The motivational value of listening during intimate and difficult conversations

Outcomes of conversations, including those dealing with controversial, deeply personal, or threatening disclosures, result not only from what is said but also how listeners receive these messages. This article integrates the motivational framework self-determination theory (SDT) and expanding literature on interpersonal listening to explore reasons why high-quality so impactful during conversations. We describe a specific distinguishable autonomy-supportive strategy, argue that there much gain by considering can satisfy basic psychological needs, in particular for autonomy relatedness. SDT help explain effective, especially reducing defensiveness, bridging divides, motivating change. The discussion focuses ways motivation science build more effective interventions behavioral change harnessing as an strategy.