Question

As after taking cooking lessons, Thelma bakes a cake for her friend Louise's birthday. When Louise sees the cake, she says, "Wow, that's so sweet. My mom always made a special cake for my birthday, and she would decorate it so elaborately." Thelma angrily replies, "Well I'm sorry that I didn't decorate the cake extravagantly. I guess I still have a lot to learn about cooking." Thelma's response illustrates: _______

Answer 1

Answer:

Defensive listening

Explanation:

The concept of defensive listening refers to the tendency we have to take an innocent comment from someone else as a personal attack to ourselves. Basically, it refers to take a general statement as a personal attack.

In this example, Thelma baked a cake and Louise said her mom would decorate the cake so elaborately. This is a general statement about Thelma's memories of the cakes her mom would made. However, Thelma takes this as a personal attack and responds in a defensive manner saying sorry for not decorating the cake extravagantly. Thus, this would be an example of defensive listening.