Week 5 / Evaluating Listening Skills & Nonverbal Behavior (Post 2)

 

For this week blog I am going to be observing and evaluating the interactions in the video showed in class on “Big Bang Theory” where Sheldon and Amy, the character in the show, was having a dinner date. While the scene may have been crafted to make the interaction more drastic than it is, it helps to highlights the basic communication skills we unconsciously practice daily.

 

The event starts off with Amy asking Sheldon to pass her the butter while Sheldon was busy spurting out facts about a gaming console, however, Amy was not interested in listening and only wanted him to pass her the butter. Sheldon then eventually got up and got her the butter but instead of passing it on, he continued to talk about the game console. Amy then finally reacted to Sheldon facts thinking it would get her the butter, but it only led to Sheldon spitting out more facts and she did not get the butter.

 

From the event I will be highlighting 2 interactions between the characters, which is relatable to us unconsciously practicing daily and evaluating them in terms of how these listening and/or nonverbal communication might have been influenced.

 

The first interaction is whereby Amy was listening to Sheldon’s game console talk and her way of letting Sheldon know she was not interested is by showing off an uninterested facial expression to him instead of verbally letting him know. We do this quite often in a lecture, where we students will give a facial expression depending on our understanding to the subject matter and based on it the lecturer can read and slow down and clarify the subject.

 

The second interaction would be when Amy started ‘listening’ to what Sheldon is saying. The reason for the quotations marks on listening is because, she was doing it perfunctorily; she just simply gave a reply back base on the other party last sentence and not fully understand the whole, message. And the reason for such behavior is that sometimes in a conversation we tend to ‘selective listen’ to get things done.

 

Do drop a comment on your insides of the matter, and if you have a different view on the 2 interactions do let me know what your take on the matter is.

Comments

  1. Hi Nanyong, I agree with your point on how the scene is relatable to us in terms of how these listening and/or nonverbal communication might have been influenced. I also feel that being emphatic during a conversation will definitely help in being more understanding in a conversation. As for the second interaction, though I agree that we tend to do selective listening to get things done, I also feel that Sheldon, in this case, was not being emphatic while communicating with Amy. During the interaction, he did not stop to consider what Amy is thinking or feeling about the conversation. I agree that this was a good example of which we can refer to and learn from about different kind of communicators

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  2. Hi Nan Yong, I agree that this scenario relates a lot of us as listening and non verbal cue really help to each individual to act and respond on a situational basis. In addition being more understanding at times definitely help in these types of conversation.

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  3. The inferences you made from that video were clear and understandable, it is a point of view which I had not viewed the situation from, which is interesting. The following examples given were also relatable, when in class I am not aware of the non verbal behavior I portray which I do agree can be a clear indication for our professor on the progress during a lesson.

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