If You Want People to Listen to You, Tell a Story

Abstract

We hypothesized that (a) when people share a meaningful story, as opposed to when they share information, they make their partner listen well, and (b) that narrative-induced listening is positively associated with speakers’ psychological safety and negatively associated with their social anxiety. In Study 1 (N = 45), we showed that a meaningful story is perceived much more as a narrative and higher in narrative quality than two types of informational-discourses (telling about daily routine and describing buildings). In Study 2 (N = 52), we randomly asked participants to either share a meaningful story or tell about their daily routine. The participants sharing a meaningful story reported that their interlocutor was a better listener, d = 0.61, 95% CI |0.32, 0.92|. In Study 3 (N = 42), we compared the effect of sharing a meaningful story to describing buildings, and replicated the results of Study 2, d = 1.10, 95% CI |0.61, 1.59|. Moreover, we found that the perceived listening, which was induced by the narrative, mediated the manipulation effects on psychological safety, and social anxiety. Thus, we concluded that when speakers share meaningful stories they make their partner listen well and consequently experience higher psychological safety and lower feelings of social anxiety.

Acknowledgment

We thank Monisha Pasupathi for providing insightful feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the Recanati Fund at the School of Business Administration, and by The Israel Science Foundation (145/12) to the third author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the Recanati Fund at the School of Business Administration, and by The Israel Science Foundation (145/12) to the third author.