Four-Ears Model

CORE DEFINITION

The four-ears model, developed by the German psychologist Schulz von Thun, holds that every message carries four sides at once: the fact, what the content actually states, the self-disclosure, what the sender reveals about himself, the relationship, what the sender thinks of the receiver, and the appeal, what he wants the receiver to do. Its core proposition is that the receiver may hear any of the four, and that most communication breaks down when the sender speaks from the fact side and the receiver listens with the relationship ear. The key qualification is that a speaker who imagines he sent only facts is already mistaken about his own message.