Measuring Affective Components of Listening

Affective components of listening include how individuals think and feel about listening, how motivated they are to listen, and how much they enjoy listening. People's views about listening and their barriers to attending to others not only profoundly affect comprehension but also influence personal and professional relationships. This chapter summarizes ways to measure affective components of listening, their strengths and weaknesses, and how they are used and misused in the literature. Because affective components are typically assessed using self-report scales, the chapter focuses on this reporting method, its uses and abuses, and recommendations for improving listening research. A final section discusses advantages of experience sampling methods for the study of listening.