Week 9, Chapter 7, Question 2

There have been a few times where I have had selective attention. It happens more often than we want because a lot of times we are waiting to talk versus actually listening. It is actual work when trying to listen. Being in sales it is a huge deal to listen to specifics when trying to gather information about potential customers. But most often I feel that selective attention or selective hearing happens during arguments or debates. Most times people don’t actually listen to what is being said and are just trying to be right by any means possible. For instance, There was a time where me and my dad were getting into a pretty heated political debate. We tend to do this a lot and the ultimate goal is to prove to the other our point whether we are right or wrong. Now obviously in politics it is extremely if not impossible to be 100% right, but this doesn’t stop us from trying. Most of the time we are just spitting words out left and right and not truly listening to anything other than we want to hear. If we were to take a step back and truly listen we might see that we may being arguing the same point but in different perspectives.