Critical Thinking: Nine Strategies for Everyday Life, Part I.
2000; Volume: 24; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0894-3907
Autores Tópico(s)Education and Critical Thinking Development
ResumoStrategy Five: Reshape Your Character Choose one intellectual trait (intellectual perseverance, autonomy, empathy, courage, humility, etc.) to strive for each month, focusing on how you can develop that trait in yourself. example, concentrating on intellectual humility, begin to notice when you admit you are wrong. Notice when you refuse to admit you are wrong, even in the face of glaring evidence that you are in fact wrong. Notice when you become defensive when another tries to point out a deficiency in your work or your thinking. Notice when your intellectual arrogance keeps you from learning, for example, when you say to yourself, already know everything I need to know about this subject, or, know as much as he does. Who does he think he is forcing opinions on me? By owning your ignorance, you can begin to deal with Strategy Six: Deal with Your Egocentrism Egocentric thinking is found in the disposition in human nature to think with an automatic, subconscious bias in favor of onesself. On a daily basis, you can begin to observe your egocentric thinking in action by contemplating questions like these: Under what circumstances do I think with an automatic, subconscious bias in favor of myself? Do I ever become irritable over small things? Do I do or say anything irrational to get my way? Do I try to impose my will upon others? Do I ever fail to speak my mind when I feel strongly about something and then later feel resentment? Once you identify egocentric thinking in operation, you can work to replace it with more rational thought through systematic self-reflection. example, think along the lines of: would a rational feel in this or that situation? What would a rational How does that compare with what I want to do? (Hint: If you find that you continually conclude that a rational would behave just as you behaved you are probably engaging in self-deception.) Strategy Seven: Redefine the Way You See Things We live in a world, both personal and social, in which every situation is defined, that is, given a meaning. How a situation is defined determines not only how we feel about it but also how we act in it and what implications it has for us. However, virtually every situation can be defined in more than one way. This fact carries with it tremendous opportunities. In principle, it lies within your power and mine to make our lives more happy and fulfilling. Many of the negative definitions which we give to situations in our lives could, in principle, be transformed into positive ones. We can be happy when otherwise we would have been sad. We can be fulfilled when otherwise we would have been frustrated. In this strategy we practice redefining the way we see things, turning negatives into positives, dead-ends into new beginnings, and mistakes into opportunities to learn. To make this strategy practical, we should create some specific guidelines for ourselves. example, we might make ourselves a list of 5 to 10 recurrent negative contexts in which we feel frustrated, angry, unhappy, or worried. We could then identify the definition in each case that is at the root of the negative emotion. We would then choose a plausible alternative definition for each and then plan for our new responses as well as new emotions. example, if you tend to worry about all problems, both the ones you can do something about and those that you can't, you can review the thinking in this nursery rhyme: For every problem under the sun, there is a solution or there is none. If there be one, think `til you find If there be none, then never mind it. Let's look at another example. You redefine your initial approach to a member of the opposite sex not in terms of the definition his or her response will determine whether or not I am an attractive person but in terms of the definition let me test to see if this is initially drawn to me, given the way they perceive me. …
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