Many Labs Learning to Listen

Acronym

P_ML-LISTEN

Consortium Coordinator

Matos Fernandez, Lennia

Start Date

October 1, 2023

End Date

September 30, 2026

Status

https://purl.org/pe-repo/concytec/estadoProyecto#activo

Tipo de proyecto

https://purl.org/pe-repo/ocde/tipoProyecto#investigacionBasica

Description

Some of the greatest thinkers on spirituality, human growth, and flourishing have argued that listening well to others is a keystone of constructive communication and deep social connection (e.g.,humanism, 1; religion, spirituality, 2). High-quality listening behaviors that convey attention, caring, and understanding can increase willingness to engage in open dialogue because they reduce defensiveness and foster open-mindeness in response to threatening new information. Such listening may hold power to build mutual understanding that bridges divides and reduces polarization (3,4). Despite a history of remarkable theorists espousing the merits of listening for open and constructive social interactions, relatively little rigorous empirical attention has been given to examining this construct (for example, as compared to research on speaking; 5), and even less so to understanding listening as a cross-cultural phenomenon that might influence the impact of conversations taking place globally. In this project, we seek to increase the understanding of listening in the field of psychology by conducting research across multiple labs and countries. We will explore cultural differences and investigate the universal human processes underlying effective listening. Specifically, five labs working collaboratively will focus on the expression and experience of listening as a behavior and its downstream impacts on depolarization processes that moderate extreme, rigid, and narrow-minded views (6,7). The first stages of the research will yield important insights in their own right, and will ultimately lead to an ambitious capstone experiment that examines listening and depolarization across our labs. By doing so, we will build a foundation to guide future research on listening across life’s conversation (e.g., politics) and domains (e.g., workplace). The ultimate goal for the field is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the nature and impacts of listening on speakers across the globe. Paralleling these scientific efforts, we have a meta-scientific goal to learn to listen to one another; To develop a process for conducting participatory research that grounds insights in the cultural context through regular efforts towards listening and learning between our lab partners. From these experiences, we will develop a protocol, best practices, and practical resources for such participatory collaboration, and work through the challenges of balancing researcher autonomy across labs with robust research practices in cross-cultural open research collaboration. The proposed research, conducted through mixed-methods open research in Hong Kong, Israel, Peru, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, will stretch the capability of open science methods seeing as it will unfold dynamically over time. Ultimately, our scientific (modeling listening through research) and meta-scientific (modeling how researchers can listen to one another) contributions should result in a richer understanding of interpersonal listening in conversations and an improved understanding of how collaborative open research can be conducted in culturally embedded and robust cross-cultural research. This knowledge can be applied in experimental philosophy, human communication, political science, and other discplines to stretch existing models of dialogue and its impacts across cross-cultural contexts.

Keywords

Escucha de alta calidad

;

Ciencia colaborativa

;

Replicación experimental

;

Psicología social

Área de conocimiento

Medical and health sciences

Campo OCDE

https://purl.org/pe-repo/ocde/ford#3.03.05