Learning to think critically is a gift to yourself and to society. After all, good critical thinking skills correlate highly with fairness, perspective, discretion, and a love of learning. But critical thinking doesn’t just happen. It takes work and practice to develop. Which habits promote critical thinking?
Promote critical thinking by getting in the habit of questioning everything (including yourself)
Start with your thoughts
I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others. ~ Socrates
Critical thinkers have more than the ability to simply recall information. It’s the ability to look at an idea skeptically and test it for flaws. [1] [2] It also involves analysing different perspectives to come to formulate knowledgeable opinions and make informed decisions. [3]Perhaps the most beneficial habit for developing critical thinking is to get curious and ask questions. Getting curious about why you believe or think the way you do will help you examine your understanding and biases. [4]
Research shows that metacognitive thinking (thinking about how you think) is key to coming to a logical conclusion. [5] Everyone looks at the world through a particular lens.
Examining why you think the way you do will expose that lens and open you up to other possibilities. [6]
So as Dr. Seuss says,
Think and wonder and wonder and think.~ Dr. Seuss
You can start by asking specific questions about your thoughts. The next time a thought pops into your head, ask yourself why you think that. A 2020 study showed that humans have over 6,000 thoughts in an average day, so you should have plenty of raw data to work with. [7]Filter out the more mundane thoughts such as, “I like peaches” or “I’m so tired.”
Instead, focus on assumptions and opinions that affect your daily life or have bigger consequences.
For instance, if you find yourself thinking your co-worker’s idea for the next big work project is resoundingly stupid, stop and ask yourself why.
Is it because you’ve tried something similar and know that the idea sounds good on paper but doesn’t work in real life?
Is it because you dislike this co-worker?
Is it because your co-worker’s idea is different from your own?
Is it because you’re afraid that your co-worker will get a promotion instead of you if your boss likes their idea better than yours?
By critically examining your thoughts, you can learn insights about yourself and the way you view the world. This can help you avoid biases in your reasoning.
Questioning your thoughts and beliefs (and eventually others as well) will greatly improve your critical thinking skills.
Here’s a list of questions to get you started.
As you begin to get curious about your thoughts, you might notice that emotions often play into your gut reactions and daily thought patterns. This is fine. If something doesn’t elicit an emotional response, it’s probably not something worth asking questions about in the first place.
Emotions can actually enhance critical thinking. [8] For instance, curiosity, enjoyment, and surprise can promote critical thinking because they help you be interested in a topic and willing to look at it from different angles. Even confusion and anxiety can motivate you to think critically about a topic so you can discover the truth. However, intense anxiety and frustration are likely to overwhelm your ability to think critically.
Once you get curious about the why behind your thoughts, you can take a deep breath to reduce any frustration and once again look at why you think your co-worker’s idea is stupid. Perhaps it really isn’t a great idea. But you have to come to that conclusion based on an analysis of the idea from different angles. And how do you do that?
Enhance critical thinking skills by seeking out different viewpoints
What happens if you think you learned all you need to know about life from your parents? Or that you learned all you need to know about politics and social issues in college? Or that you know everything about parenting once your first child turns two? You’d be sorely lacking in both knowledge and your ability to think critically.
You can’t think critically unless you continue to learn new things from new perspectives
As one popular meme puts it, “I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.” While this may give you a chuckle, it’s impossible to think critically if you only think about things from one (your) perspective. People who are open to more than one perspective and who understand that problems can be complex and therefore have complex solutions tend to think more critically. [8] In order to understand different viewpoints, start by recognizing that everyone has cognitive bias. [9] Cognitive bias occurs when you seek out or interpret information based on what you already believe or think. In popular culture, this is often referred to as being inside an echo chamber. [10] In an echo chamber, the same ideas keep bouncing around, and new ideas and perspectives can’t get in. So how do you step outside of your echo chamber?
Try exposing yourself to new perspectives. Ask your co-worker to tell you more about their idea. Seek out sources on political issues from places you normally avoid. Surround yourself with a group of diverse people with diverse perspectives on life.
While exposure to multiple viewpoints is a key aspect of thinking critically, it isn’t enough.
As Epictetus said,
“Don’t just say you have read books. Show that through them, you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.”
In order to think critically, you have to really listen to another perspective, whether it’s given in person or through writing. Instead of listening, people tend to come up with counterarguments when the other person is speaking. This just creates an echo chamber in your head.
Instead, actively listen by seeking an understanding of the other perspective. Consider not only the words someone is saying but the context of those words and the experiences of the person. [11] Ask questions to clarify when you’re confused or uncertain about what they mean.
After actively listening, check to see if you understood by repeating their perspective back to them to see if you’re on the same page. If you can repeat back someone’s viewpoint accurately, you’re practicing good active listening and critical thinking skills. Only after accurately understanding a different viewpoint can you then go on to question that viewpoint just like you question your own.
Increase critical thinking by learning to evaluate the evidence
Once you practice questioning your biases and learning from and actively listening to new perspectives, you must practice evaluating the evidence before you.
Begin by checking where the information is coming from. Who wrote that article? What are their credentials? Why was the information published? Where did your friend get that fact? What are the biases of the person writing or publishing the information?
One way to evaluate evidence is to read laterally. This is particularly useful when evaluating internet sources. When you find information on a website, open new tabs to see what other digital sources have to say about that website. You can even practice reading laterally here. As you evaluate the evidence, compare and contrast different ideas from different sources. Where’s the common ground? What are the important differences?
Use a system for evaluating the evidence (here’s a useful checklist).
Pay attention to which arguments are central and which ones are irrelevant to the subject at hand. Check to see that abstract concept (freedom, goodness, etc.) are well-defined. A well-thought-out opinion must define what it’s actually talking about in concrete terms so that it can be used to make decisions or take action. Remember that to be a good critical thinker, you must always be willing to take a step back. Examining the evidence may lead to more questions. And more questions may lead to the need to do more research and hear from more perspectives.
Final thoughts
Critical thinking isn’t a once-and-done situation. It’s a willingness to look at the world through a lens of curiosity. It’s a desire to always keep learning. It’s the understanding that you may be wrong and a passion for finding the truth. Critical thinking is a crucial skill. After all, as Linda Elder put it, “many unexamined lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world.” Go out into the world, think critically about it, and make it a better place as a result.
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