A perfect example of where I've had selective attention is
during my eighth grade basketball tournament. The reason I can remember this so
vividly is because it almost cost us the game. During a time out my coach
designed a play that was supposed to end up with me scoring. You see it sounds simple but during
this play I was suppose to set a screen for another player that would make it
so the defense thought he was the one getting the ball. I forgot to do so, and I
was double teamed but ended up being fouled so I was still able to get to the
free throw line. Everyone always teases me about this play, and calls me Kobe
because I didn't do anything the coach said I just wanted to score. The reason I
think this happened is because I heard my name, so I wanted to be the "hero".
Sometimes I feel I have selective attention when I hear something that benefits
me, which kind of showed during that game. I really feel one of the ways I can overcome doing this is from
basically just learning from the mistakes I make because of my selective
attention. I feel the more I realize how it could be detrimental to what ever
message I’m trying to hear, the more I can try to fix the way I attend to
messages.
I really liked the example you used in regards to selective attention. I use to play sports in high school too and now hearing your example, I feel like I also encountered the same issue while playing basketball. I had the same mentality of being the "hero" and not fully listening which the noise from the environment such as the screaming fans and coaches didn't make it any better. You put it best that all you can do is learn from your mistakes when it comes to selective listening. For instance, when I got a parking ticket for not listening to my grandmother when she told me to move my car, I just simply paid the ticket and learned to fully listening to my grandmother when she was speaking to me. Selective listening can get the best of us in every situation!
ReplyDeleteit happens all the time when i coach. You tell them 6 different things and they only listen to 2 of the things that you said. one time, i was telling my kids that if the main shooter for the other team is on the court to play man so he doesn't get an open look. I said if he isn't on the court after this time out to play zone and make the other people make a shot. One of my players only heard play zone defense. when we broke out the huddle, the player went into zone while the other played their man, which resulted in the other player scoring. this could have been solved if everyone communicated after the huddle.
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