•Informational
Listening- Listening to learn something
•Critical
Listening- Listening with the goal of evaluating or
analyzing what we hear
•Empathetic
Listening- Listening to experience what
another person is thinking or feeling

Examples of Informational Listening:
› News, Driving Directions, Lectures, Test Results

Very common and extremely helpful

Most passive way of listening

Not listening to evaluate, criticize or support the
information

Examples or critical listening:
› Commercials (media), political speeches (politics), Salesmen



The goal is to evaluate or analyze the information,
not to disapprove or find fault with the information
This type of listening is more active and engaging
than informational listening
Practicing critical listening is one of the best ways to
become a better listener overall

Examples of empathetic listening:
› Giving comfort or support to a friend or family member
This is the most challenging form of listening
 Occurs when you are trying to identify with a
speaker by understanding and experiencing what
he or she is thinking or feeling.
 Empathetic listening requires two skills:

› “perspective taking”- the ability to understand a situation
from another individuals point of view
› “empathetic concern”- the ability to identify how
someone else is feeling
Sympathetic listening- feeling sorry for
another person
 Empathetic listening- the goal is to truly
understand a situation from the speakers
perspective and to feel what he or she is
feeling
 We tend to focus on how WE would be
feeling in the same situation, rather than
how the SPEAKER is feeling

Informational, Critical, and Empathetic
listening are not the only types of
listening we use
 They are often the most common and
most important
 Other forms of listening:

› Inspirational listening
› Appreciative listening
› Relationship listening
HURRIER model (Developed by Judi Brownell)
•Hearing-
Physically perceiving sound
•Understanding-Comprehending
•Interpreting-
the words we’ve heard
Assigning meaning to what we’ve heard
•Evaluating-Judging
the speaker’s credibility and intention
•Remembering-Storing
ideas in memory
•Responding-Indicating
that we are listening

Three types of listening
› Informational, critical, empathetic

The HURIER model
› Hearing, Understanding, Remembering,
Interpreting, Evaluating, Responding

http://youtu.be/bHmdNwLDMFI