Conversations about heated topics can easily turn into an argument. If you throw emotions and poor communication in the mix, the situation can easily derail further and only in unproductive ways. During such situations, people tend to inform the other party that ‘they’re not listening’. That may very well be the case. But psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania would like to bring something to our attention: just because someone disagrees with what we’re saying that doesn’t mean they’re not listening.

“It is important for people to feel listened to in professional and personal communications, and yet they can feel unheard even when others have listened well. We propose that this feeling may arise because speakers conflate agreement with listening quality,” wrote the researchers.

Agree to disagree

In their new study, the researchers analyzed the interactions of 3,396 adults across 11 conversation-focused experiments centered around various topics and mediums, such as in-person, text, and video. Some of the topics were quite spicy, such as free speech, police reform, and vaccine mandates. To make ‘agreement’ the only variable, the researchers held constant or manipulated the listener’s objective. For instance, in some cases, the listener would have to reveal whether they agreed or not with the speaker only after the conversation ended.

The researchers observed how speakers often perceive listeners as more attentive if they agree with the speakers’ viewpoints, regardless of the actual quality of listening displayed.

For instance, in one experiment in which a hiring decision was simulated, speakers felt more understood and believed their listeners were more engaged when there was agreement with their hiring recommendations. A simple nod may be conflated with good listening, even if the other person’s mind is on an entirely different topic. Conversely, speakers tended to assume that those who disagreed weren’t listening well.

“This effect seemed to emerge because speakers believe their views are correct, leading them to infer that a disagreeing listener must not have been listening very well. Indeed, it may be prohibitively difficult for someone to simultaneously convey that they disagree and that they were listening,” the researchers wrote.

The study also explored whether improving listening habits could help in situations where the listener disagrees with the speaker. Despite efforts to enhance listening quality by showing attentiveness, comprehension, and respect, these high-quality listening markers often made speakers feel as though the listener agreed more with their stance than they actually did.

In other words, showing more involvement using active listening techniques does indeed enhance the speaker’s perception that their views are being listened to, but this also distorts the speaker’s interpretation of the listener’s degree of agreement with their arguments. This further underscores this psychological effect. Speakers conflate conversation agreement with listening quality.

The psychology of listening perceptions

This phenomenon ties into the concept of naive realism, where individuals believe their own views are the objective truth. As such, when someone disagrees it must be that the other party was not paying attention or didn’t understand.

This intuitive assumption holds that our perceptions are direct reflections of reality, capturing objects and events exactly as they exist. However, research in psychology and neuroscience shows that our perceptions are actually interpretations constructed by our brains from limited sensory data.

These interpretations are influenced by past experiences, expectations, and cultural backgrounds, which means that different people can perceive the same situation in diverse ways. Thus, naive realism often oversimplifies the complex interplay between perception and reality, leading to misunderstandings in everyday life and communication.

However, psychology and neuroscience also teach us that we can override our cognitive biases once we recognize them. For instance, we may recognize that a conversation is frustrating not because the other party is not actively listening but simply because they share a different, perhaps opposite view. We can then change our style of communication accordingly. Who knows, it might get you out of an unnecessary argument in the future.

The findings appeared in the journal Psychological Science.