Self Perceptions and Personal Biases
Self Perceptions and Personal Biases can include anything that is a barrier or that gets in the way of understanding a speaker’s message. Some typical examples include egocentrism, personal interests, biases/dogmatism, defensiveness and apprehension, or a know–it–all attitude.
Egocentrism is a self–centeredness, an interest in only what is relevant to our self. There is no reason why a person cannot be self–centered; having healthy personal interests, except that egocentrism is limiting. If we limit ourselves only to what we like we will never learn to appreciate new experiences and we will also not do well in college, nor will we be good citizens. College by its very nature requires that we continually listen beyond our interests, to explore. Citizenship is similar in that to be well informed we must listen to different points of view, really listen to them, so we know and understand different social and political positions. This is directly analogous to learning to like a new musical style. When we listen to a new musical genre or a new voice (not just a singer, but any voice), we may not like it at first, but the more we listen the more we may like it, until finally it might become one of our favorites. Expanding our taste in topics and speakers listened to is very similar.
Ethnocentrism is akin to egocentrism, but rather than being limited to our own personal interests we limit ourselves to the interests of our ethnic or cultural group. Effective listening always requires that we listen first, and that we listen at least long enough to understand a position before we reject it and stop listening. Rejecting a person or their ideas out of hand is not fair to ourselves; it does not give us a chance to appreciate someone or something new—his is analogous to how we learn to appreciate new music.
Personal biases are egocentric, but like self interest they are not necessarily problematic. A bias, or prejudice is simply a preformed opinion based on our own life experience—what we have lived, what we have learned, what we have listened to. The most important thing with bias or prejudice it to be aware of it and to compensate, even overcompensate, for our beliefs and opinions. Of course, this gets complicated and mixed up with stereotypical perceptions of a speaker and their topic. One of the authors recently heard Newt Gingrich on CSPAN speaking to the National Federation of Republican Women (April 5, 2007). With some difficulty this author listened past personal biases about Gingrich, and then listened past the polarizing statements, semantic noise and stereotypes from Gingrich to hear his ideas. Despite prejudices about Gingrich the author was able to listen to the innovative ideas about reinventing government that Gingrich proposed. This is an example of the listening responsibility we need to adopt.
Dogmatism, opinions we hold without questioning, is a problematic personal bias. Listening requires that we understand and question our own opinions. Without knowing our own positions we cannot compare and understand them with other speaker’s opinions. Defensiveness is a negative reaction to another speaker’s ideas based on a lack of awareness of our own dogmatic opinions. Defensiveness, dogmatism are related to listener apprehension. Listener apprehension is a fear or concern about receiving a speaker’s message. If we worry about accurately understanding the points of a lecture because we know we will be tested on the information, or if we have listening apprehension in a hiring interview, research by Roberts & Vinson (1998) in the International Journal of Listening indicates, that we are not as likely to be willing to listen, or to use effective listening skills (40).
Not many people possess a know–it–all attitude, but most would agree that it is not conducive to being an open, aware, effective listener.
