Active-Empathic Listening as a General Social Skill: Evidence from Bivariate and Canonical Correlations

Abstract

This study attempts to provide further validity evidence for a scale that measures the tendency to enact active-empathic listening (AEL), one type of listening noted as especially important in close relationships and associated contexts like supportive episodes. In particular, we investigated the degree to which AEL is empirically related to various general social skills that reflect interaction competencies such as emotional sensitivity. Strong correlations between a measure of AEL and four of the six social skill dimensions measured by the social skills inventory (SSI) provide validity evidence for this scale. The paper concludes with a discussion of future research possibilities.

Keywords:

• Communication Skill
• Competence
• Listening
• Social Interaction
• Social Skill

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ronald Riggio for permission to use the Social Skills Inventory for our research purposes. Thanks are also extended to the many undergraduate research assistants who helped make data collection possible.

Notes

Note. AEL = Active-Empathic Listening; SSI = Social Skills Inventory; EE = Emotional Expressivity; ES = Emotional Sensitivity; EC = Emotional Control; SE = Social Expressivity; SS = Social Sensitivity; SC = Social Control; Reliabilities are presented along the diagonal.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

These stages are certainly not considered to be exactly sequential or to operate in any specific parallel format. Instead, they are illustrative and represent the most popular conceptualizations of listening in the extant literature (see Bodie et al., 2008). Certainly the internal processing of information as it occurs sequentially or in parallel fashion during ongoing conversation is a matter for empirical research, and one that has received scant attention (Imhof, 2010).

Although not reported in this text due to space considerations, we base this claim on statistical grounds (Cohen & Cohen, 1983, p. 53).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christopher C. Gearhart

Christopher C. Gearhart is a doctoral candidate

Graham D. Bodie

Graham D. Bodie is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at The Louisiana State University.