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Critical and Creative Thinking

Dr. Anupama Srivastava Amity Institute of Behavioral and Allied Sciences

Critical and creative thinking help you to solve problem and make decisions.

Critical thinking -is the ability to think clearly and rationally. It includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking. Someone with critical thinking skills is able to do the following: understand the logical connections between ideas identify, construct and evaluate arguments detect inconsistencies and common mistakes in reasoning solve problems systematically identify the relevance and importance of ideas reflect on the justification of one's own beliefs and values

Critical thinkers are able to do the following things: Be open minded about new ideas. Are intellectually independent. Know when there is a need for more information about something. Ask questions. Base their judgments on evidence. Look for connections between subjects. Know the difference between a conclusion that might be true and one that must be true. Analyze and understand concepts, information, and behaviour. Break things down and separate fact from opinion. Question everything that doesnt make sense. Try to avoid common mistakes in reasoning. Try to separate emotional thinking from logical thinking.

Brain Teasers
1. If there are 7 months that have 31 days in them and 11 months that have 30 days in them, how many months have 28 days in them? 2. What the next number in this sequence? 31, 41, 43, 47, 53, ___

3. Ms. Miller is turning 100 years old today. She has 24 grandchildren. If all of her grandchildren bring her 6 roses each, how many roses will Ms. Miller receive? 4. How many birthdays does the average man have?

Answers
1. 12 2. They are prime numbers. 3. 144, (24 x 6 = 144) 4.One

Creativity-ability to generate new ideas by combining , changing or reapplying existing ideas. It is the process of producing something that is both original and worthwhile. It refers to exploring ideas and generating possibilities.

Here are some other creativity tips to help you to develop your creative-thinking skills:
Dont get hooked on finding the right answer. There can be many right answers in a creative process; it depends on your point of view. Dont always be logical. Sometimes we need to look at something in a very different or not so logical way to create a better way. Break the rules (of thinking) sometimes. New breakthroughs have happened because of someone not always following the rules. Be impractical. If we are always practical, we will always see things the same way. Sometime we have to step out of what is usual or safe. Let yourself be playful. Creativity is a fun process; so let go and step outside of the box. Be a little foolish. Its okay, that is part of freeing your mind to think new thoughts. Let yourself fail. You get better with practice. Always consider yourself to be creative. This goes to our never saying we cannot do something; we need to always try.

Creative thinking is a great skill to develop. Your ability to develop new and imaginative ideas, concepts, plans, and other things will make you a valued person and team member. Developing this skill helps you to solve problems better by using creativity. Creative thinking calls for taking risks and stepping past what we know. When it comes to creative problem solving you need to think outside the box to solve the problem.

Critical Thinking Creative Thinking Analytic Generative


convergent reasoning objective Divergent Richness, novelty subjective

Effect of Emotions on Thinking:


To better understand ourselves as emotional beings with an ideal of rationality (not detached from our emotions), it would help us to become aware of some of emotions effects on thinking and the uses of emotion in argumentation. The following describes several ways that emotions can affect thinking and can be misused in the critical thinking process. 1)Interruption of thinking: Strong emotions tend to shut down critical thinking, causing us to come to hasty and often irrational conclusions or to behave in ways that appear to be opposed to our goals. For eg. Mohan has been dreading taking a math class for two years. When he finally takes his first exam for the class, his mouth is dry and he feels tense and jittery .He also has trouble concentrating on the questions being asked him, and he runs out of time. As a result, he fails the exam. In this case the emotion of anxiety is interrupting thinking.

2)Distortion of judgment: Judgments may be biased or altered by emotional states. For example, people who have a depressed outlook on life tend to expect failure even in situations in which failure is not likely. Anger can distort our perceptions.

3) Appeals to emotion: In persuasion and argumentation ,a person may appeal to an emotion instead of providing a reason or evidence in support of some claim. b) Direct appeals to emotion: Information is presented or situations are described for the purpose of arousing an emotion ,such as pity or contempt, in order to influence or persuade. For eg. In an advertisement on television for a childrens charity, a famous actress asks for support for the charitys good work in helping to eradicate a dreaded disease that is ravaging our children. Later in the ad, a child stricken by the disease says that he is sometimes in pain from the disease. Another example is -Advertisements of fairness creams. c) Emotional language: In making an argument , emotionally charged language is introduced in order to bias interpretation of the evidence or to colour the argument. e.g.. Politicians in India using it to collect votes on the basis of caste etc.

4)Superstitions:Cause and effect are not related. 5) Prejudice: In which all members of a group are judged to be the same. Example: Racial prejudices.

Assignment-1
Describe an event from your life when emotions like anxiety, anger etc. affected your critical thinking and decision making. What was your learning from this incident?

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