What is critical thinking? An expert psychologist tells | Psychlopaedia

Psychologist Diane Halpern on what critical thinking is, how this skill should be taught and why it is key to thriving in a fast-changing world

[nathanketsdever]

The six specific skills she mentions are:

1. Identifying and/or telling the distinction between Correlation versus causation
2. Hindsight bias
3. Regression to the mean (how it operates)
4. Looking for evidence and counter-evidence
5. Being open-minded (having an open mind)
6. Looking at credibility (and she seems to assume potential biases as well)

She mentions the skills are mentioned in her book, along with its use or application across disciplines.



She further emphasizes the impact of critical thinking on home, workplace (according to employers), and for democracy.

[thechiefinthesouth]

Tell people all the time "Democracy requires competent, critical thinking, and well informed citizens in order to work for the people."

[theyjustwantyourmoney]

I like that you mentioned scams, internet scams are now a problem and if one cannot question what they promise, they will definitely fall for them

[MarkWrightPsuedo]

Outstanding! The only thing I would take issue with, is that critical thinking is a "skill" or a set of skills. While in one way this is more or less true, it trivializes the interrelationship between the universal critical thinking concepts that make up the discipline of critical thinking. Once you learn these universal concepts and relationships to one another, you actually do have something that works across all domains. They always apply. But she is going a bit deeper with singular, practical techniques--which is good! I am not knocking that one little bit. I just don't want to lose the baby in the bathwater. These concepts are not like bbs in a bag. They form a constellation, a system of thought, each star both identifiable but related to its neighbors. But she is exactly right--we all can benefit from being explicitly taught how to think critically. Our schools do not do that in this society. They should, and we should insist upon it.

[johnw.dowding]

In short, be an optimistic pessimist
>op·ti·mis·tic (hopeful and confident about the future)
>pes·si·mist (a person who tends to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen); it is just that simple.

[icankickflipok]

I was suppose to do a lot of writing for my critical thinking class in high school. I argued with my teacher for an entire block as to why that wasn’t necessary in order to prove I could think critically. I never had to write anything. I got an A in the class. Not sure I deserved it but whatever. In my opinion, critical thinking is breaking something down into pieces and assessing each piece, then understanding how each piece fits with the others. That’s how we answer questions, but it’s also how we explain the answers to those questions. It’s how we learn, but it’s also how we teach others who want or need to learn. It’s how we decide how to spend our time, but it’s also how we decide if our time spent was spent valuably or was just wasted.

[williamjayaraj]

Critical thinkers can improve the quality of life in a democratic society. Every aspect of human life must be questioned and also should come under the scanner. Thanks for the good message mam.

[CatarineausArmory]

I like the way she defines it with the term in the definition and then goes on to tell you all about what it

[markzubidubi]

Please be aware that she does not answer the question "What is critical thinking?" until around the 4:00 minute point. And also she conflates the term Critical thinking with "good thinking" or "thinking well" which are both much broader and more vague terms.

[anjanack]

Its really helpful to know about critical thinking.. thank you 🙂

[ericsierra-franco]

I would recommend every college student take a couple philosophy courses. Philosophy will force you to think critically and sharpen your ability to argue points compellingly.

[johnk]

Critical thinking is like thinking critically, like you know!?

[lifemusic]

Love this subject and to top it off some great ASMR.

[empathematics]

Schools actually discourage critical thinking, even if it’s in the curriculum. We are neglecting the fact that every child is naturally a critical thinker, yet we still feel the need to impose curricula on them. Schools are actually the means by which we lose our critical thinking skills. Obedience training. “Sit down and listen to this critical thinking class!” is a contradiction.

[okeziejonathan]

I have a question to ask my professor about critical thinking when I have one on one chat with him.

[christosantonopoulos]

Well at the moment I'm making a psychological assessment of the human race, and I have concluded that I can not really comprehend the human species at all, it seems to me as though the human species has lost its sense of logical reasoning abilities and functioning all together when you take in an account an assessment and evaluation in which it thinks, behaves and acts. Not to mention all the fictional beliefs it's formulated and adopted as true beliefs. And speaking of what values it cherishes that's extremely questionable to say the least. In addition I can not even comprehend the type of delusional thinking it suffers from that it actually believes it's thinking is correct and functional to be taking the time in formulating arguments as evidence to suggest it's developed and adopted beliefs are non-fictional in the perception and scope of reality in the existence of physical presence of life. As the collected data and information they base there premise on to formulate their arguments on in support of their beliefs, they can not substantiate as real and non-fictional usable data and information, so there using fictional data develop their analysis and evaluation of so called facts in order to formulate their evidence to base a conclusion that their adopted belief is true and non-fictional. If the human race can not see their dysfunctional thought processing in logical reasoning here man I'm just going to throw my hands up in the air and accept the fact that the human species has lost its sanity. And that's a professional assessment as being a psychologist myself that I can provide evidence of case study notes containing data of obvious logical functioning dysfunction basically all over the place in the human species conduct which is usable non-fictional data and information making my evidence, logical analysis, evaluation and concluding comments as real, true, and non fictional in nature thereby concreting my argument that my belief is that their all insane

[thetruther]

I don't know if having the skills will do what we need. We need critical values is what we need. Critical values any one any where will make sense to. I haven't travelled hardly at all and I don't really know. I look at Ben Shapiro and my understanding is, he's pretty junior. If dedication to twisting up an opposing viewpoint is the goal, it doesn't take much. I've watched a debate course about real debate (where both sides are there to have a better understanding and accept how it turns out). The critical thinking rules for those guys are numerous, nuanced and sometimes involved. Just recently, I feel ashamed, I choose feeling over principle. Yeah, Ireally hate myself. A utuber, whose premise I never agreed with helped me, seemed to speak to me and I hope, is a good person. She helped me, yeah, but it was based on a pile of crap that may actually be morally wrong for the people swallowing it. I made a statement, but then went back to my feelings with her. I guess me and a corrupt politician would understand each other. Anyway, I've never thought of myself as that kind of man, the critical thinking got trashed in the end.

[arthurwieczorek]

Here is a critical thinking tactic I'd like to develop in myself. Being able to tell the difference between a falsifiable statement and a nonfalsifiable one.

[taniaaustin]

2:34 into the video still no clear explanation as to what critical thinking is... will it ever be revealed....? LOL

[mrd]

The title of the video is confusing in relationship to the context of what she speaks about. She barely mentions a few critical thinking skills, but spends at least 80% of the video explaining why critical thinking is important. It's a good video and the instructions are great, but should have been titled, "Why critical thinking is important".