Encouraging Critical Thinking - Essay Example

Psychology, Essay Topic: Encouraging Critical Thinking. A in your writes an essay in which he s that his philosophy is strongly based in his religion. He states that due to this he does not read certain chapters of the text; nor does he have to be "open-minded". Critical thinking is referred to as the process of intelligently analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing all information gathered to form a basis to belief and take action. It concerns close examination of elements of thought common in purpose, reasoning, empirical grounding, concepts, consequences and frame of reference.

The possibility of one either to believe or not largely depends on intuition and critical thinking. People who possess the tendency of relying on their intuition are more inclined to religion. In addition, the behavior of encouraging people to reason intuitively made people to believe in God. However, encouraging individuals to reason critically lessened their possibility of believing in religion. As such, these two constructs suggests that one’s belief stems from our mindset. According to Feldman (1997), we possess two distinct ways of thinking quite different but related to each other.

As pointed out by Costa & Marzano (1987), “…people who think intuitively are jejune and soft headed” (p. 45). Further, an experiment carried out by Mirman and Tishman (1988), established that people who are conversant with critical thinking performs excellently in analytical tests as compared to their non- primed counterparts. Critical thinking requires one to have an open mind and more energy as opposed to intuitive thinking, which actually forms the default cognitive thinking for humans.

Nonetheless, intuitive thinking does not require a lot of energy, but when critical thinking process is triggered, intuitive thinking becomes vulnerable and is discarded immediately. Basically, critical and intuitive thinking are distinct cognitive thinking strategies adapted in different contexts. Critical thinking is best applied in situations requiring understanding of explicit and logical connections such as solving riddles and puzzles and also for understanding causal chain events (Lipman, 1988).

On the other hand, intuitive thinking is important when assimilating extensive amount of data that requires production of immediate response. It is applicable in instances where there is time limit to carefully detail all the pros and cons of the whole scenario. It is also highly applicable when dealing with more complicated systems for instance ones portrayed by facial expression as we interact with each other (Freire, 1973). Therefore, it is always better to apply the right mode of thinking applicable for a given situation because if wrong strategy is applied; this can lead to impairment in making sound decisions.

Nonetheless, none of the two thinking strategies can be considered better than the other and instead, one should maintain equal balance of the two strategies. People rely more on intuition thinking strategy, but one should be wary of the situation to apply a given strategy. Critical thinking was found to be more suitable for tackling tricky surveys and questions (Lipman, 1988). Moreover, the brain capability to detect characters with intentions and plans in our surrounding can lead to misleading intuitions about the environment and therefore the need of critical thinking that could deconstruct and unfold the truth.

Notably, there exists a gap between critical and intuitive thinking. Intuitive thinking is highly susceptible to mislead especially when used in situations where it is not the optimal strategy, but many researchers maintain that intuitive decision making strategy are applicable in many circumstances as it quickly tells the decision maker the right decision making apparatus to apply. References Costa, A.L. & Marzano, R. (1987). Teaching the Language of Thinking. Educational Leadership. 45(2), 29-33.

Feldman, R.S. (1997). Essentials of Understanding Psychology. New York: The McGraw Hill Company. Freire, P. (1973). Education for Critical Consciousness. New York: The Seabury Press. Lipman, M. (1988). Critical Thinking: What It Can Be? Educational Leadership. 46(1), 38- 43. Mirman, , J. & Tishman, S. (1988). Infusing Thinking through 'Connections'. Educational Leadership. 45(7), 64-65. .