Feeling heard: Operationalizing a key concept for social relations

Abstract

Feeling heard is seen as a cornerstone of intimate relationships and healthy self-development. In public life, feeling heard may play an important role in a well-functioning representative democracy. The current paper aimed to define and measure feeling heard in the context of everyday interpersonal interactions. Based on an integrative literature review, feeling heard is conceptualized as consisting of five components at two levels. At the interpersonal level people feel heard when they have 1) voice, and they receive (2) attention, (3) empathy, and (4) respect. At the collective level people should experience (5) common ground. In two population surveys (N = 194, N = 1000) and a lab study (N = 74), we develop and validate the feeling heard scale (FHS); a concise eight-item scale with good psychometric properties. Results show that the FHS is a distinct and powerful predictor of conversation intentions in many different contexts and relationships. In fact, the FHS is the strongest predictor of intentions for conflict behavior among a set of 15 related variables (e.g., acquaintance, intimacy). Moreover, the FHS explains variance in conversational experiences that other variables do not. We conclude by reflecting on the potential applications of this scale. In interpersonal relations and professional contacts, the FHS enables the assessment of one crucial dimension of social interaction.

How Feeling Understood Predicts Trust and Willingness to Forgive in the Midst of Violent Intergroup Conflict: Longitudinal Evidence From Ukraine

“…This draws not only upon techniques used in diverse settings such as interpersonal therapeutic relationships (Rogers, 1965), but also in problem-solving workshop approaches to addressing intractable intergroup conflict (e.g., Fisher, 2020;Kelman, 1990). A key implication of this research is that, in psychological terms, a critical process in the success of such approaches is the experience of feeling understood (implied also by work on feeling ''heard''; Bruneau & Saxe, 2012;Roos et al, 2021).…”

How feeling understood predicts trust and willingness to forgive in the midst of violent intergroup conflict: Longitudinal evidence from Ukraine

“…This draws upon techniques used in diverse settings such as interpersonal therapeutic relationships (Rogers, 1965), but also in problem-solving workshop approaches to addressing intractable intergroup conflict (e.g., Fisher, 2020;Kelman, 1990). A key implication of the present research is that in psychological terms, a critical process in the success of such approaches is the experience of feeling understood (implied also by work on feeling 'heard'; Bruneau & Saxe, 2012;Roos et al, 2021).…”

Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy

“…This last step comes close to measuring the subjective feeling of being heard, an experience particularly important to members of marginalized groups (Bruneau and Saxe 2012). Because of its importance to the marginalized, it would be useful if future evaluations could ask directly about being heard, as in, e.g., 'When I spoke today/in this forum I felt that I was being heard and my opinions considered, ' or simply, in the wording of Roos et al 2021, 'In this conversation, I felt heard by the other(s)' . are important.…”