Just because they uncritically accept what they read, hear, and watch, people are making decisions every day that are detrimental to their health, investment, career, or marriage. - "The Art of Thinking"
Don't know if you are familiar with such a scene?
When applying for college, I don't know how to choose, listen to teachers and relatives say that a certain major is good for employment, parents also feel very reasonable, you sign up, but after college, you find that you regret it.
When reading the article, I saw that successful people like to get up early, and I decided that I should also get up early to change myself. The next day I saw another article that said that people are divided into early risers and night owls, and there are many excellent people who are suitable for staying up late, and you suddenly feel that this is more reasonable.
You search online for how to learn to write a script, are attracted by the answer that writing a script is not profitable, and click on the answer that writes an online article that earns millions a year.
After browsing for a while, I forgot what I had come to search for, but gave up learning to write a script, and repeatedly did not learn a thing.
British political scientist Edmund. Burke said: "Reading without thinking is like eating without digestion." ”
What we hear and see is not necessarily true. It is precisely because of our lack of critical thinking that we will be convinced by advertising and buy goods that are almost useless; we will hastily choose who to marry, leaving a protracted quarrel; we will do work that we do not like, and we will regard doing nothing as ordinary and precious.
So, in order to avoid all kinds of misfortunes, what we really need is: critical thinking.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >01 What is critical thinking? </h1>
Vincent, in The Art of Thinking, defines it this way:
In contrast to passive acceptance, critical evaluation is an active and prudent examination of what is read, heard, and seen. The criterion for this evaluation is not how close the author's point of view is to your point of view, but whether the author's point of view is accurate and reasonable. Therefore, in contrast, people who make critical evaluations of information are not easily deceived and manipulated.
The difficulty of critical thinking lies in initiative. Cognitive psychologists point out that the brain is 2% of a person's body weight, but brain activity consumes up to 20% of the energy, and not thinking is an instinctive throttling performance.
Levitte, a writer of "Freak Economics", has studied deeply: Will experts use their information advantages to seek private interests at the expense of customers?
Real estate agents are experts in buying and selling houses, and they often tell sellers that they will do their best to sell at the highest price, is this really the case?
According to common sense, the intermediary is to charge a certain percentage of the commission according to the selling price. In the United States, the proportion is 6%, much higher than in China, but of the 6% commission, the intermediary takes half, and the remaining half is divided equally between the intermediaries of the buyer and seller. That is to say, the commission received by the intermediary is only 1.5%, and if the house price is 300,000, it is only $4500. And selling 10,000 yuan more, only 150 more dollars of income, they will not bother with this little money. Instead, they will try to reduce the $10,000, speed up the sale of the house, and save energy to the next sale.
You may think that real estate agents are unethical, but doctors, lawyers and teachers with halos will make anti-commitments for personal gain.
For example, with the rise of knowledge payment after 2015, we are more likely to believe in the quality of courses of top 500 or elite executives, and even if we have been cheated a few times, we still believe that the experience of large companies is authoritative.
In 2018, strange netizens in my circle of friends, through celebrity photo endorsements, sorted out the content of personal brand books into articles for publication, replaced the cases, rented high-end sports cars to take photos, and claimed that they earned millions of dollars a year by personal brand. In one year, he sold a training camp of 3999 yuan, earning more than 5 million yuan, and teaching others how to earn 5 million yuan a year in the second year. If you think about it, this is no different from the success science that prevailed 10 years ago, which emphasizes the energy of the mentality without specific and actionable methods.
In fact, critical thinking has a long tradition in the evolution of human civilization:
Socrates: There is no value in an unrecognized life.
Aristotle: I love my teacher, and I love the truth even more.
Chen Yinke: The spirit of independence, the idea of freedom.
Criticism is reflective thinking, the purpose of which is to rationally determine our beliefs and actions.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >02 Why we always have a hard time thinking critically</h1>
Because critical thinking is a highly energy-intensive activity, you don't need all the information you receive to be critical. When you look at subway stopover information and menus, you basically don't have to think deeply. You don't need to evaluate entertainment, listen to weather forecasts, or search for encyclopedia entries. Only the message is persuasive, and it makes us believe that this view is better than the other
It is only when we have a point of view that we need to make a critical evaluation. What are the misunderstandings that prevent us from thinking critically? There are three common thinking misunderstandings
01 Self-centered
Reading sentences that begin with "Hitler said..." and sentences that begin with "Franklin said...", you may have very different emotional reactions. The previous sentence is likely to make you unable to read it, and even if you continue to read it, you will remain wary of the Madman of World War II and the murderous maniac, for fear of being affected by him. Franklin's great figure, on the other hand, is more likely to convince you that even if he may say something unreasonable, you will think about whether there is some other meaning, rather than doubt. But madmen can also have good ideas, and geniuses occasionally make mistakes. Influenced by public opinion, we are easily preconceived, selectively accept the information we think is right, and subconsciously block the information we think is wrong, this phenomenon is called selective perception in psychology.
02 Simple attribution
For example, when the media reports on how many entrepreneurs with primary school culture struggle to succeed, the society shouts out that the best students in the class work for poor learning, and reading is useless, you think it is very reasonable. Various celebrity autobiographies say that they have the habit of getting up early, it is the morning sobriety that helps his success, you think that early risers will succeed, as everyone knows, countless great creators are working late at night and sleeping during the day. The media once again said that staying up late will cause great damage to the body, getting up early and going to bed early is a healthy lifestyle, and then you see the lilac doctor who debunked the rumors and said that staying up late does not hurt the body, and the injury is irregular to stay up late, if the law stays up late, the body adapts.
03 Confusing facts with interpretations
On whether poverty leads to crime? James and Richard studied that "Roxbury, Massachusetts, was a gathering place for poor blacks, and the neighboring South Boss was a colony of poor whites." The proportion of single-parent families and the proportion of public rental housing is the same in both areas, but in Roxbury, where blacks are concentrated, the violent crime rate is four times that of South Boston. If poverty leads to crime, then crime rates in both regions should be close.
If you believe the author's interpretation, you will think that the problem is in the crime rate, whether it is an inaccuracy of the investigation. However, the truth is that crime leads to poverty, and the higher the crime rate in an area, the greater the cost and less motivation for businessmen to do business here.
By confusing facts and interpretations, critical thinking becomes rigid and paralyzed.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >03 How critical thinking is applied in life</h1>
So how can we jump out of the misunderstanding of thinking and use critical thinking to live rationally? Let's introduce you to a few common usage scenarios
A: The application of critical thinking when reading
1) Skim the work
If it is a book, understand the content arrangement by skimming the preface, introduction, and table of contents, and then select two chapters to read the beginning and end to see if the author provides an overview and summary. Skimming with these questions in mind: What is the topic under discussion? What is the author's position? The author used the evidence to argue his own views, what type of arguments they were.
Each skimming allows me to grasp the core elements, not to be carried away by the author, and to directly pick the most needed fruit.
2) Reflect on your point of view
Ask yourself: What of my views on this subject may lead to bias or hostility and prevent me from taking an impartial view of the author's views.
Wang Yangming once said that knowledge and action are one. Contemporary marketing expert Li Called beast, also pointed out that when learning new knowledge, you must reflect on the old knowledge in the brain, find ways to make connections, structured knowledge is the most powerful.
3) Summarize the work.
After reading the book, the key underline content of the book is merged, and the content of a book is summarized into several paragraphs, and an article summarizes a few sentences. Without changing the author's original intention, clearly combing out the context is conducive to subsequent analysis.
I have always admired Li Ao's side quest and quoted, and once I saw him say that after reading the book every time, I cut out important paragraphs and condensed the whole book in my own words, so that I would not forget. It's really the same way, and the masters even read books the same way.
4) Evaluation
Start by carefully reading the summary of the previous step and grasping the core arguments and arguments to answer the following questions:
Whether the author used vague words
Did the author replace the evidence with sensationalism
Whether the author's evidence is typically comprehensive
Whether the author has a logical error
......
This self-inspection list can be continuously improved and customized according to their own needs.
5) Express your judgment
When we finish a book or article, we always think that we understand or disagree with the author's point of view, but we can't say why. A better approach is to write a book review or article recommendation or objection. In the process of organizing the text, the evaluation after the self-examination can be fully mobilized.
The five-step critical reading method, the one book is solved, and the top ten books are read to say goodbye to knowledge anxiety.
B: The application of critical thinking in listening
Listening and reading have a lot in common, but in listening, we hear not only the transmission of the text, but also the tone, emotion, and rhythm of the voice. So, listening makes us lose the steps of skimming while being more susceptible to emotions and body language.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech, "I Have a Dream," is an inspiring case study.
1) Put aside stereotypes
Stereotypes are beliefs and attitudes formed before listening, and you bring them into controversy. To put aside stereotypes, first acknowledge that you are biased and be wary of their influence.
Remember, there was an operation activity, because of the laziness of a colleague, caused a large area of user complaints, resulting in the entire department working overtime for 2 days. At the next new event, we collectively attacked his proposal and rejected it, only to prove that his proposal would bring greater benefits and be used by competitors.
2) Focus on information
After putting aside stereotypes, it is easy to lose your mind while listening. For example, if the other person says an opposite point of view to you, you will begin to think in your brain how to refute him, and the time of thinking is likely to miss important content, resulting in a bias in our understanding of the content. What to do at this time is to record the points of opposing opinions and continue to listen.
3) Find key arguments and evidence.
As with reading, record the narrator's main point of view and the evidence of the argument, find out whether there is any vague or ambiguous statement, and find out in the question session.
4&5) Evaluate the information and express your judgment.
The practice is the same as critical reading, the only difference being that there is no written summary and can only rely on a record of the main points of the speaker.
In the workplace and in life, people like to listen, but prefer people who can make valuable suggestions to improve their judgment.
C: The application of critical thinking in viewing
When it comes to watching, you probably think of movies. In addition to movies, there are TV series, dramas, and even short videos on Douyin. Of course, these are all entertainment performances, as well as important visual communication of advertising and statistical charts.
I tend to be skeptical of the text, but always think that the chart can't go wrong. The presentation of the chart is fundamentally dependent on the data, and if the data is wrong, the presentation of the chart is distorted. Therefore, the critique of charts is not directed at the form of representation, but at the accuracy and authenticity of the data itself.
If charts inspire thinking, then advertising is the opposite, avoiding thinking and relying entirely on emotions. As the founder of behavioral psychology and an advertising consultant, Watson believes that the role of advertising is to manipulate the emotions of the masses. If you want to watch an ad critically and avoid wrong consumption, you should first ask yourself, what emotions does this advertisement intend to inspire me? Is it the worship of celebrities? Anxiety about the future? Envy or sympathy? You should make your own emotional self-test checklist, answer these questions, and switch from emotional to rational thinking.
It's right to watch a movie with a relaxed mindset, but we should also be wary of the values it conveys. In 2019, the robbery gang captured by the Guangxi police was actually composed of sixteen or seventeen-year-old boys, killing Matt's hairstyle and clothing, and inquiring learned that they were imitating the jianghu righteousness of Gu Qiuzai. Even adults, it is difficult not to be affected by the values in the movie, such as "I would rather bear the world's people than let the world's people bear me", "What is the use of hard work, or depend on the relationship to get to the top". How do you keep watching the film critically? Think about these basic questions: What kind of relationship is there between the characters? How does the plot unfold? What are the main conflicts? What is the social context in which the story takes place? What kind of life or life philosophy is conveyed, and does it match my current environment?
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >04 summary</h1>
People who spend half a second to see through the essence of things, and people who spend a lifetime unable to see the essence of things, are doomed to completely different fates. - "The Godfather"
The godfather's words have affected many people, critical thinking is a very small number of cost-effective investments, early training is a bit difficult, many times, you can do like cycling, lower cognitive resources can maintain a higher level.
In summary, we recognize that critical thinking is important. We analyze why critical thinking is so difficult from three misunderstandings: self-centeredness, simple attribution, and confusion of facts and interpretations. And from the critical reading, listening and watching the three life scenes to analyze, how to apply critical thinking.
For more detailed learning methods, it is recommended to read "The Art of Thinking" and "Critical Thinking".