This document provides an overview of critical thinking and its importance. It discusses how critical thinking is a set of vital skills needed to make decisions and resolve everyday issues. Critical thinking requires learning how to think rather than simply what to think. The document outlines different stages of cognitive development in college students from dualism to relativism to commitment. It also discusses characteristics of good critical thinkers such as analytical skills, open-mindedness, and flexibility. Barriers to effective critical thinking like resistance, narrow-mindedness, and biases are also examined.

1. Chapter 1
Critical Thinking: Why It’s
Important
The aim of this tutorial is to help you learn the
basics of critical thinking and be able to identify
common barriers to effective critical thought.
Copyright © 2021 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.

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Critical Thinking: A Vital Skill
Critical thinking provides us with a crucial set of skills we
need to make decisions and resolve issues that arise in
our everyday lives.
Critical thinking, like logic, requires learning how to think
rather than simply what to think.
• The word “critical” is derived from the Greek word kritikos, which
means “discernment,” “the ability to judge,” or “decision making.”

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Milgram Experiment
Courtesy of Alexandra Milgram

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Logic
• Logic is a crucial part of critical thinking and requires
good analytical skills.
• Logic is defined as “the study of the methods and
principles used in distinguishing correct (good)
arguments from incorrect (bad) arguments.”
• Critical thinking requires applying the rules of logic as
well as gathering evidence, evaluating it, and coming up
with a plan of action.

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Logic versus Opinion
In contrast to arguments based on logic, arguments based
on opinion are defined as “beliefs based solely on
personal feelings rather than reason or facts.”
While we are all entitled to our opinions, arguments based
solely on opinions are not necessarily reasonable and may
encourage us to make poor choices or act in ways we may
later regret.
• Sometimes uninformed opinions can be harmful, both to us and to
society.

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Cognitive Development in College
Students
Educational researcher William Perry, Junior (1913 to
1998) identified several stages of cognitive development in
college students.
• Later researchers simplified his findings into three separate
developmental stages: dualism, relativism, and commitment.

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Stage One: Dualism
Dualism is the first stage of cognitive development and is
common among freshmen and many sophomores.
• It involves the assimilation of knowledge and experience in a
simple, “dualistic” way, viewing issues as either right or wrong.
• Dualistic thinkers see knowledge existing outside themselves and
look to authority figures for answers.
• When researching an issue, dualistic students often exhibit
confirmation bias, which involves only seeking out evidence that
supports their views and dismissing or ignoring contradictory
evidence.

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Stage Two: Relativism
• Rather than accepting that ambiguity may be
unavoidable, relativistic thinkers reject the dualistic
viewpoint and move to the opposite extreme arguing
that all truth is relative or just a matter of opinion.
• People at this stage believe that stating one’s opinion is
the proper form of communication, and they look down
on challenging others’ opinions as judgmental and even
disrespectful.
• Despite their outward relativism, they still look to
authority figures, such as professors, to confirm their
opinions.

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Stage Three: Commitment 1
As students mature, they come to the realization that not
all thinking is equally valid.
• Not only can authority figures be mistaken, but a certain level of
uncertainty and ambiguity is unavoidable.
When students at this stage experience uncertainty, they
are now able to make decisions and commit to particular
positions on the basis of reason and the best evidence
available.

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Stage Three: Commitment 2
At the same time, as independent thinkers, they are open
to challenge and are flexible enough to change their
positions as new evidence becomes available.

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Characteristics of a Good Critical
Thinker 1
Critical thinking is a collection of skills that enhance and
reinforce each other.
• Analytical skills: Your ability to analyze and provide logical support
for your beliefs.
• Communication and reading skills: Your ability to listen, speak, and
write effectively and the awareness of your own communication
style.
• Research and inquiry skills: Your ability to gather, evaluate, and
synthesize supporting evidence.
• Flexibility and tolerance of ambiguity: The ability to flexibly adapt to
changing situations.

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Characteristics of a Good Critical
Thinker 2
• Flexibility and tolerance of ambiguity: The ability to flexibly adapt to
changing situations.
• Open-minded skepticism: The ability to overcome personal
prejudices and biases and critically examine an issue before
coming to a decision; this often involves the method of doubt, first
proposed by French philosopher René Descartes (1596 to 1650).
• Method of doubt involves setting aside our preconceptions and
adopting a default position of skepticism.

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René Descartes
Collection/Getty Images

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Characteristics of a Good Critical
Thinker 3
• Creative problem-solving skills: The ability to view
problems from multiple perspectives and come up with
original solutions to complex problems.
• Attentiveness, mindfulness, and curiosity: The ability to
remain curious and attentive to the world and consider
multiple opinions.
• Collaborative learning skills: The ability to recognize and
anticipate the reactions of others and a willingness to
collaborate with others to share and gain knowledge.

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Multiple Potentially Deadly E F3 Tornadoes,
Causing Millions of Dollars of Damage
Stewart F. House/Getty Images

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An MP3 Player
Vicki Beaver/Alamy Stock photo

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Critical Thinking and Self-Development
Critical thinking is not just about abstract thought.
• It is also about self-improvement and your whole development as a
person.
• Self-examination is an important part of this process.
Good critical thinkers take charge of their lives and
choices.
• By contrast, poor critical thinkers allow themselves to be controlled
by circumstances and often deal ineffectively with problems, which
often results in depression, anger, or other emotional problems.
• Developing a rational life plan is an effective way of avoiding these
problems.

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Age Differences in Depression
Source: Data courtesy of SAMHSA
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A Life Plan Is Like a Flight Plan
Geoff Tompkinson/Getty Images

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Other Features of a Good Critical
Thinkers
Effective critical thinkers exhibit other traits and
characteristics.
• These include:
• The ability to challenge social injustices as well as being able to respond
intelligently and thoughtfully to challenges to our own belief systems.
• The cultivation of high self-esteem, proactive attitude, and self-direction,
traits common in autonomous critical thinking.
• The involvement in democratic politics and the ability to critically analyze
political actors and issues.

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Sally Ride
Everett Collection/CSU Archives/Newscom
King was willing to go to jail, rather than back down on his
goal of equality for all people.

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Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Bettmann/Getty Images

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Barriers to Effective Critical Thinking
• Effective critical thinking involves sharpening our
resistance to irrational or narrow-minded arguments.
• Recognizing these irrational or narrow-minded
arguments can sharpen our critical thinking skills and
help devise effective strategies to counter them.

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Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
Shane T. McCoy/U.S. Navy/Getty Images

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Tiananmen Square, China
Jeff Widener/AP Images

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The Three-Tier Model of Thinking
The processes used in critical thinking can be broken
down into three tiers or levels: experience, interpretation,
and analysis.
• Experience, the foundational level of critical thinking, involves
firsthand experience as well as empirical facts derived from other
sources.
• Interpretation involves trying to make sense of our experiences.
• Analysis involves raising our level of thinking and critically analyzing
our interpretations of an experience.

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The Three Levels of Thinking
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Resistance
• None of us likes to be wrong and when we are
challenged, we often exhibit resistance, which is defined
as “the use of immature defense mechanisms that are
rigid, impulsive, maladaptive, and nonanalytical.”
• Resistance acts as a barrier to effective critical thinking.

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Types of Resistance 1
There are several types of resistance; they include
avoidance, anger, clichés, denial, ignorance, conformity,
struggling, and distractions.
• Avoidance involves escaping or intentionally avoiding certain
people and situations.
• Anger involves responding to challenges with threatening physical
or verbal cues.
• Clichés are often-repeated statements that sidetrack the real issues
and prevent effective critical thought.
• Denial involves ignoring or refuting challenging viewpoints or
evidence.

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Types of Resistance 2
• Ignorance is a type of resistance where we intentionally avoid
learning about a particular issue.
• Conformity involves going along with group or peer viewpoints even
when you disagree with them.
• Struggling involves getting so caught up in the minute details of an
issue that nothing gets accomplished.
• Distractions are hindrances that prevent clear thinking and effective
critical analysis.

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Is Ignorance Bliss?
Amos Morgan/Getty Images

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Narrow-Mindedness 1
Like resistance, narrow-mindedness and rigid beliefs, such
as absolutism, egocentrism, fear of challenge,
ethnocentrism and anthropocentrism, act as barriers to
effective critical thinking.
• Absolutism is a perspective that sees the world in “black and white”
absolutes.
• Fear of challenge involves reluctance to stand up to others who we
believe may have different opinions.

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Narrow-Mindedness 2
• Egocentrism is a perspective that sees the self as the center of all
things.
• Ethnocentrism is an uncritical and unjustified belief in the inherent
superiority of one’s own group or culture.
• Anthropocentrism is a belief that humans are the central or the
most significant entity in the universe.

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Statue of Buddha
Medioimages/Photodisc/Getty Images
According to Buddhist teaching, mental hindrances like
distractions keep us from clear understanding.

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Stephen Hawking
David Silverman/Getty Images

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Funeral of Sunando Sen
Matthew McDermott/Polaris/Newscom

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Rationalization and Doublethink
When we are faced with difficult choices or decisions, we
often engage in rationalization to justify our decisions
made on the basis of personal opinion or bias.
Because rationalization involves ignoring competing
claims, people who engage in it often get caught up in
doublethink.
• It is defined as holding two contradictory views, or “double
standards,” at the same time and believing both to be true.

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Cognitive and Social Dissonance
• We are most likely to modify or critically analyze our
views when we encounter cognitive or social
dissonance, which occurs when we encounter new
ideas or social behavior that contradicts or conflicts with
our worldviews.
• Evidence suggests that when people change their
behavior, changes in their beliefs follow.

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U.S. Median Income by Race,
Ethnicity, and Gender, 2017
Michael Poehlman/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2018.
The wage gap between women and men, especially between white and
Asian men and black and Hispanic women, continues to be significant
with women earning only about 80 percent of what men earn.
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Conclusions
• As explored in the previous slides, effective critical
thinking requires development of a collection of skills,
including attentiveness, open-mindedness, strong
communication, and effective analytical, research, and
problem-solving skills.
• Critical thinkers also need to be aware of barriers to
effective critical thinking, such as habitual use of
resistance and different types of narrow-mindedness.

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Perspectives on Affirmative Action in
College Admissions
Bill Pugliano/Getty Images