Thinking And Decision Making
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There are a number of different ways to describe how people think and make decisions. How one person thinks and makes decisions is usually never the same as another. Every person has a preferential approach in thinking to both solving problems and making decisions. Four basic types of critical thinking can be defined as:
1. Creative Thinking; this style of thinking has a fundamental ability to imagine, invent something new, or combine or change existing ideas. Creative thinking is also the ability to accept change and the willingness and flexibility to play with ideas and possibilities. (Harris, 1998)
2. Logical Thinking; is a learned mental process encompassing a process of constant reasoning to draw a conclusion. Logical thinking is more the basis of sequential thought, taking important ideas and arranging them together in steps. To comply with a logical thinking strategy; the essential criteria are to understand all the facts and procedures.
3. Scientific Thinking; relies on the behaviors of observing, hypothesizing, experimenting and classifying. These steps provide a sequence to prove the train of thought that closely resemble the scientific methods and processes. Scientific thinking realizes that emotions are not evidence, feelings are not facts, and subjective beliefs are not substantive beliefs.. (Schafersman, 1994)
4. Persuasive Thinking; is the ability to influence ourselves or others to accept a point of view. Persuasive thinking relies more on emotions and the ability to manipulate and understand human nature.
Taking these definitions of thinking patterns in to account, three scenarios are examined of how a given style affects the critical thinking process and how this type of critical thinking is applied and influences the decision making process.
Applying persuasive thinking is