Empathic listening satisfies speakers’ psychological needs and well-being, but doesn’t directly deepen solitude experiences: A registered report
Abstract
A live discussion experiment was designed to test the effects of highly empathic (vs. moderately empathic) listening on solitude experiences. Participants were assigned to three conditions in which they: 1) Discussed a negative personal experience with a confederate (ostensibly another participant) exhibiting highly empathic listening; 2) Discussed an experience with a confederate exhibiting moderately empathic listening; or, 3) Engaged in a positive reframing exercise. Building on previous listening theory (Weinstein et al., 2022) and research (Itzchakov & Weinstein, 2021; Itzchakov, Weinstein, et al., 2022). We then assessed the two posited mechanisms of autonomy and relatedness and tested the expectations to be in solitude. All participants were instructed to spend ten minutes alone, phones off, and distractions stored away. While highly empathic listening enhanced participants’ (i.e. speakers) autonomy and relatedness need satisfaction compared to the other two conditions and predicted initial increases in self- and social-connection, it did not subsequently improve solitude experiences, with no direct effects found predicting self-connection, peaceful affect, loneliness, or self-insight. Indirect effects linked empathic listening to self-connection and self-insight through autonomy satisfaction. While empathic listening fosters immediate psychological need satisfaction in social contexts, deeper listening interventions may be necessary to improve subsequent solitude periods.
Deep Listening Training to Bridge Divides: Fostering Attitudinal Change through Intimacy and Self‐Insight
F. K. Tia Moin, Guy Itzchakov, Emily Kasriel, Netta Weinstein
Listening
Deep, high‐quality listening that offers a nonjudgmental approach, understanding, and careful attention when speakers share disparate views can have the power to bridge divides and change speakers' attitudes. However, can people be trained to provide such listening while disagreeing with what they hear, and if so, are the effects of the listening training sufficient for creating perceptible change during disagreements? This study, conducted with delegates (N=320) representing 86 countries experimentally tested a “deep” (otherwise termed “high quality“) listening training against a randomly assigned subgroup of attendees who served as a “waitlist” control. During a conversation with another participant on a subject about which they strongly disagreed, participants who had completed a 6‐h training over 3 weeks in high‐quality listening demonstrated improvements in their observed listening behaviors, reported higher levels of interactional intimacy with conversation partners, appeared to increase their self‐insight and subsequently, showed evidence of attitude change. Among the first studies to test semi‐causal outcomes of high‐quality listening training between attendees with diverse and contrary attitudes in a real‐world, cross‐national setting; we discuss the potential and limitations for listening training to support positive relations and an open mind in the context of discourse, disagreement and polarization.
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When attitudes and habits don’t correspond: Self-control depletion increases persuasion but not behavior
Guy Itzchakov, Liad Uziel , Wendy Wood
Attitudes
Changing attitudes does not necessarily involve the same psychological processes as changing behavior, yet
social psychology is only just beginning to identify the different mechanisms involved. We contribute to this
understanding by showing that the moderators of attitude change are not necessarily the moderators of behavior
change. The results of three studies (Ns = 98, 104, 137) employing an ego depletion manipulation indicate that
although people are more likely to agree with a persuasive message when executive control is reduced they are
not more likely to change their behavior. Rather, under conditions of ego depletion, attitudes became less correlated with behaviors after persuasion. Moreover, in Study 3, we provide an explanation for this phenom-
enon: People are more likely to agree with a persuasive message when depleted but are also more likely to fall back on habits that may conflict with their new evaluations. A mini meta-analysis of the data indicated that ego-
depletion had a medium effect size on the difference between attitude change and behavior change, N = 339, d = −0.51, 95% CI [−0.72, −0.29]. Jointly, these studies suggest an integrative, resource-based explanation
to attitude-behavior discrepancies subsequent to persuasion.
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