Differences in Gender Listening Styles

Men and women vary in many ways, it's interesting to see and observe the little things that we do while in a conversation. When both genders interact, their listening skills are apparent during a conversation. Body language and tone of voice also play a role, but in this post, we will focus just on the listening styles of both genders. 

At meetings women nod their head to show they are listening. Men think the woman is agreeing with them. He then assumes the women will go along with his idea. He is surprised when she later disagrees, since she nodded her head. She has no idea why he thought she agreed with him since he never asked her. (Lieberman, n.d.)

At meetings, men only nod their heads when they agree. If a women is speaking and she doesn't see his head nod as he listens, she assumes he either disagrees or is not listening.

(Lieberman, n.d.)

Men are more likely to be action-oriented listeners, which means they focus on listening to information pertinent to the task at hand. Action-oriented listeners have little patience for speakers who ramble off topic or include unnecessary details. Women are more likely to be people-oriented listeners. They connect with the emotional message and undertones of a conversation and are more concerned with the occurrence of the conversation than with the pertinent information discussed. (Black, 2011) 

Men and women in listening roles during conversations tend to express their responsiveness in different ways. Women often interject with small acknowledging remarks such as “yes,” “I see,” and “mm-hmm” to show the speaker that they are actively listening and processing the contents of the conversation. Men tend to listen silently, interjecting sparsely and usually only to ask clarification. The difference in response style can cause women to assume that men aren't actively listening to them in conversations, while men tend to think that women over-listen. (Black, 2011) 

Something I found to be of interest to you guys is this data that you can find at: Queendom.com

3% admitted that they don’t make eye contact.

12% will finish someone’s sentences.

16% will correct the speaker if they mispronounce a word.

17% have a tendency to interrupt.

19% will purposely divert or end conversations that don’t interest them.

20% admit that they perform other tasks at the same time (e.g. watch TV, cook).

23% fidget (play with hair, look at watch, tap feet, drum fingers).

27% make disapproving faces if they don’t agree with the speaker.

31% are thinking about how they will respond to the speaker.

40% admit that their mind wanders if they find the topic of conversation boring.

Sources:

• Lieberman, Simma. (n.d.). Simma Lieberman Association. Differences in male and female communication styles. Retrieved from: http://www.simmalieberman.com/articles/maleandfemale.html
• Black, Ashley. (2011). eHow Contributor. Differences in listening between men and women. Retrieved from: http://www.listeningimpact.com/tag/gender-differences/
• Thier, Marian. (2011). Queendom. Do women talk more than men?. Retrieved from: Queendom.com