...How Bias Influences Critical Thinking Aisha Smith CRT/205 Critical Thinking Dr. Gye Johnson July 30, 2014 When we use our head to find a solution or solve a problem we take things from one perspective. We must look at our situation or our surrounding, and try to figure out how we are going to handle whatever the issue is. We can get someone to give us an outside looking in objective view, but will we actually use the information that they give us? Instead of incorporating the information to help us make a decision, we instead take the information and throw it out the window. We are what they call bias when things don’t go our way or we don’t hear what we want to hear. We as a society or as humans’ period are strange at times. Some of us hate to be wrong, and can never admit to being wrong. But I’m not going to touch on that. I’m just writing to show you how people can make decision that are bias. Everything we doing in this world are based on some type of bias ideal. We can never be truly open minded about anything. I myself have been guilty of making bias decisions. But I will say that if we use Critical Thinking skills instead of just shall we winging it we will be more successful in our ventures. I feel that if more people learned this skill then we would be well on the way for making fewer...
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...How Bias Influences Critical Thinking Write a 250- to 350-word original response to the following prompt: Critical thinking and personal bias together can make a decision incredibly irritating and exhausting. The biggest problem with making a decision sometimes is when your head and your heart cant meet at one place. Critical thinking can sometimes be this rigid entity that leaves no room for failure while personal bias is following with emotions. The text points one of several fundamentals behind critical thinking and that is to, “distinguishing between rational claims and emotional ones”. However, bias can always influence critical thinking. I believe that it’s with the person who is making the decision to calm down and step back from what they are going threw. So, they can make an unbiased decision. That is much harder than it looks, recently I had surgery and because of it I had to leave my deployable squadron to go to a non-deployable shore station. Now here is where the decision comes in, when I am healed up and I am fit for full duty I have two choices. The first is to return to my former duty station and the second is to pick orders to a non-deployable unit. This is where the bias and critical thinking come in. My personal bias is to choose new orders; However, I would not know if I would have to move my family or if I would even like the new place I would be going to. The second is to return to my deployable unit. Thinking critically this is the right decision for...
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...How Bias Influences Critical Thinking Natasha Rosser CRT/205 September 23, 2012 Professor Adrienne Courtney A decision that I recently made that was influenced by bias was the decision to attend a Muslim ceremony at a Mosque. I did not grow up with my natural father and he is of the Muslim faith. In an attempt to try to establish a father- daughter relationship, he invited me to the Mosque where he attends holy services. I did not really know much at all about the Muslim faith because I believe in, was born into and raised in the faith of Christianity. The immediate thoughts that came to mind were somewhat colorful. I imagined they would make me wear head wraps and body wraps where the only body part that could be seen were my eyes. I then pictured myself having to sit quietly all day long with my head down, not able to have any social interaction with anyone because I am a woman and I would be considered to be inferior to the men. Lastly, I had the idea that they would try to kidnap me and send me to Afghanistan to become a servant. After I got over my immediate concerns, I thought about the situation on a deeper level. I was obviously being culturally bias and basing my ideas about the Muslim faith on things that I had heard, read about or seen in movies. I had no real evidence to support my arguments on why I should not attend. Besides, this would be the opportunity that I had longed for since I was a little girl; the opportunity to know my real...
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...How Bias Influences Critical Thinking Jennifer E. Peters CRT/205 August 3, 2013 Barbara Bua How Bias Influences Critical Thinking The most recent argument I’ve made was on the topic of gun control. I am a gun owner and I believe that if you educate your children and yourself about it and how to use it, it isn’t a dangerous weapon to have in the home, unless you are faced with an intruder. Seeing the bias from other people about NOT having a gun made me put a little more emotion into my argument with others than I wanted, therefore making my argument a more emotional one. That being said, I had to look at the pros and cons of owning a gun and try to also see others’ views on the subject. I believe that from my argument the bias shown was belief bias, which is defined as “the tendency to evaluate reasoning by how believable its conclusion seems”. (Moore & Parker, 2012) To me, the conclusion was that not every gun owner kills someone and that if the proper knowledge about said gun is gleaned and adhered to, owning a gun shouldn’t be a problem. The bias that I saw from others was the bandwagon effect, which is defined as “the unconscious tendency to align one’s thinking with that of other people”. (Moore & Parker, 2012) There were a lot of people that, after the most recent school shooting, were more aware of the amount of deaths related to guns assumed that just because guns are available to the public, people all over the country were going to start killing...
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...Barriers to Critical Thinking HUM/115 09-11-2015 Barriers to Critical Thinking The first barrier that influences my critical thinking would be stubbornness. I was raised by one parent in a Catholic family, which play a big part on in my beliefs and how I do my thinking and if the way I am doing things is working why change it. I recognize that my beliefs and opinions are very narrow when it comes to making critical changes or listening to people opinions. My strategy to overcome this barrier is to start taking into consideration other people opinions, points of view and relevant information. I will continue to work on being open mind because every day we are exposed to new ideas and when we must surround ourselves with different points of view to achieve critical thinking. The second barrier that impacts my critical thinking I would say is personal bias. Occasionally I will reject information if my mind perceives that the facts do not concur with the information just because of my vague way of thinking or an inclination of a different choice. If I do not believe a person possess the knowledge or intellectual capacity to think, my bias judgment will not allow the intake of any new ideas and relevant information. I am not always aware of my bias, but I know is there, and I know the several time when I am stuck in a learning situations, being bias is what is holding me back. I understand that I need to change my bias thinking, and I will do so by actually listen to the...
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...Critical Thinking Barriers Christian Kennemer April 13, 2915 Hum/114 Instructor Atkison There are many barriers that are known to distract you from Critical Thinking. Below you will read the three major barriers I personally experience when critical thinking and what I do to overcome them. Egotistic This barrier makes it very hard to Critical think. Individuals who have this barrier tend to be more self involved . I find it is hard to understand certain things that are unknown and gravitate to the ideas that are more familiar to me. In order for me to be able to open my mind to critical thinking I have to shut off any noise and think quietly to myself evaluate each and every option in order to establish the best and most educated option. I have tried many different methods over the years and this seems to work the best. Bias One of the main critical thinking barriers I have is Bias. Having a bias opinion towards something means that you have your own opinion and cant see past it. This does influence lots of my decisions and I wont see it any way but what is in my head. When I have to critical think I must remember to keep all bias opinions silent. With this being said I follow the same rules for critical thinking which is to sit in a quiet room with nothing to distract me. I write down all important information and and study the information for the best information Schedule Pressures The biggest barriers that I have when coming to critical thinking is scheduling...
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...Critical Thinking Institution Date What is critical thinking? Critical thinking can be defined as a reflective thinking, which is designed to decide what to believe or what to actually do. In simpler terms, it can be said to be a way of deciding whether a claim at hand is true, somewhat true or false (Fisher, 2001). Critical thinking is an important asset when it comes to solving community problem and developing initiatives in human services. It involves being thrown in a questioning mode by an idea that variances with your understanding of the environment and makes you somehow uncomfortable. If in any case you respond to the discomfort, you will figure out where it came from and how to come in terms with the situation. You will also have a new perspective of the situation and will have a more critical understanding of your current situation. What are the three most significant things about critical thinking? The three most significant things about critical thinking are; it identifies bias, it brings out the whole picture and it’s oriented towards the issue being addressed. Identifying bias means looking at bias situation in the way it looks like and biases the person involved brings to it. Bringing the whole picture means getting more than just the delineate of what is being examined. Lastly, being oriented towards the issues being addressed means focusing on analyzing and understanding its object. It does away with...
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...Critical thinking is the capacity to evaluate an idea, to formulate and solve a problem, or make a decision in such a way that the whole thinking process has been done in a proper way to be successful. If thinking is just a normal and automatic action that brain does at any time, critical thinking is what makes the difference between person to person. There are various levels of critical thinking, and everything is depending on how the thinking process get involved with personal emotions, different culture, evaluations, and the ability to refine the process, by removing bias, errors, imperfections, personal feeling end. Very interesting and useful to use during the different day to day scenarios and work experiences, are the steps to evaluate, get a conclusion and refine the solution to the problem. Refining is one of one of the most important steps to determine the solution to a problem and it can spell the difference between success and failure. Working out the details by checking exactly how the solution will be applied; finding imperfection and complications and making improvements are the three steps of the refining process. People tend to simplify to much the refining process because they think the solution has been already found, however, paying attention to details, remove bias and be critical in the proper job, is very difficult sometimes, but is also very worthwhile. At the beginning of this class I located myself at the stage of practicing thinker, but now, knowing...
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...Asking questions, analyzing, making observations, defining, and listening: what do all these processes have in common? They are all skills related to critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment (Lau 1). Without critical thinking individuals would struggle to see beyond the media bias and political propaganda they encounters daily. When emotions drive decisions, those decisions are not thought about critically. Feelings can confuse one’s ability to think critically and instead of basing decisions on sound consistent logic, decisions are based on instinct and lack of information. In order to think critically an individual must learn to become self-aware and...
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...Define critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as making reasoned judgments that are logical and well thought out. It is a way of thinking in which you don't accept all arguments and conclusions you are exposed to but rather have an attitude involving questioning such arguments and conclusions. Critical thinking can be divided into three core skills: Curiosity- The desire to learn more information. Skepticism- Having a healthy questioning attitude about new information. Humanity- The ability to admit that your ideas or opinions are wrong, when faced with new convincing evidence. * Discuss how the following terms relate to critical thinking: bias, issues, arguments, and relativism * Bias: A bias is based on emotional distortional cognition and decision making due to emotional reasoning. Being bias blocks a person from critically thinking on making decisions. * Issues: A question, when critically thinking a person has to ask a series of questions to come up with the rite solution. * Arguments: Arguments are closely related to critical thinking because arguments is the reasoning behind critical thinking arguments is a key component to critically thinking. * Relativism: Has no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration. * Describe a decision or argument you recently made which was influenced by bias Reviewing Ch. 1 of Critical Thinking, share what type of bias was in...
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...Mercedes Leon January 19, 2015 Critical Thinking Essay Gen 200/ Scott Hopkins Critical Thinking Essay Critical thinking by definition means “disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence”. You think critically every day, whether it is trying to understand the lyrics to a song, or writing a ten page paper. When you think critically, you have to be able to put your bias aside, and try to understand what the writer is trying to get across. The critical thinking process has six different steps, all of which are very beneficial to people that want to become good writers. Benjamin Bloom, a known Psychologist, named these six steps, what we refer to now, as the Bloom’s Taxonomy. The first level of Blooms Taxonomy is remembering what you have previously read or learned. Second, is understanding, making sure that you can remember what you read and making sure you are able to explain it in your own words and give examples. Level three of Blooms Taxonomy is applying the ideas that you understand to construct an outcome. Examples of this would include solving a problem, making a huge decision, or finally completing something that you have been trying to finish for a while. Analyzing your ideas is the fourth level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. This level helps you analyze your ideas and break them up into steps or groups that are similar to each other, for example, reading a book and outlining what the book was about. The fifth step of Bloom’s taxonomy...
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...HUM/111 11/03/2012 Christina Hon Media Bias in Political News The Political headline news story that I read was accurate and the story did give enough depth for you understand what was going on. The facts were all stated in this article. The story was about Romney losing to a state he had thought he had won over and how the election was going to be a close call. The article never had any bias on who they thought was going to win the election, which was a good thing. They stated Romney progress and had also stated Obama’s, so they did not leave out any facts. Yes, the story did consider alternative perspectives as in they were stating that Romney could or could not win Iowa, they did not know either way. They also gave statements on why Romney did not win over Ohio. There were no questionable assumptions, in the beginning and the end of the article they had two questions, the first was if there were trouble signs in Iowa for Romney? The last one was asking if all of Romney’s efforts and hard work were enough, which they did not answer this, they just stated we would know in two days. The article did not ignore any implications on the two presidents; they talked about them equally passing no judgment on one or the other. I believe that it is important to make distinctions when undertaking a critical evaluation because you need to point out everything good about the person and the other person involved. Also you need to state the bad...
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...Persuasive thinking “presents powerful methods to move other minds” (Kirby & Goodpaster, 2007, p. xv). Persuasive thinking the art of changing other people’s perceptions to agree with the ones held. Critical thinking, on the other hand, is the process of rationalizing one’s thought process with the purpose of self-improvement. In essence, critical thinking seeks no selfish objective; instead it promotes intellectual humility, autonomy, integrity, perseverance, courage, fair-mindedness (Paul & Elder, 2006, p. 54). However, when critical thinking is affected by persuasive thinking there is a different determination. In short, it becomes a two edged sword, a powerful weapon. Critical thinking requires the individual to recognize weaknesses and strengths to improve. Similarly, persuasive thinking requires the person to “know thyself” (Socrates) with the objective of moving others or recognize when a person is trying to influence a critical thinkers’ thoughts. Persuasive thinkers analyze themselves to learn about others. Persuasive critical thinkers learn about their bias, how to use likability, recognize motivations, and purposes (Kirby & Goodpaster, 2007, p. 268) to reach other minds. To illustrate, persuasive thinkers identify their bias and learn to suppress it because it becomes obvious to others, who may not share the same preconception, resulting in audience loss. Moreover, persuasive thinkers use the concept of likability to portray an image others will accept with ease...
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...evaluate the source. Source: Davies M 2009, „Computer assisted argument mapping: a rationale approach‟, Higher Education, vol. 58, no. 6, pp. 799-820. Full citation of the source, according to RMIT referencing guide for “Reference Lists” Topic Evaluation Authority (50 words) Is that author an expert? What evidence is there to support this? Martin Davies is an expert in this field. I Googled his name and found that he has 2 doctorates and is presently a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education in the Teaching and Learning Unit and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Economics at Melbourne University. His page on the Melb. Uni. website lists all his publications (about 70), many of which are concerned with critical thinking in tertiary learning. Validity & Accuracy (50 words) How do you know the information is accurate? Is it from a valid source, e.g. an educational institution? Find out if it is peer reviewed or been passed by an editorial panel, eg is it in a refereed journal? His article includes an appendix in which he has placed all the data from the quantitative study he conducted. Though I can‟t be sure that this data were analysed correctly, I will assume it is accurate. After searching for the journal name, I found out that it‟s considered the leading journal in tertiary teaching and learning. I couldn‟t find out if it is peer reviewed, but I assume that it is, because its webpage lists an editorial panel who—I think—review articles...
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...arguments, deduction, induction, and unstated premises, and balance of considerations and IBEs Cognitive biases Concept: Beliefs and claims, issues, and arguments Mastery 1. 100% Questions 1 2 3 In the context of arguments in the critical thinking process, what is the term used to refer to a reason provided for accepting a claim? A. Premise B. Conclusion C. Objective D. Belief Correct: The Correct Answer is: A. The term used to refer to a reason provided for accepting a claim is premise. Premises provide reasons for a person to take a certain position on a particular issue. 2. Identify a true statement about the effects of critical thinking on the decision-making process. A. Critical thinking prevents a person from making prudent decisions. B. Critical thinking promotes decisions based on logically accurate conclusions. C. Critical thinking results in reactions based on ill-informed decisions. D. Critical thinking involves forming conclusions through intuition rather than reason. Correct: The Correct Answer is: B. Critical thinking promotes decisions based on logically accurate conclusions. It is also described as thinking about the way a person thinks. 3. Which among the following is a subjective claim? A. There is no life on Jupiter. B. Russia is the largest country. C. Botanically, tomato is a vegetable. D. Bacon is a great breakfast dish. Correct: ...
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