Avraham N Kluger

Hebrew University of Jerusalem | HUJI · School of Business Administration

Employees who perceive their supervisors to listen well enjoy multiple benefits, including enhanced well-being. However, concerns regarding the construct validity of perceived-listening measures raise doubts about such conclusions. The perception of listening quality may reflect two factors: constructive and destructive listening, which may converg...

The quality of listening in interpersonal contexts was hypothesized to improve a variety of work outcomes. However, research of this general hypothesis is dispersed across multiple disciplines and mostly atheoretical. We propose that perceived listening improves job performance through its effects on affect, cognition, and relationship quality. To...

Kluger, A. N., Lehmann, M., Aguinis, H., Itzchakov, G., Gordoni, G., Zyberaj, J., & Bakaç, C. (in press). A meta-analytic systematic review and theory of perceived listening and job outcomes (performance, relationship quality, affect, and cognition). Journal of Business and Psychology. Abstract The quality of listening in interpersonal contexts w...

Listening is a complex construct studied in various fields, including psychology, education, marketing, management, and medicine. Despite its importance, there is no agreed definition of the construct. Therefore, we review existing definitions of listening, primarily recent, focusing on those that describe listening in interpersonal contexts. We id...

This conceptual article develops a model of how attachment style affects how leaders give feedback and members' react to it. Drawing on attachment theory, we propose that leaders whose trait attachment style is grounded in a desire for security are likely to deliver feedback that is constructive—that is, specific, frequent, timely, behavioral, and...

Listening is a complex construct studied in various fields, including psychology, education, marketing, management, and medicine. Despite its importance, there is no agreed definition of the construct. Therefore, we review existing definitions of listening, primarily recent, focusing on those that describe listening in interpersonal contexts. We id...

This paper describes how leaders (managers or supervisors) can provide more motivating feedback, and team members (employees or subordinates) can absorb and use that feedback to improve their performance. This is based on an understanding of attachment styles of leaders and team members, high-quality listening, psychological safety, and effective f...

A key person (KP) is an individual embedded in dyadic relationships in the core groups of life. Introduced are three research designs: the nomothetic, idiographic, and fixed-role Key Person Designs (KPD). Leveraging social relations modeling (SRM) of dyadic data, we introduce hypotheses and statistical methods for testing them with KPD. We develope...

Background: Nurse managers and team co-workers' disruptive behaviors (DBs) are negatively associated with a perceived safe climate. Moreover, DBs are a risk factor for patients' safety. Yet, it remains unknown whether and to what extent these effects were prevalent in COVID-19 wards and among witnesses of DBs. Design: A cross-sectional study. M...

We report five studies that examine a nurturing relationship with the supervisor as an antecedent of promotion focus, a motivation reflecting exploration, creativity, and attention to gains versus non-gains. We hypothesize that supervisors who provide a secure base for their employees will increase the employees’ state-promotion focus and create a...

Listeners who interrupt speakers upset the speakers and prevent the benefits of good listening. Interruptions can be avoided with “time-sharing,” where each partner listens (silently) for an equal amount of time. Yet, is time-sharing good for all? In an experiment with 50 pairs (95 participants with useable data), participants conversed freely for...

Two individual-difference theories focus on sensory sensitivity: one emanating from psychology—sensory-processing-sensitivity (SPS); and one from occupational therapy—sensory processing theory (SP). Each theory is coupled with its measure: the highly-sensitive-person scale (HSPS) and the adolescent adult sensory profile (ASP). The constructs of bot...

A leader’s expressed humility has a favorable influence on subordinates’ job satisfaction, creativity, and performance. However, we know little about how humility affects one’s same-level coworkers. Shifting focus away from leader’s humility, we suggest that coworker humility can also produce positive effects but has a relationship-specific compone...

Sustainable social relationships can be produced by good listening. Good listening may be exhibited by people who endorse Carl Rogers’s schema of good listening; a set of beliefs about what constitutes high-quality listening. To measure it, in Study One, we constructed 46 items. In Study Two, we administered them to 476 participants and discovered...

We present meta-analyses linking listening with job performance, experiments showing that feedback provider's listening increases the perceived quality of feedback, a motivational intervention emphasizing listening to increase openness towards diverse groups, and conclude with challenges about differentiating perceived supervisor listening from rel...

Listening is associated with and a likely cause of desired organizational outcomes in numerous areas, including job performance, leadership, quality of relationships (e.g., trust), job knowledge, job attitudes, and well-being. To advance understanding of the powerful effects of listening on organizational outcomes, we review the construct of listen...

Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) predicts that people adjust their language to match that of the other to promote comprehension, coordinate action, and facilitate harmonious relationships. CAT predicts that mothers will adjust their sentence length and complexity to match those of children. Prior tests of CAT confounded trait-like language...

We report four studies that examine listening as an antecedent of humility. We tested our hypotheses across four experiments (N = 597) using both self-reports and other reports of humility. Study 1 employed a recall task of poor or good listening. Studies 2 and 3 randomly assigned dyads to poor or good listening conditions. Study 4 randomly assigne...

We report four studies that examine listening as an antecedent of humility. We tested our hypotheses across four experiments (N = 597) using a dual-method approach for measuring humility. Study 1 employed a recall task of poor or good listening. Studies 2 and 3 randomly assigned dyads to poor or good listening conditions. Study 4 randomly assigned...

Listening is associated with and a likely cause of desired organizational outcomes in numerous areas, including job performance, leadership, quality of relationships (e.g., trust), job knowledge, job attitudes, and well-being. To advance understanding of the powerful effects of listening on organizational outcomes, we review the construct of listen...

Humble leaders have subordinates with improved organizational outcomes such as job satisfaction, creativity, and performance. In this line of research, humility is typically construed as a leader trait that affects subordinates. Little is known about the effect of humility among same-level co-workers. We address this gap by uncovering the effect of...

Listening has been identified as a key workplace skill, important for ensuring high-quality communication, building relationships, and motivating employees. However, recent research has increasingly suggested that speaker perceptions of good listening do not necessarily align with researcher or listener conceptions of good listening. While many of...

Listening has been identified as a key workplace skill, important for ensuring high-quality communication, building relationships, and motivating employees. However, recent research has increasingly suggested that speaker perceptions of good listening do not necessarily align with researcher or listener conceptions of good listening. While many of...

Although sharing traumatic experiences with others can facilitate Speakers coping, scholars have hypothesized that the listeners experience stress. We tested this hypothesis by reviewing published literature on the association between exposure to speakers’ trauma accounts and listeners’ stress. We found 49 articles with relevant data, reporting 142...

Tend and Befriend theory specifies interpersonal stress responses women utilize; we studied them at the individual and dyadic levels using the Social Relations Model (SRM). Speaking about stressful life events with another woman perceived as listening attentively and with interest was predicted to engender interpersonal closeness and stress reducti...

Listening in work organizations is both largely neglected by organizational behavior research, and at the same time appears, upon careful review, to cause and predict success of workers and organizations. Therefore, this chapter offers a detailed review of the associations of listening with organizational success, including job performance, employe...

Listening has powerful organizational consequences. However, studies of listening have typically focused on individual level processes. Alternatively, we hypothesized that perceptions of listening quality are inherently dyadic, positively reciprocated in dyads, and are correlated positively with intimacy, speaking ability, and helping-organizationa...

Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson, and Gino (2017) studied the role of question asking in conversations. They claimed to have identified “a robust and consistent relationship between question-asking and liking” (p. 1), where liking is affected largely by follow-up questions, rather that switch questions. They concluded that their “data support a trait...

Objectives: To examine the association between listening and disruptive behaviors and the association between disruptive behavior and the wellbeing of the nurse. To test whether constructive and destructive listening has an incremental validity. Methods: A structured questionnaire survey that measured the (constructive & destructive) listening c...

People who are involved in a conflict often complain that the other side is not listening. Even when the counterpart does listen, it is usually to debate, argue, convince, or discount, rather than to understand. Based on our research, we argue that people will be more effective in negotiations when they practice high quality listening. The benefits...

Interpersonal listening research is marked by a wealth of conceptual definitions and measurement instruments, with a consensus about neither. Therefore, we sought to discover how laypeople, rather than theoreticians, construe listening, and to construct a scale that reflects these perceptions. In Study 1, laypeople listed the features and character...

Recent research shows that humility plays a key role in improving lives in a work-setting. In this symposium, we invite a group of active humility researchers to share their latest thoughts and findings. Two studies address how humble leaders affect their subordinates. Wang and colleagues propose and find that humble leaders reduce subordinates’ co...

Interpersonal listening research is marked by a wealth of conceptual definitions and measurement instruments, with a consensus about neither. Therefore, we sought to discover how laypeople, rather than theoreticians, construe listening, and to construct a scale that reflects these perceptions. In Study 1, laypeople listed features and characteristi...

While research suggests that individuals may increase their own creativity by listening to other’s ideas, the effects of being listened to by others have remained understudied to date. We hypothesized that listening behavior of superiors may positively impact employees to explore new ideas flexibly, leading to higher levels of creativity. We furthe...

https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-power-of-listening-in-helping-people-change

We examined how merely sharing attitudes with a good listener shapes speakers' attitudes. We predicted that high quality (i.e., empathic, attentive, and non-judgmental) listening reduces speakers’ social anxiety and leads them to delve deeper into their attitude relevant knowledge (greater self-awareness). This, in turn, differentially affects two...

People who procrastinate often pay a heavy price in terms of illness, stress, and poor performance. Because procrastination has harmful consequences, we predicted that avoidance motivation, a self-regulation system that protects people from harm, would also protect them against procrastination. We hypothesised that avoidance motivation reduces proc...

ABSTRACT While research suggests that individuals may increase their own creativity by listening to other’s ideas, the effects of being listened to by others have remained understudied to date. We hypothesized that listening behavior of superiors may positively impact employees to explore new ideas flexibly, leading to higher levels of creativity....

Purpose Following the call of DeNisi and Smith Sockbeson (this issue) to integrate the literatures on feedback and feedback-seeking, the authors propose to view feedback and feedback-seeking as behaviors falling on a conversation continuum ranging from telling subordinates something about their behavior (feedback) to listening. The authors develop...

The Facilitating Listening Scale (FLS) was developed to measure both speaker's perceptions of interlocutor's listening behaviors and attributions of the consequences of these behaviors for the speaker (Bouskila-Yam & Kluger, 2011). The original 138 FLS items were pooled from 10 existing listening questionnaires and augmented with new items, develop...

Good listening is highly acclaimed and often prescribed in both theory and practice. However, despite the myriad of benefits associated with listening, good listening remains strikingly scarce. We propose a social-status framework to explain the puzzling scarcity of good listening, focusing on status costs. Specifically, listening entails a social...

The Listening Circle is a method for improving listening in organizations. It involves people sitting in a circle where only one talks at a time. Talking turns are signaled by a talking object. Although there are several reports regarding the effectiveness of the Listening Circle, most are based on case studies, or confounded with another intervent...

Listening is an essential part of interpersonal communication at the workplace, and it is often considered one of the most important forms of communication behavior. Employees' spend almost half their day listening to their interlocutors, such as their managers, colleagues, or their customers. However, despite listening' prevalence, most people, an...

We examined how listeners characterized by empathy and a non-judgmental approach impact speakers' attitude structure. We hypothesized that high quality listening decreases speakers' social anxiety, which in turn reduces defensive processing. This reduction in defensive processing was hypothesized to result in an awareness of contradictions (increas...

You think that you listen to your counterparts in negotiation—but do you really understand them? In this chapter, Itzchakov and Kluger offer a unique, research-based perspective on the power of listening-with-understanding, based on Carl Rogers’ theories in clinical psychology. This approach can change speakers’ attitudes, making them more complex...

Every year, millions of people die of diabetes-related complications. Despite this risk, patients’ nonadherence to lifesaving medical recommendations remains a persistent crisis. One factor that could increase adherence is the formation of an alliance with the medical staff. This alliance, in turn, may increase when the patient perceives that the h...

In this study, we tested both Rogers's hypothesis that listening enables speakers to experience psychological safety, and our hypothesis that the benefit of listening for psychological safety is attenuated by avoidance-attachment style. We tested these hypotheses in six laboratory experiments, a field correlational study, and a scenario experiment....

We tested both Rogers's hypothesis that listening enables speakers to experience psychological safety and our hypothesis that the benefit of listening for psychological safety is attenuated by avoidance-attachment style. We tested these hypotheses in six laboratory experiments, a field correlational study, and a scenario experiment. We meta-analyze...

We hypothesized that (a) when people share a meaningful story, as opposed to when they share information, they make their partner listen well, and (b) that narrative-induced listening is positively associated with speakers’ psychological safety and negatively associated with their social anxiety. In Study 1 (N = 45), we showed that a meaningful sto...

We investigated perceived listening quality in relation to individual (self-clarity and emotional well-being) and dyadic variables (social attraction and trust). Specifically, we proposed that the link between perceived listening quality and emotional well-being is mediated by self-clarity, and that the link between perceived listening and trust is...

We developed a new listening scale pertaining to how one likes to be listened to by others. Specifically, we constructed items by adapting the Listening Style Profile (LSP)-16 and a Constructive Listening subscale taken from the Facilitative Listening Scale and tested the validity of the scale against the Big Five personality traits. A survey (N =...

This study tested the perceived effectiveness of “Listening-Ask questions-Focus on the issue–Find a first step” method (McNaughton et al., 2008) in a parent–teacher conversation using a scenario study (N = 208). As expected, a scenario based on this method compared with a scenario of a conversation omitting the four steps of the method was perceive...

Listening is known to strongly correlate with leadership perception. As leadership theories distinguish between people-oriented (consideration) and task-oriented (initiating structure) leaders, we sought to identify parallel listening behaviors: person-oriented listening versus fact-oriented listening. A survey of employees from multiple organizati...

Applying Higgins' regulatory focus theory, we hypothesized that the effect of positive/negative feedback on motivation and performance is moderated by task type, which is argued to be an antecedent to situational regulatory focus (promotion or prevention). Thus, first we demonstrated that some tasks (e.g., tasks requiring creativity) are perceived...

Many supervisors and subordinates hate performance appraisal exercises. Moreover, the benefits of performance appraisals for organizations are questionable. To address these challenges, we participated in the development of an alternative Strength-Based Performance Appraisal (SBPA) and a goal setting process, considering ideas both from performance...

This study aims to alert users of feedback to its dangers, explain some of its complexities and offer the feedforward alternative. We review the damage that feedback may cause to both motivation and performance. We provide an initial solution to the puzzle of the feedback sign (positive versus negative) using the concepts of promotion focus and pre...

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t On the basis of Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987), we offer an interview protocol termed Feedforward Interview (FFI). FFI is designed to reveal new organizational knowledge both for managers and subordinates, which can lead to better alignment between employees' needs and organizational pract...

A rigorous quasi-experiment tested the ameliorative effects of a sabbatical leave, a special case of respite from routine work. We hypothesized that (a) respite increases resource level and well-being and (b) individual differences and respite features moderate respite effects. A sample of 129 faculty members on sabbatical and 129 matched controls...

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Many supervisors and subordinates hate performance appraisal exercises. Moreover, the benefits of performance appraisals for organizations are questionable. To address these challenges, we participated in the development of an alternative Strength-Based Performance Appraisal (SBPA) and a goal setting process, c...

To attain a bird's eye view of the dialogical self, we propose analyzing clients’ Personal Position Repertoires by creating a bi-plot of the factors underlying their internal and external positions. A bi-plot produces a clear and comprehensible visual map of the relations between all the meaningful internal and external positions within the self, s...

Recently, an investment model integrating several interdependence-type variables has been proposed to explain commitment in social and organizational settings. The model includes the components of costs, rewards, investments, and alternatives, and has served well in predicting specific outcomes such as job turnover and romantic commitment. The purp...

Only recently has a specific genetic variant been associated with a human personality trait, Novelty Seeking. Since the first report in 1996, a number of studies have sought to replicate these first findings. This article summarizes the current status of the association between the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene and Novelty Seeking based on a rec...

To study union commitment antecedents and consequences, we performed a meta-analysis of 76 published and unpublished studies. Using the meta-analytically derived, corrected correlation coefficients, we examined four alternative structural equation models, each testing identical, key union commitment antecedents and consequences. Our results strongl...

For many years experimental observations have raised questions about the rationality of economic agents--for example, the Allais Paradox or the Equity Premium Puzzle. The problem is a narrow notion of rationality that disregards fear. This article extends the notion of rationality with new axioms of choice under uncertainty and the decision criteri...

Despite our common sense notion that indicates that feedback sign (positive vs. negative) has a decisive effect on motivation, the vast literature has no clear specifications regarding when and how positive (negative) feedback increases or decreases motivation (e.g. Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). The variability in feedback sign effects can be explained b...

A meta-analytical review of 20 studies (n = 3907) of the association between DRD4 polymorphism and novelty seeking suggests the following conclusions: (a) on average, there is no association between DRD4 polymorphism and novelty seeking (average d = 0.06 with 95% CI of +/- 0.09), where 13 reports suggest that the presence of longer alleles is assoc...

When psychologists test a commonsense (CS) hypothesis and obtain no support, they tend to erroneously conclude that the CS belief is wrong. In many such cases it appears, after many years, that the CS hypothesis was valid after all. It is argued that this error of accepting the "theoretical" null hypothesis reflects confusion between the operationa...

When psychologists test a commonsense (CS) hypothesis and obtain no support, they tend to erroneously conclude that the CS belief is wrong. In many such cases it appears, after many years, that the CS hypothesis was valid after all. It is argued that this error of accepting the "theoretical" null hypothesis reflects confusion between the operationa...

One way of making decisions on the basis of qualitative impressions is to identify a number of relevant dimensions, translate the impressions into quantitative ratings on each of the dimensions, and integrate the ratings using a mechanical combination scheme. The paper compares the output of this method to global (clinical) judgment. The basis for...

Executive Overview Performance feedback is an important part of many organizational interventions. Managers typically assume that providing employees with feedback about their performance makes it more likely that performance on the job will be improved. Despite the prevalence of feedback mechanisms in management interventions, however, feedback is...

Performance feedback is an important part of many organizational interventions. Managers typically assume that providing employees with feedback about their performance makes it more likely that performance on the job will be improved. Despite the prevalence of feedback mechanisms in management interventions, however, feedback is not always as effe...

We tested three published models of union commitment's antecedents and consequences as well as an integrative model, using correlation coefficients derived from 15 meta-analyses of five union commitment correlates: prounion attitudes, union instrumentality, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and union participation, The integrative model...

The commute impedance model (e.g. Stokols, Novaco, Stokols and Campbell, 1978) is evaluated through a literature review and a survey of commuters who drive to work (N=418). A new construct for the study of commuting—commute variability—is introduced and tested in the framework of the survey. Findings from the literature review indicated (a) partial...

Past research has suggested that dispositional sources of job satisfaction can be traced to measures of affective temperament. The present research focused on another concept, core self-evaluations, which were hypothesized to comprise self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and nonneuroticism. A model hypothesized that core self-e...

Since the beginning of the century, feedback interventions (FIs) produced negative--but largely ignored--effects on performance. A meta-analysis (607 effect sizes; 23,663 observations) suggests that FIs improved performance on average ( d  = .41) but that over one-third of the FIs decreased performance. This finding cannot be explained by sampling...

In addition to individual coping styles, the government and the organization can help the commuter in solving some of the basic problems of getting to work and returning home. This intervention does not have to wait for commuting problems to manifest themselves. It can begin before any commuters have moved into a new area or residential development...

Investigators from disparate disciplines have employed various techniques to examine the behavioral and psychological effects of commuting. Traditionally, commuting time or distance has been viewed as an independent variable that is accompanied by or produces various effects or outcomes on the individual which, in turn, impact the organization. Thi...

Whereas commuting seems to be related to stress-induced emotional strain and will be the focus of the next chapter (Chapter 5), there is also evidence that commuting, particularly by car, can directly cause physical and physiological strain or damage. Among the known physical consequences of commuting by car are elevated risk for acute herniated lu...

An understanding of commuting patterns and behaviors is necessary for identifying the antecedents and consequences of stress. In addition, coping behaviors, both individual and organizational, are to a large extent a function of the quantitative and qualitative features of the trip to work and back home. Governmental intervention for reducing some...

The effects of environmental stimuli on the individual have been the focus of many investigations over the years. Indeed, social psychologists and health practitioners long ago recognized this area as a legitimate subspecialty within their fields. Periodicals such as the Journal of Environmental Psychology, Work and Stress, and the Journal of Human...

The area of commuting research is one of the most difficult for the social and/or environmental psychologist to examine scientifically. Although we can often simulate many aspects of the field in the laboratory, the commuting experience is a rather complex social phenomenon that must, at some point of a research protocol, be studied in a natural en...

Among the major difficulties with research in the field of commuting are the incompatible conceptualizations of the process that has spawned inconsistent or unstable findings. As we saw in the previous chapters, the independent variables, the dependent variables, and the linkages among them frequently differed across studies. This fact, more than a...

The impact of commuting, as we have seen in the model, has negative implications for the individual, organization, and society. In order to minimize or, where possible, eliminate their occurrence, this and the following chapters (Chapters 8 and 9) suggest techniques for dealing with various consequences. Many of the recommendations are theory based...

Each day tens of millions of men and women from every social stratum commute between home and work in the United States and most other industrialized countries. This morning and evening ritual involves billions of person hours every year, has wide-ranging implications for the way business is conducted, and impacts on the physical and psychological...