Education
100 Brief Tips and Findings Regarding Critical Thinking
Celebrating 100 ‘Thoughts on Thinking’ posts.
Updated June 15, 2023 Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Key points
- There are three core critical thinking skills: analysis, evaluation, and inference.
- The knowledge we store in our heads isn’t necessarily correct; it's just how we understood something.
- We can’t always be politically correct if we want to think critically.
In celebrating the 100th "Thoughts on Thinking" post on Psychology Today, let’s focus on the bread-and-butter of this blog: Here are 100 tips and findings regarding critical thinking (CT) and higher-order cognition:
- CT is a metacognitive process (i.e., thinking about thinking).
- CT consists of skills and dispositions, whilst working in conjunction with reflective judgment.
- Reflective judgment refers to taking one’s time with a decision while engaging epistemological understanding.
- Epistemological understanding refers to the nature of knowledge, the limits and certainty of knowing, and how this affects related reasoning.
- There are three core CT skills: analysis, evaluation, and inference.
- Having CT skills alone is not sufficient; one must have a positive disposition toward CT.
- CT disposition refers to an inclination, tendency, or willingness to perform a given thinking skill.
- CT dispositions include concepts like open-mindedness, organisation, truth-seeking, and skepticism.
- Even educators have a tough time defining CT.
- Critical thinking can be enhanced through appropriate training.
- Explicit CT training is necessary if educators want to see CT improve and flourish across domains.
- There are many types of illogical argumentation and fallacious reasoning that can disrupt appropriate thinking.
- Play "devil’s advocate" to truly see "both sides of the story."
- If we truly care about a topic or decision, we should apply CT.
- Likewise, we probably should only apply CT when we care about the topic or decision.
- It is far from "virtuous" to force emotion-based opinions of virtue/value onto others who do not necessarily subscribe to the same ideology.
- "Leave emotion at the door"—it clouds your thinking.
- Caring about a topic/decision is distinct from being passionate about it. The former is important for CT; the latter can hinder it.
- Application of CT can be categorised into five general areas: argument analysis, verbal reasoning, hypothesis testing, judging likelihood and uncertainty, and problem-solving.
- Humans are poor "natural" statisticians. Learn statistical analysis if you have an interest or find you use statistics often.
- People often don’t know what they don’t know.
- People with low ability in an area typically overestimate their ability in it, whereas people with high ability in an area often underestimate their ability (Dunning–Kruger Effect).
- There is no such thing as "proof," per se—we can only disprove things (through falsification). The word you’re looking for is "evidence" or "justification."
- The knowledge you store in your head isn’t necessarily correct; it's just how you understood something.
- Understanding refers to how a schema is constructed, not necessarily the accuracy of the information.
- Knowledge, in terms of what we know as a society, is theoretical.
- Evidence or justification for said knowledge may be debunked at a later time.
- Creativity is not necessary for CT but, if you conceptualise it as "synthesis," then it can be a core facilitator.
- People love to be right, but they’re likely to hate being wrong more.
- People often dislike change and, more often, dislike changing their minds.
- Changing your mind requires schemas (re)construction.
- Changing your mind might make you question long-held beliefs, which can disrupt your worldviews.
- Disruption of worldviews might yield uncertainty…which can frighten people.
- People generally do not like to be frightened or confused.
- People develop odd, vague, and/or over-simplified "sayings" to explain away uncertainties.
- People develop odd, vague, and/or over-simplified belief systems to explain away uncertainties.
- People often like things, such as information, simplified and organised into nice neat little packages (e.g., TL;DR).
- Just because you believe or wish something was true doesn’t make it so.
- Changing your mind might make you look weak to others in certain situations, but if you emphasise the strength necessary to do this, the weakness can be overturned.
- Changing one's mind requires a positive disposition toward CT.
- Trying to change someone’s mind is difficult and often backfires—reinforcing their previously held belief.
- There is no such thing as "good" CT—you either applied it or you didn’t.
- If you applied CT wrong, then is it actually CT?
- Just because you often apply CT in requisite situations doesn’t mean you do it in all requisite situations.
- It is difficult to measure CT ability. Simply self-reporting that you are "good at it" or "often do it" does not make it so.
- "It depends" is an acceptable answer—just ensure you know a few examples of upon what it depends.
- Numbers don’t lie, but people do—and not even intentionally. It takes a human to interpret numbers, and the interpretation may be incorrect.
- All of our decisions are made with some level of bias; try your best to curtail it as much as possible.
- It’s OK to say "I don’t know," and it is actually a good indicator of intellectual honesty.
- Be intellectually honest.
- A person said what they said, not how you interpret what they said—if clarity is lacking, ask for clarification.
- You can’t always be politically correct if you want to think critically—controversial topics often require the most CT!
- Argument mapping can facilitate CT.
- Active learning is a fundamental component of CT instruction.
- Only worry about things you can change.
- Keep perspective and be thankful for the things you have.
- Cynicism is not the same as skepticism.
- It’s ill-conceived and dangerous to treat perspectives that you value as global virtues or a moral code that everyone else should value, too.
- Don’t trust your gut—intuition can often be correct; but when it’s off, it’s way off. Instead, engage reflective judgment (see #3).
- Despite what Oprah says, you do not have your own truth. Truth isn’t relativistic in a shared reality.
- There is a need for general, secondary-school training in CT-related processes.
- People often ignore truths that don’t suit them or try to manipulate them to accommodate their bias.
- Relying on personal experience to make decisions is lazy thinking.
- People overestimate the value of their experience in decision-making, which is particularly scary when they have a lot of experience doing things wrong.
- Your mistakes are often unacknowledged, so you may not know you’ve been doing something wrong.
- It’s OK to be wrong—it’s a learning experience. Own up to it.
- Do not underestimate the effect social media is having on your cognitive processing.
- Be open-minded toward others.
- Dispositions of open-mindedness and skepticism complement each other, not contradict.
- People don’t recognise their own irrationality.
- Intelligence and rationality are distinct traits.
- "Learning styles" are a debunked myth.
- "Do your research" is not a thing—20 hours of Googling is not putting anyone on par with expert perspectives.
- Nevertheless, be aware of empirical evidence and broaden your knowledge for topics that matter to you.
- We rationalise poor decisions because we don’t want to look irrational and/or they, in some way, yield an outcome we actually want.
- When engaging in argumentation, be sure of how key issues are defined.
- Difficulty in definition yields difficulty in evaluation.
- Draw and report your conclusions with caution—you could be wrong. Accept that.
- Don’t just read a headline—dig deeper. Read the full article and assess the sources of the claims.
- Ask yourself, are all the reasons presented to you for believing something actually relevant to the central claim?
- Question an author’s intentions and ask, What is the purpose of this piece?
- We are cognitively lazy as a default—put time and effort into your thinking.
- Information can evoke and breed emotions like fear and anger in the reader or listener. If you’re emotional, you’re not thinking rationally.
- The more we have been exposed to certain information, the more likely we are to believe that information—regardless of truth (i.e., the illusory truth effect).
- Peer pressure isn’t just for teens; we all amend our perspectives to align with those around us (e.g., for social desirability or as a result of the illusory truth effect).
- Question your perspectives.
- Don’t jump to conclusions, regardless of how interesting, confirming, or comforting they might be.
- Consider the more likely and simpler solutions first—they often provide nice starting points for your decision-making.
- Thinking "outside the box" isn’t always helpful—it often contradicts CT and produces ideas that lack feasibility and logic.
- When you evaluate information, assess its credibility, relevance, logical strength, balance, and bias.
- A theory isn’t an educated guess; it’s an established model for how a phenomenon occurs following many observed replications (e.g., gravity).
- Belief in conspiracy theories might stem from a desire for closure in a complex scenario, lower ability in specific cognitive processes, and/or a function of demographics.
- CT requires practice—engage opportunities that require it.
- Sometimes, even when you know you’re right, it’s better just to leave it—Is this particular argument really worth the aggravation?
- Emotional intelligence—as conceptualised as a maturity that facilitates the management of emotions, with respect to their appraisal and expression—can be a useful self-regulatory tool for CT.
- Priortise the things that matter in your life—your thinking will follow in light of blocking out the noise.
- Context is key for all decision-making.
- Cognitive reframing can be difficult, but it is often necessary for CT and maintaining mental well-being.
- Heuristics, schemas, biases, and intuitions are all the same—automatic, gut-level decision-making sources that are a risky means of making decisions that require CT.
- Read more.