Learning About Critical Thinking And Decision example essay topic

Everyday we are face with countless decisions to make. Two skills that we use to help us make decisions in life are critical thinking and decision making. To improve in the process of making decisions we have to learn about what is critical thinking, what is decision making, how they relate to each other, and the way we can improve on each of these skills and implement them into our lives. Critical thinking is a person's ability to rationally evaluate their world, searching for understanding of ideas and theories. In order to think critically, we must learn to completely evaluate new ideas that are constantly being presented to us. This really is the ability to understand ourselves better.

Critical thinking is the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome. It is used to describe thinking that is purposeful, reasoned and goal directed - the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihood's, and making decisions when the thinker is using skills that are thoughtful and effective for the particular context and type of thinking task. Critical thinking also involves evaluating the thinking process - the reasoning that went into the conclusion we " ve arrived at the kinds of factors considered in making a decision. Critical thinking is sometimes called directed thinking because it focuses on a desired outcome". Broadly speaking, critical thinking is concerned with reason, intellectual honesty, and open-mindedness, as opposed too emotionalism, intellectual laziness, and closed-mindedness.

Thus, critical thinking involves: following evidence where it leads; considering all possibilities; relying on reason rather than emotion; being precise; considering a variety of possible viewpoints and explanations; weighing the effects of motives and biases; being concerned more with finding the truth than with being right; not rejecting unpopular views out of hand; being aware of one's own prejudices and biases, and not allowing them to sway one's judgment". Critical thinking is the ability to think for one's self and reliably and responsibly make those decisions that affect one's life. Critical thinking is also critical inquiry, so such critical thinkers investigate problems, ask questions, pose new answers that challenge the status quo, discover new information that can be used for good or ill, question authorities and traditional beliefs, challenge received dogmas and doctrines, and often end up possessing power in society greater than their numbers. It may be that a workable society or culture can tolerate only a small number of critical thinkers, that learning, internalizing, and practicing scientific and critical thinking is discouraged. Most people are followers of authority: most do not question, are not curious, and do not challenge authority figures who claim special knowledge or insight. Most people, therefore, do not think for themselves, but rely on others to think for them.

Most people indulge in wishful, hopeful, and emotional thinking, believing that what they believe is true because they wish it, hope it, or feel it to be true. Most people, therefore, do not think critically. Critical thinking has many components. Life can be described as a sequence of problems that each individual must solve for one's self. Critical thinking skills are nothing more than problem solving skills that result in reliable knowledge. Humans constantly process information.

Critical thinking is the practice of processing this information in the most skillful, accurate, and rigorous manner possible, in such a way that it leads to the most reliable, logical, and trustworthy conclusions, upon which one can make responsible decisions about one's life, behavior, and actions with full knowledge of assumptions and consequences of those decisions. Decision making is the study of identifying and choosing alternatives based on the values and preferences of the decision maker. Making a decision implies that there are alternative choices to be considered, and in such a case we want not only to identify as many of these alternatives as possible but to choose the one that best fits with our goals, desires, lifestyle, values, and so on. Decision making is the process of sufficiently reducing uncertainty and doubt about alternatives to allow a reasonable choice to be made from among them. This definition stresses the information gathering function of decision making. It should be noted here that uncertainty is reduced rather than eliminated.

Very few decisions are made with absolute certainty because complete knowledge about all the alternatives is seldom possible. Thus, every decision involves a certain amount of risk. Any curriculum that attempts to improve people's decision-making capabilities needs to begin by recognizing the personal empowerment that comes from simply realizing that a choice can be made and actively defining a decision perspective. This requires that people be taught to distinguish between modes of "decision thinking" and "automatic thinking" Critical thinking and decision making might be different in some ways yet they do relate to each other.

By learning how they relate to each other helps us understand which one we should use to make the best decision. I feel that the processes of each thinking skill have similarities which make them relate to each other. For example, critical thinking and decision making requires a person to look at all the possible choices. Now what is differing is that critical thinking involves for a person to question the choices and in decision making a person must identify the different choices. The process is different but each requires that there be some way of eliminating the choices that will lead you to a good decision. Improve On Each of These Skills and Implement Them Creative thinking is thinking patterned in a way that leads to decision making results...

The ultimate criterion for creativity is output. We call a person creative when that person consistently gets creative results, meaning, roughly speaking, original and otherwise appropriate results by the criteria of the domain in question. The benefit of being a critical thinker has an attitude -- an attitude of desiring to avoid nonsense, to find the truth and to discover the best action. It's an attitude that rejects "intuiting" the truth in favor of demanding reasons. Learning about critical thinking and decision making allows for us to improve on each of these skills and implement them into our lives. I feel that if a person learns how to ask the right questions when faced with any decision it will be easier to make important decisions in their life.

Also by knowing how to identify different choices gives a person many options to choose from and base their decision in what will be the best outcome in their life. Personally I know I become more of a critical thinker because I have been learning the processes through my therapy sessions. I use to not think of what my decisions were and based it solely on what I knew rather than what I wanted to know and how it will affect my life. I find myself still using decision making for small day to day decisions but for decisions that will have great consequences I tend to use critical thinking. I also know that using these skills is different from implementing them in your life. A person can use skills once in a while but by learning how to incorporate them into every decision is difficult and takes a long time to learn.

In conclusion, I feel that critical thinking and decision making are two skills that we acquire and practice through the decisions we make in our daily life. By learning how to make better decisions we learn how to effectively communicate our ideas with strong sources that back up our views. I feel that by effectively using critical thinking we can be more open to changing our ideas because our lives are constantly changing since society is ever changing and improving. Also by being a critical thinker benefits us because we are motivated to make better decisions and this improves our "self-confidence by increasing your sense of intellectual independence".