Question

You have been asked to give a speech in class on the major reasons why people listen poorly. You only have a few minutes to point out the major causes for poor listening. Give the three most important reasons why people listen poorly. Using information in the text and your own experiences. Defend your choice of these three; that is why they are the most important causes of poor listening.

Answer 1

Listening is one of the most crucial skills one should develop in their life in order to succeed both in personal and professional life. No one can force anyone to listen as listening is more voluntary. Most of the time, people have difficulty in listening to others because of various reasons, such as physical tiredness, psychological stress, lack of interest etc.
One of the most important reasons for poor listening is that the person is not interested in the subject or the person delivering speech. Listening gets improved when the person is interested towards the subject that's spoken. At times, when one doesn't like the speaker, one wouldn't listen properly as well.
Secondly, when the person has some psychological barriers such as prejudice, emotional breakdown and biased towards the message. This could also be the reason for selective listening where one listens to what and who they want to listen.
Finally, lack of cognitive ability to process information and understand the content and language. This is a major barrier as well because language is the medium through which the content or the message is passed.