A New Measure of the Rogerian Schema of the Good Listener

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This research is interesting and meaningful. The listening effect is not a new topic but the authors took a new perspective to view this theme and worked out new findings. The whole research was scientifically designed. Five studies were reported due to the format of the quantitative approach. The data were statistically processed and had high validity and reliability. However, I still have the following suggestions for the authors.

The review of related literature appearing either the introduction part or literature review part is a bit weak. For instance, when elaborating on the importance of listening attitudes (page 2, lines 45-54), the authors merely based on the works by Rogers, though I know Rogers is a big figure in researching this point. I still hope the authors can add some related supportive evidence. Another example came from the same page, lines 48-49. Rogers’ argument that “cultivating a listening attitude is more important for successful communication than learning listening techniques” needs to be further supported by other related literature to foreground the necessity of citing Rogers’ opinions.

The coherence of the whole text needs to be further enhanced. I read the third paragraph of the introduction part that“cognitive schemas and beliefs about listening” (lines 36-38) and had a confusion the relationship between this point and the followings. It seems that the authors leap from one idea to another abruptly without a full natural transition.

Please ask a native speaker to polish the whole manuscript when it is near to being fully accepted.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for all suggestions. Consequently, we reorganized and rewrote the third and the fourth paragraphs of the paper. We also added the only relevant reference we could find regarding “related supportive evidence”. We also, had our paper proofed by a professional editor. For convenience, we copy the two new paragraphs below.

Given the listening benefits, a question arises about what brings people to listen well (or poorly). According to Carl Rogers, people listen well in therapy [14] and in any relationship [15] when they hold a listening "attitude." In terms more modern than Rogers’s, the listening attitude is people's cognitive schemas and beliefs about listening. Beliefs about behaviors, such as belief in listening effectiveness, contribute to forming an attitude, which, in turn, influences the intention to behave accordingly [16]. Specifically, according to the theory of planned behaviors [16], beliefs about behaviors link behaviors to outcomes. The more a person associates desirable outcomes with a specific behavior, the stronger the attitude towards that behavior. People with a strong attitude towards a given behavior will likely intend to emit such behaviors and eventually behave accordingly.

Carl Rogers claimed that cultivating a listening attitude is more important for successful communication than learning techniques (e.g., "active listening"). Indeed, the use of “active listening” based on Rogers’s writing in business became so removed from the listening attitude that one study lamented that “professional training … fosters instrumentalized listening that deadens organizations and crushes the spirit of individuals” [17]. Thus, it seems there is a need to capture the listening attitude. However, we could not find a measure to capture this attitude, beliefs, schemas, and philosophy of good listening. Therefore, the project described below was dedicated to developing a scale that assesses people's listening beliefs and schemas and tests its validity in a romantic context. If successful, the result would elucidate the cognitive antecedents of desirable listening behaviors.

Reviewer 2 Report

In order to review this paper, I had to read it slowly and carefully, largely because the authors were presenting us not with one study but several studies.  Two questionnaires had been designed to test the hypotheses. Thus, in reading the paper, one had to move back and forth.  I believe this may distract readers of this paper.  I believe the authors should have divided their research into two academic papers.  While I was interested in the topic explored, it took too much effort to read and digest its content.  My suggestion - two papers. 

Author Response

To address the complexity of the paper, we rewrote and simplified the section titled 1.2 Overview on p. 3. It now reads:

In Study 1, we reviewed Rogers's text [18] and generated items for a survey measuring be-lief in listening. In Study 2, we administered these items to an international pool of par-ticipants and uncovered their dimensionality with exploratory factor analysis (EFA). In Study 3, we translated the survey to Hebrew and used cognitive interviews to uncover ambiguities in the items. Building on Study 2 and Study 3, in Study 4, we pruned the sur-vey and tested its validity in predicting romantic partners' perception of listening in He-brew. Finally, in Study 5, we replicated Study 4 on a larger sample in English, tested the scale's test-retest reliability, and subjected it to incremental validity tests.