TEDDY BEAR EFFECT

The 'Teddy Bear Effect' refers to the phenomenon where a passive listener appears to impart wisdom to a speaker without doing anything other than listening. People who ask someone a question expecting to learn something from the answer often discover the answer for themselves simply through the act of phrasing the question verbally.
The listener is compared to a Teddy Bear because a stuffed animal (or other sufficiently anthropomorphic "listener") would have served the same purpose. The speaker, by analysing their problem to phrase a question in terms the listener can understand, frames the expected answer. For example, a "Why?" question generally has a "Because..." answer.
This is the opposite of ''talking to a brick wall'', where the listener does not seem to be paying attention.

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See also

See also

★ Effective listening