Active Listening Examples: Recognizing the Importance of Bids

Many times, couples will come to a mental health professional to resolve conflict in their relationship. While disagreement over issues is a frequent theme in sessions, another frequent problem is communication skills. One partner speaks to the other and believes the other is not listening.

When a partner does not feel heard, he or she might criticize the other’s behaviors or treat them with contempt. As a result of the hurt partner’s actions, the other partner might become defensive or withdraw physically and emotionally.

To improve one’s active listening skills, partners must know the different reasons for requests, overcome obstacles to these requests, and discover the various types of communication. Gottman and Silver (2015) refer to these requests as bids and point out the importance of bids as part of the currency of a marriage.

The bid

A partner makes a bid, and the other partner responds to the bid. If a partner makes a bid and the other partner fails to respond to the bid, the partner will re-bid only twenty percent of the time. Thus, it is important to be aware of when bids are made as explained below.

There are different reasons why a person makes a bid to his or her partner. They are a request for attention, a request to show some interest (in what the partner is doing), a request to engage with the partner, a request to mirror the partner’s effect, and a support request (Stern, 2024; Lisitsa, 2016). These requests often overlap with one another. When requests receive a response, they collectively increase the connection between the partners (Stern).

Bid for attention

When a partner makes a bid for attention, he or she is requesting that the other partner hear him or her and be understood. Nothing is more frustrating than repeating oneself multiple times. Thus, making eye contact, squaring up one’s body toward the speaker, nodding one’s head in agreement, asking questions for clarification, and reflecting the speaker’s words are all signs of attention.

Bid for interest

When a partner makes a bid for interest, he or she is inviting the other partner into his or her world. The significance of this invitation is important to knowing your partner. Knowing one’s partner and his or her interest goes a long way toward deepening the friendship between partners.

Bid for engagement

When a partner makes a bid for engagement, he or she wants the other partner to address, approach, or tackle an issue. Ideally, engagement means that both partners are invested in a conversation. The conversation might be exchanging views on a particular topic, discussing a reoccurring issue between partners, problem-solving a solvable issue, sharing ideas to improve the relationship, or planning and coordinating future events.

Bid to mirror an effect

When a partner makes a bid to mirror an effect, he or she is often looking for empathy. Everyone needs someone to have their backs. God created man and woman for each other. Empathy requires the listener to show compassion and figurately place him or herself in the speaker’s shoes. Empathy also requires the listener to find ways to take the hurting speaker’s side.

Bid for support

When a partner makes a bid for support, he or she needs help with something. Support could require the listening partner to complete a task like checking on the food while the speaker does another task. Support could involve the listening partner teaming up with the speaker to resolve a problem jointly like addressing a child disrespecting the speaker. Support could require the listener to provide emotional support like hugging the speaker.

Obstacles to bids

In a perfect world, bids would be made, and responses would be given. Unfortunately, there are three types of obstacles that interfere with the bid-response. The first type of obstacle is a bid wrapped in a strong emotion. For example, a wife finds her husband’s clothing on the floor. The wife begins to criticize her husband and calls him a slob. As a result, this simple incident leads to a regrettable incident and hurt.

As described above, there are steps to active listening: eye contact, facing one’s partner, nodding one’s head in agreement, asking clarifying questions to understand, and reflecting the speaker’s words. Frequently, there are competing distractions that hinder active listening (i.e. children interrupting, multitasking, viewing social media while the speaker is talking, talking to the listener’s back).

As a result, it can affect the bid-response process. For example, a wife walks into a room modeling a new dress she brought. She asks her husband whether she looks fat in this dress while her husband is absorbed in reading the newspaper. The husband responds, “Yep.” One can imagine the intense fellowship between this couple.

Even couples married for many years do not know what each other is thinking. Drawing inferences about what one’s partner is thinking and feeling without speaking to them is known as mind-reading.

When partners make considerate efforts to enter each other’s worlds, it increases the odds that you know what the partner is thinking and feeling, but it is not foolproof. Not communicating with each other leads to a frustrating game of “marital charades” where each partner guesses what each partner is trying to bid and what the proper response is.

A close cousin to mind-reading is the fallacy of fortune-telling. Fortune telling involves a partner predicting what the other partner is going to do in the future based on little or no evidence. Like mind-reading, increased knowledge of our partners leads to more predictability.

However, it does not lead to absolute certainty. It can be frustrating when a partner incorrectly prophesies how the other partner will respond in the future. The solution for mind-minding and fortune-telling is active listening and communicating between partners.

Successful bid responses

Moving on from obstacles to successful bids, there are five types: silent, comment, question, playful (Lisitsa, 2014), and negative (Lisitsa, 2012). Silent bids are non-verbal bids between partners to communicate without others knowing. Gestures, looks, and other non-verbal communication are examples of silent bids.

For example, a couple attends a formal dinner party. One partner across the room turns his head to the side to gesture to his partner that he is ready to leave. With silent bids, mind-reading can occur, so partners need to come up with signals in advance. When miscommunication occurs, it is important to clear it as soon as possible.

Comment and question bids are verbal bids. They are easily recognizable as one partner makes a comment or asks a question. Couples need to be aware of their voice volume, voice tone, and body language as they make bids.

As depicted above, words with harsh voice tones and loud voice volume are not likely to be well-received by the listener. Likewise, the listener must be ready to respond to the bid or answer the listener’s question. If the listener does not understand the speaker’s request, asking for clarification indicates that the listener is attending to the speaker’s bid.

Playful bids are bids communicated through touch. The speaker touches the listener for attention, engagement, or mirroring effect. For example, a partner might tickle the other partner’s feet to wake up the other partner. As a result, the speaker gets the listener’s attention.

If the other partner is a heavy sleeper, the speaker may tickle the listener’s feet while engaging verbally with the listener to wake up and subsequently expressing a concern about the listener sleeping through the alarm. While waking the other partner, the partner might begin laughing and the other partner also begins to laugh.

Negative bids destroy relationships through criticism and contempt. Criticism and contempt by one partner cause the other partner to defend him or herself and/or shut down. Frequent criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and emotional stonewalling decrease goodwill in the marriage and the relationship becomes volatile and toxic. Because of the negativity, the partners engage in black-and-white thinking by viewing their relationship as completely bad.

We can help

Are you feeling unheard? Do you struggle to not wrap your bids with anger or become distracted too easily? Is your relationship struggling due to mind-reading, fortune-telling, or black-or-white thinking? Are you fighting the tendency of constant criticism toward and utter contempt for your partner?

Do you believe that your relationship is tedious and complicated? At Spokane Christian Counseling, we understand the challenges to active listening and how it affects partners in a relationship. We are available to assist you with these challenges in your relationship.

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. – James 1:19-21, NIV