The Difference Between Being Heard and Being Understood: Purpose Before Pressure Publishing LLC
I think one of the most interesting things about communication is how often we associate being heard with being understood. And while the two can coexist, I don’t necessarily believe they always mean the same thing. Because here’s a question worth exploring… Is understanding someone the same as agreeing with them? And if not, why do we sometimes treat disagreement as evidence that someone wasn’t listening in the first place?
We live in a world filled with different perspectives, experiences, beliefs, and ways of thinking. Yet somehow, when someone challenges our perspective or arrives at a different conclusion, disagreement can quickly become confrontation. But why? When did having a different interpretation of something automatically mean that someone was against us? Or that their perspective was somehow an attempt to invalidate our own? I believe there’s a difference between challenging someone’s thinking and trying to annihilate it. And maybe that’s where we need to begin.
Disagreement Doesn’t Have to Mean Confrontation
I think we sometimes forget that two people can experience the same world and still interpret it differently. Our environments, education, personal experiences, communities, and beliefs all influence the way we process information. And while critical thinking requires us to examine those influences, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re all going to arrive at the same conclusion. Sometimes people disagree because they’ve analyzed something differently. Other times, they’re operating from experiences or information that someone else may not have considered. And I think that’s worth recognizing.
In 2024, researchers Zhiying Bella Ren and Rebecca Schaumberg published a study titled Disagreement Gets Mistaken for Bad Listening in the journal Psychological Science. Across 11 studies involving 3,396 adults, researchers found that people consistently perceived individuals who disagreed with them as worse listeners, even when their actual listening behaviors were comparable. Think about that for a moment. Someone could be actively listening, processing your thoughts, and genuinely considering what you’re saying, but the moment they disagree, their ability to listen is suddenly questioned. That raises another question: Are we always looking for understanding, or are we sometimes looking for confirmation? Because those are two different expectations.
I don’t believe every disagreement needs to become a debate, and I certainly don’t believe every difference in perspective needs to create an enemy. Sometimes someone is simply contributing another thought to a conversation that already has room for multiple interpretations. You’re not necessarily trying to annihilate somebody else’s thoughts. You’re contributing to different thought bubbles that already exist in the world. And isn’t that part of what makes intellectual exchange valuable?
Understanding Doesn’t Always Mean Acceptance
I also believe there are two very different ways people can choose not to accept someone’s perspective. The first comes from understanding what someone is saying but ultimately arriving at a different conclusion. You can understand someone’s logic, recognize the experiences that shaped their perspective, and still disagree because your own reasoning has led you somewhere else. I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with that.
But then there’s another form of rejection. The kind where someone isn’t interested in understanding your perspective in the first place. Maybe they’ve already decided how they feel about you. Maybe they’re uncomfortable with your position. Or perhaps their interpretation of who you are has already influenced how they’re willing to receive what you say. And that’s where communication becomes more complicated.
Social psychology offers an interesting explanation through a concept called naïve realism. Researchers Lee Ross and Andrew Ward explored how people tend to believe they’re seeing the world objectively, while assuming those who disagree with them must be misinformed, biased, or interpreting reality incorrectly. In other words, we can become so convinced that our interpretation is the reasonable one that we struggle to recognize how someone else arrived at theirs. And I think this is especially interesting because it challenges all of us. How often do we examine the possibility that our understanding of something is influenced by our own experiences? How often do we question the assumptions we’ve made about someone before deciding whether their perspective deserves consideration? And how often do we confuse being confident in our own thinking with being unwilling to examine another person’s?
Now, I do think there’s an important distinction here. Not every disagreement is equally reasonable. Not every perspective is supported by evidence, and understanding someone’s position doesn’t mean excusing harmful behavior or abandoning factual information. But I believe there’s still value in understanding how someone arrived at a particular conclusion, even when that conclusion is something we fundamentally disagree with. Understanding someone’s reasoning doesn’t require us to adopt it. And perhaps that’s something we should become more comfortable with.
The Art of Understanding the World
Something else I find interesting is how much time we can spend wanting to be understood without considering whether we’re extending that same effort to others. And I don’t necessarily think this is always intentional. Sometimes it’s subconscious. Sometimes we’re so focused on communicating our own experiences, emotions, or beliefs that we don’t recognize how little room we’re leaving for another perspective. We want people to hear us. We want them to understand where we’re coming from. We want our experiences to be acknowledged. But are we offering that same consideration in return?
I believe understanding the world is an art in itself. It’s the art of recognizing different ways of thinking through the people we encounter, the communities we’re part of, the environments we navigate, and the experiences that continue shaping us. It’s understanding that someone else’s logic may not mirror our own, but that doesn’t automatically mean there’s nothing worth examining.
Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2024 explored the role of high-quality listening during disagreements. Researchers Guy Itzchakov and colleagues found that attentive, understanding listening could help people feel less defensive and become more willing to reflect on their own attitudes. What I find particularly meaningful about that research is the idea that listening can create room for reflection without necessarily demanding agreement. Because maybe the purpose of every conversation isn’t to change someone’s mind. Maybe sometimes it’s simply to introduce another way of looking at something. And perhaps the art of understanding the world begins when we recognize that our own perspective isn’t the only lens through which the world can be examined.
When Our Words Leave the Page
I think this entire conversation becomes even more interesting when we connect it to writing, poetry, and publishing. Because what is writing, if not another way of allowing the world to experience how we think? When we write, we’re putting our thoughts, experiences, imagination, and perspectives into words that someone else may eventually encounter. Whether that’s through a poem, a novel, a memoir, or even an opinion piece, we’re giving people an opportunity to see something through a lens that may be completely different from their own. Just like what I’m doing right now. I’m sharing my perspective, asking questions, and contributing my own thoughts to a conversation that someone reading this may interpret completely differently. And that’s part of what makes writing so interesting to me.
But here’s something I think writers should consider. Does someone have to understand your writing exactly as you intended for your words to have meaning? I don’t necessarily believe so. Literary scholar Louise Rosenblatt explored this idea in her 1978 book, The Reader, the Text, the Poem, through what she called transactional theory. Her work emphasizes that reading isn’t simply about receiving information from a page. Readers actively participate in the experience of literature, bringing their own thoughts, experiences, and interpretations into their engagement with the text. And I think that’s such an important concept for writers to understand.
Because imagine writing a poem about freedom. For one reader, freedom might represent independence. For another, it might represent healing. Someone else may interpret it through their understanding of history, relationships, or personal identity. Same poem. Different interpretations. Does that mean the poet failed to communicate? Or does it mean the poem created room for people to examine an idea through their own experiences?
Now, I do believe there’s a difference between interpreting a piece of writing differently and completely misrepresenting what an author has written. Not every interpretation is supported by the text itself. But I also think writers should recognize that once their words reach an audience, those words enter a world filled with perspectives they cannot completely control. And that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.
In 2013, researchers David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano published a study in Science exploring whether reading literary fiction could strengthen people’s ability to understand the thoughts and emotions of others. Their findings suggested that literary fiction could improve performance on certain measures of social understanding. However, subsequent studies produced mixed results, reminding us that the relationship between reading and understanding others is more complicated than one experiment can explain. Still, I think the question behind that research is worth exploring. Can literature encourage us to consider perspectives we might never encounter through our own experiences? I believe it can create opportunities for that kind of reflection.
A memoir can introduce us to circumstances we’ve never lived through. A novel can challenge the assumptions we’ve made about people. A poem can communicate an emotion that someone has struggled to explain in ordinary conversation. And sometimes, the most meaningful part of reading isn’t necessarily agreeing with the author. Sometimes it’s recognizing that another way of experiencing or understanding the world exists.
But I also want to speak directly to the people who have something to write and haven’t written it yet. How many stories are sitting in someone’s mind because they’re worried about being misunderstood? How many manuscripts haven’t been completed because someone is questioning whether their perspective is valuable enough? How many poems have never left a notebook because the person who wrote them is afraid of what someone else might think? And how many people are waiting for someone to validate their experiences before they give themselves permission to tell their stories?
I think that’s something worth sitting with. Because writing doesn’t always begin with an audience. Sometimes it begins with a thought, a question, an experience, or something you simply need to express. And publishing is one way of allowing that expression to travel beyond you. It creates an opportunity for your words to reach people you may never meet, enter conversations you may never hear, and introduce perspectives that someone else may not have considered. That doesn’t guarantee everyone will understand your work, agree with it, or even appreciate it. But I don’t believe universal acceptance should be the requirement for creative expression.
Your words don’t have to represent everybody’s reality to be worthy of being written. And I think that’s where individuality becomes especially important in literature. We need writers who are willing to think independently. Writers who are willing to ask uncomfortable questions, explore unfamiliar perspectives, and challenge ideas without believing that every difference in interpretation is a personal attack. We also need readers who are willing to engage with those words thoughtfully, even when they don’t agree with everything being said. Because writing is an art, but so is reading with an open mind. And perhaps that’s one of the most meaningful connections between being heard and being understood. Writing gives your voice somewhere to exist. Reading gives someone else an opportunity to encounter it. Understanding is a possibility, not a guarantee. So if you’ve been waiting for everyone to understand your story before you write it, I want you to consider something. What if the purpose of your writing isn’t to make everyone think like you? What if it’s simply to contribute a perspective that didn’t exist in the conversation before you decided to use your voice?
Your Words Are Your Art, Even When the World Doesn’t Applaud
I also want to explore another side of being heard. I think we sometimes develop this expectation that when we share something meaningful with the world, we’ll receive some form of acknowledgment in return. Whether that’s agreement, recognition, validation, or simply someone telling us that our words made a difference. But what happens when we don’t? Does that mean our message wasn’t received? I don’t necessarily believe so.
Sometimes people hear something and sit with it. Sometimes they reflect on a conversation days, weeks, or even years after it happened. Sometimes something you said becomes part of how they approach a situation, and you may never know that your words influenced them. And on other days, someone may openly tell you how much your perspective helped them. Both experiences are possible.
But I think there’s something important about learning not to measure the value of our voices solely through the responses we receive. Because your words are still your art, even when someone doesn’t applaud them. Your individuality doesn’t disappear because someone disagrees with you. And your perspective doesn’t automatically lose its value because someone isn’t willing to understand it.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remain open to criticism, correction, or growth. In fact, I believe standing firmly in our individuality also requires us to recognize when there’s something new for us to learn. But there’s a difference between being open to growth and constantly reshaping your thoughts simply to make them acceptable to everybody else. And I think that’s where the conversation connects back to independent thinking. If we’re constantly waiting for the world to agree with us before we feel confident enough to use our voices, how much of our individuality are we actually preserving?
Being Heard Is One Thing. Being Understood Is Another.
I don’t think the goal should always be to get everyone to understand us exactly as we understand ourselves. Because realistically, people are going to interpret our words through their own experiences, beliefs, knowledge, and assumptions. Some will understand and agree. Some will understand and disagree. Some may misunderstand entirely. And others may never be interested in understanding at all. I think part of developing confidence in our individuality is recognizing that all of those possibilities exist without allowing them to determine whether we continue contributing to conversations.
But I also believe we have a responsibility to consider the other side of that exchange. We can’t continuously demand understanding while refusing to extend it. We can’t claim to value independent thinking while treating every opposing perspective as a personal attack. And we certainly can’t expect the world to remain intellectually diverse if we only make room for thoughts that resemble our own.
Maybe understanding isn’t about reaching the same conclusion. Maybe it’s about being willing to examine how someone else arrived at theirs. And maybe being heard isn’t always about receiving a response. Sometimes it’s about having the courage to contribute something meaningful, knowing that its impact may exist beyond what we can immediately see.
At Purpose Before Pressure Publishing, we believe your story has purpose, and your voice is your power. But I also believe there’s power in knowing when to speak, when to listen, when to question, and when to allow a different perspective to exist without feeling the need to defeat it. Because the world doesn’t need everyone thinking alike to create meaningful conversations. It needs people who are willing to think. And perhaps even more importantly, people who are willing to understand.
So I’ll leave you with this…Are you listening to understand the world around you, or are you only listening for the parts of it that sound like you?
Research & References
Ren, Z. B., & Schaumberg, R. (2024). Disagreement Gets Mistaken for Bad Listening. Psychological Science, 35(5), 455–470. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976241239935
Itzchakov, G., Weinstein, N., Leary, M., Saluk, D., & Amar, M. (2024). Listening to Understand: The Role of High-Quality Listening on Speakers’ Attitude Depolarization During Disagreements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 126(2), 213–239. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000366
Ross, L., & Ward, A. (1996). Naive Realism in Everyday Life: Implications for Social Conflict and Misunderstanding. In Values and Knowledge (pp. 103–135). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Rosenblatt, L. M. (1978). The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. Southern Illinois University Press.
Kidd, D. C., & Castano, E. (2013). Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind. Science, 342(6156), 377–380. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1239918
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