutic listening and empathetic listening: Therapeutic or empathetic listening is a listening process
wherein a listener tries to understand the point of view of a speaker and imagines themselves directly in
the speaker’s position. Empathetic listening (sometimes referred to as empathic listening) goes a step
further than sympathetic listening in that an empathic listener will relate to the speaker’s experience as
if it were their own.