BARRIERS TO CRITICAL THINKING

It's important to develop critical thinking skills for substantial critical thinking serve us well
in all aspects of our lives. It encompasses problem-solving, decision making, personal
responsibility, and managing relationships of every kind effectively, just to name a few
things. There's no doubt it's one of the most crucial mind sets our learners could ever have,
for learning and life. As a critical thinker, one has to be aware of the barriers, acknowledge
the challenges, and overcome these as best you can. Critical thinking does not mean that you
are challenging someone’s work or telling them that they are wrong, but encourages a deeper
understanding, a consideration of alternative views. Critical thinking encourages a person to
be constructive, by considering the strengths and weaknesses of the differing sides to an
argument. It encourages deeper thought, and helps a person to form individual judgements.
Critical and reflective thinking are complex and lifelong skills it is important to use critical
thinking to ensure that one’s view is informed by reasoned judgement, and supported by
evidence. Barriers may be created due to an over-reliance on feelings or emotions, self-
centred or societal or cultural-centred thinking (conformism, dogma and peer-pressure), bias,
an inability to receive a idea or point of view that is different, lack of relevant information,
fear of being wrong (anxious about being taken out of your ‘comfort zone’), poor
communication skills or laziness.

Critical Thinking Barriers are: -

1. EGOCENTRIC THINKING: - Egocentrism refers to someone's inability to accept that

another person's view or opinion may be different than their own. It represents a rational bias,
that others share the same perspective, unable to imagine that other people would have a
perception of their own Egocentric thinking is a natural tendency to view everything in
relation to oneself. This type of thinking leads to the inability to sympathize with others.
Unfortunately most egocentric people cannot see this character flaw within themselves, thus
increasing the difficulty in overcoming the barrier. It is more of a character flaw, and is quite
difficult to change.

2. GROUP THINK:- In Groupthink a person doesn’t have his own opinion or decision in any
given case or situation. Groupthink can lead to unhealthy decision-making and like
egocentric thinking, it is difficult to overcome. Breaking the cycle requires individuals to
stand apart from the group and question opinions, thoughts, and popular ideas.

3. DRONE MENTALITY:- Drone Mentality barrier can be explained as when a person

doesn’t pay attention during any important work. Very often, daily and mundane routines
make a person fall prey to drone mentality, and the person does not pay attention to what is
going on around you. Daily routines often lead to a drone mentality and can prevent or cause
a loss of critical thinking skills. This mentality is dangerous because people forget how to
respond to new circumstances. It also causes them to shy away from challenges for the sake
of ease and convenience.

4. SOCIAL CONDITIONING:- Unwanted assumptions and labelling/categorising leads to

social conditioning which blinds people to thinking differently. The ability to think outside of
the spectrum is a great asset but most people are conditioned to think a certain way. Many of
us have a habit of thinking within our comfort zones, and we refrain to even think outside the
box as we are taught to think in a certain way and manner owing to the various social
conditions. It requires cultural and social awareness to overcome this barrier.

5. BIASED EXPERIENCES:- Personal biases can prevent the thinker from being fair,
inquisitive and open-minded. This kind of thinking can also prevent an individual from using
experience, reasoning and common sense to make informed decisions. Having a personal bias
is one of the biggest Barriers to Critical Thinking as its curbs and prohibits a person from
making decisions that are fair, open-minded, and transparent.

6. SCHEDULE PRESSURES: - Time constraints serve as a barrier to integrating learning

opportunities that support critical thinking skills. Many a time we are overloaded with
stringent deadlines or work, and it affects our skill of critical thinking. When the time is
short, and a deadline needs to be met, we often go for an option of completing the work
without any strategic thinking and long term vision.
7. ARROGANCE & INTOLERANCE:- Arrogance is a bad attitude and often hinders critical
thinking abilities. It makes a person think that knows everything and there is no further need
for learning new things. Arrogance makes the person fail on a long term basis as he has
closed his channels of learning and is unable to assess the rewards and benefits of critical
thinking. True critical thinkers do not welcome arrogance and intolerance into their minds. It
is nearly impossible to find the best solution to a problem with a close-minded mind-set.
Without critical thinking skills, individuals often react thoughtlessly and recklessly to
situations. Arrogance and intolerance block creativity and leave no room for other
suggestions for problem-solving.

8. STUBBORN NATURE: - One of the Barriers to Critical Thinking is stubborn nature as a

person with such a nature has his own set of rigid beliefs. A person has to be open to changes
and come out from his present beliefs understanding that the world of business is quite fluid
and fast-paced and demands flexibility and adaptability.

9. FEAR: - Fear often acts as a barrier not only critical thinking but also for the overall
growth and development of a person. Fear makes a person lose confidence, demotivated, and
not active enough to think out of the box and come up with the ideas and strategies. Fear can
evolve out of various reasons such as anxiety, depression, self-esteem issues. It can affect a
person’s personal and professional life as well.

10. LAZINESS: - Critical thinking requires a person to do a lot of research, study literature
that is work-related, and be open to learning new things for growth and development. But
laziness acts as one of the Barriers to Critical Thinking.
 CRITICAL THINKING – REASONING
Critical thinking is the ability to think rationally about what to do or what to believe. It
includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking. A person with critical
thinking skills would be able to understand the logical connections between ideas, evaluate
arguments, detect inconsistencies and mistakes in reasoning, solve problems systematically
and reflect on the justification of one’s beliefs and values. Critical thinking is an active mode
of thinking instead of just receiving messages and accepting them as they are. Mere thinking
is a sequence of unrelated thoughts while the active process of reasoning is called inference.
Critical thinking includes a variety of skills including such as listening, analysis, evaluation,
inference and interpretation or explanation, and self-regulation.

In order to understand listening, it is important to tell the difference between listening and
hearing. At its most basic, hearing refers to the physiological process of receiving sounds,
while listening refers to the psychological process of interpreting or making sense of those
sounds. Every minute of every day we are surrounded by hundreds of different noises and
sounds. While we may hear all of the noises, we filter out many of them. Critical thinking
requires that we consciously listen to messages and focus on what is being said without being
distracted by other outside noises or the internal noise of our own preconceived ideas.
Listening becomes especially difficult when the message contains highly charged
information. When a person says something you feel strongly about you start formulating a
counter-argument in your head. The end result is that both sides end up talking past each
other without ever really listening to what the other says.

Once we have listened to a message, we can analyse it. When we analyse something, we
consider it in greater detail, separating out the main components of the message. Evaluation
continues the process of analysis by assessing the various claims and arguments for validity.
Inference and interpretation or explanation suggests two words, ‘IMPLY’ or ‘INFER’. Imply
means to suggest an idea while infer means that something in a speaker’s words or some
writing helps to draw a conclusion. Another way to think of the difference between imply and
infer is that a speaker or writer implies while the reader or audience infers. The next step is to
interpret or explain the conclusions drawn from it by considering the evidence. Evaluation is
continued by looking at the evidence, alternatives, and possible conclusions. The final step in
critically examining a message is self-regulation, wherein we examine how what we think on
an issue may have influenced the way we understand a message and any conclusions we have
drawn.

When we reason, or think critically, we balance our emotions, and this in turn leads to good
judgment and making informed, good decisions. Critical thinking requires effort, and
practice. Essentially, it is a decision-making process. Reasoning has a purpose, and is an
attempt to solve some problem. It is based on data, information, and evidence, and contains
inferences or interpretations by which conclusions are drawn. Reasoning skills deal with the
process of getting from a problem to the solution by using reason. Reasoning skills make use
of good sense and base reasons on facts, evidence, or logical conclusions rather than
emotions. Strong critical thinking and reasoning skills help to compose strong, logical
arguments, make more effective and logical decisions, and solve problems more efficiently.
Reasoning skills goes hand-in-hand with critical thinking, and are implemented
simultaneously to help people make smart decisions and solve problems effectively.

CRITICAL THINKING – ARGUMENT

‘Argument’ is the most fundamental concept in our study of critical thinking. Robert Ennis
defines an argument as "an attempt to support a conclusion by giving reasons for it." (Critical
Thinking, 1995) A crucial part of critical thinking is to identify, construct, and evaluate
arguments. In everyday life, an argument is understood to be a dispute or a quarrel between
people but in critical thinking, an argument is a list of statements, one of which is the
conclusion and the others are the assumptions of the argument. Arguments contain
statements, or declarative sentences which assert that the world is a particular way. The
building blocks of arguments are propositions (or statements or claims). A proposition
(statement or claim) is a sentence that is either true or false. Arguments consist of at least two
claims -- statements that are true or false -- which are offered for a specific purpose, namely
to convince or persuade a listener or reader. Arguments are related to persuasion. While
arguments are intended to convince, this does not mean that all attempts to convince are
arguments. Most of us use and encounter a variety of methods of persuasion. A parent might
use a simple gesture or facial expression to persuade a child to refrain from a specific
behavior; advertisers sometimes try to convince us to buy their products with advertisements
that depict a cute child or pet or a happy family.

One of the statements in the argument is called the conclusion. It is the statement that is
intended to be proved. The conclusion of the argument is the claim that the writer or speaker
is trying to convince another person to accept. A proposition offered in support of a
conclusion can be called simply a reason, or a premise.

Example: If you want to find a good job, you should work hard. Since you want to find a
good job, you should work hard.

The first two sentences here are the premises of the argument, and the last sentence is the
conclusion. The premises in the first statement are reasons for accepting the conclusion.

THINK: For example, do you think the economy is going to improve or worsen in the
next six months? Why or why not? What arguments can you give to support your
position?

How do we identify arguments? We usually have to rely on the context to determine which
are the premises and the conclusions. But sometimes the job can be made easier by the
presence of certain premise or conclusion indicators. For example, if a person makes a
statement, and then adds "this is because ...", then the first statement is presented as a
conclusion, supported by the statements that come afterwards. Other words in English that
might be used to indicate the premises to follow include :

since

firstly, secondly, ...

for, as, after all,

assuming that, in view of the fact that

follows from, as shown / indicated by

may be inferred / deduced / derived from

Of course whether such words are used to indicate premises or not depends on the context.

Conclusions, on the other hand, are often preceded by words like:

therefore, so, it follows that

hence, consequently

suggests / proves / demonstrates that

entails, implies

The first step in evaluating an argument is to determine what kind of argument it is. There are
two kinds of arguments: deductive and non-deductive.

A deductive argument is an argument that is intended by the arguer to be deductively valid,

that is, to provide a guarantee of the truth of the conclusion provided that the argument’s
premises are true. An inductive argument is an argument that is intended by the arguer to be
strong enough that, if the premises were to be true, then it would be unlikely that the
conclusion is false.