Listening and Experiences of Interpersonal Transcendence

Abstract

Interpersonal transcendence is a phenomenon marked by total immersion in an interaction, a deep sense of understanding, feelings of mutuality, new insight, and playfulness. Such experiences can be exhilarating, memorable, and rare. This study examines relationships between various listening dispositions and people’s propensity to experience interpersonal transcendence. Participants (N = 300) completed the Interpersonal Transcendence Scale (ITS) along with the Listening Styles Inventory (LSI), the Active Empathic Listening scale (AEL), and the Listening Styles Profile–Revised (LSP-R). Results indicated substantial relationships between ITS responses and the LSI and AEL. The LSP-R dimensions of Relational Listening and Analytical Listening were also related to ITS responses. Other results indicate that propensity to experience interpersonal transcendence is associated with minority group status and age.

Keywords:

• Communication Satisfaction
• Communication Skill
• Interpersonal Transcendence
• Listening Dispositions
• Rapport

Notes

1. Although they are related, flow and interpersonal transcendence are distinct constructs. Greene and Herbers (2011, p. 69, footnote #3) note that: (a) their concept of transcendence is fundamentally and necessarily interpersonal in nature, whereas flow, as explicated by Csikzentmihalyi (e.g., 1990, 1996), can arise from solitary activities; (b) according to Csikzentmihalyi flow occurs under conditions of unambiguous goals and immediate performance feedback, whereas these conditions need not be present in transcendent experiences; finally (c) Csikzentmihalyi notes (1990, p. 123) that flow is not typically accompanied by positive affect, whereas transcendence is taken to involve positive and rewarding states of consciousness.

2. Importantly, researchers in this tradition recognize that individuals may flexibly employ alternative orientations depending upon the situation.

3. The research protocol was approved by Purdue University’s Institutional Review Board. The MTurk recruitment statement was as follows: “You will respond to surveys that assess attributes of your daily conversations and personal listening preferences.” Respondents received $0.50 toward their MTurk account for participating in the survey, which, according to the instructions, might require 45 minutes of their time. In fact, participants took, on average, approximately 8 minutes to complete the survey (M = 475.82 sec; SD = 321.14).

4. Whereas the wording of items in the original version of the ITS (McNallie et al., 2018) is intended to tap propensity to approach transcendence with a particular other (e.g., roommate, best friend), in this case items were worded to assess one’s general propensity to approach transcendence across conversational partners. Example items for each of the five subscales are:

Receptivity and Absorption:

• I have conversations with people where we’re so involved and interested that we’re not even aware of how much time has passed.

• I have conversations with people where we are genuinely interested in hearing each other’s perspective on things.

Connection, Mutuality, and Sharedness:

• I have conversations with people that are easy because we share so many common interests and perspectives.

• I sometimes meet people and we share so much in common that we are able to “finish each other’s sentences” or “read each other’s minds.”

Comprehension and Understanding:

• I get a sense of satisfaction knowing that other people understand what I mean, even if we don’t share the same viewpoint or come at an issue in the same way.

• I sometimes have conversations with people that I differ from, but feel that when we talk, we fully grasp what the other is saying.

Exploration, Discovery, and Insight:

• Talking with certain people provides an opportunity to learn and grow as a person.

• I sometimes walk away from a conversation with people with new insight and understanding.

Play:

• My conversations with some people involve joking and having fun.

• In my interactions with other people, we engage in a lot of playful banter and good-natured joking.

5. The results of this CFA closely parallel the results reported by McNallie et al. (2018), who examined the factor structure of the ITS in five separate samples. Like the results reported here, in one of their studies, the value of the χ² test was significant (again, presumably due to sample size [N = 215]), but in their other four applications of the ITS, even with large samples, the χ² test was not significant,.

6. In point of fact, the AEL consists of three subscales (“sensing,” “processing,” and “receiving”), but as Keaton (2017, p. 164) notes, the three subscales are highly correlated, and they are commonly combined to create a single overall measure. The authors are indebted to an anonymous reviewer for his or her suggestions regarding this issue.

7. In this context, it is worth noting that although the LSI, AEL, and LSP-R are conceptually distinct and grounded in different approaches to understanding listening processes, empirically we might expect that there will be some overlap in these operationalizations. In point of fact, several significant correlations between listening measures did emerge: The Listening Styles Inventory (LSI) and Active Empathic Listening (AEL), r = .61, p < .001; LSI and Relational Listening (RL), r = .47, p < .001; the LSI and Analytical Listening (AL), r = .55, p <.001; AEL and RL, r = .62, p < .001; AEL and AL, r = .50, p < .001; AEL and Critical Listening (CL), r = .14, p < .05 (see Table 1). These findings suggest that future research should seek to explore further the nature of these listening constructs and their respective operationalizations (see Bodie, 2013).

8. Here we have treated responses to the Listening Styles Inventory (LSI) as a continuous variable and thus amenable to analysis via examination of correlation coefficients. However, it is also the case that earlier applications of this instrument (e.g., Pearce et al., 2003) divide the continuum of responses into discrete segments (or styles). Thus, a score between 45 and 50 would be classified as an active listening style, and the other extreme, a score between 0 and 27 represents the detached style. As an alternative to the correlation analyses reported here, then, we also retained the original segmentation into four distinct styles and conducted a one-way ANOVA with ITS responses as the dependent variable. Not surprisingly in light of the observed correlation coefficients, the omnibus F test was significant, F (3, 296) = 9.93, p < .001, η² = .09; M_detached = 60.80; M_passive = 71.55; M_involved = 78.17; M_active = 81.31). Because cell sizes were markedly different (i.e., detached, N = 20; passive, N = 158; involved, N = 109; and active, N = 13), post hoc analyses employing the Games-Howell procedure were conducted. These post hoc comparisons revealed a significant difference between detached listeners and each of the other three styles: passive listeners (p = .04), involved listeners (p = .001), and active listeners (p = .022). There was also a significant difference between passive listeners and involved listeners (p = .004). No other pairwise comparisons reached conventional levels of statistical significance.