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Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed – Part II

Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed – Part II
In the first part of this article, we focused on 5 traps that hinder our ability to think rationally. As a quick recap, we discussed: The Anchoring Trap: Over-Relying on First ThoughtsThe Status Quo Trap: Keeping on Keeping OnThe Sunk Cost Trap: Protecting Earlier ChoicesThe Confirmation Trap: Seeing What You Want to SeeThe Incomplete Information Trap: Review Your Assumptions Now it’s time to complete the list and expose the remaining 5 dangerous traps to be avoided. 6. In a series of experiments, researchers asked students in a classroom a series of very simple questions and, sure enough, most of them got the answers right. This “herd instinct” exists — to different degrees — in all of us. This tendency to conform is notoriously exploited in advertising. Conformity is also one of the main reasons why once a book makes into a well-known best-sellers list, it tends to “lock in” and continue there for a long time. What can you do about it? Discount the influence of others. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Healthy Thinking Skills Research shows that how or what we think directly affects our moods and how we feel. Contrary to popular belief, events or situations do not determine your mood. Instead, how you think about the event or situation typically determines mood. Two people can face the same circumstances or event and have very different reactions to the event. That’s because the event is interpreted in the mind – so how you think about something affects how you feel about something. This relationship between thinking and feeling has been acknowledged in both ancient and modern times. Men are not worried by things, but by their ideas about things. -Epictetus, about 60 AD It is very obvious that we are not influenced by "facts" but by our interpretation of the facts. -Alfred Adler If thinking affects our feelings, we can change how we feel by changing how we think. Change your negative thinking to positive thinking and thereby change your negative moods to positive moods. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Don’t get stuck.

Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed Our minds set up many traps for us. Unless we’re aware of them, these traps can seriously hinder our ability to think rationally, leading us to bad reasoning and making stupid decisions. Features of our minds that are meant to help us may, eventually, get us into trouble. Here are the first 5 of the most harmful of these traps and how to avoid each one of them. 1. “Is the population of Turkey greater than 35 million? Lesson: Your starting point can heavily bias your thinking: initial impressions, ideas, estimates or data “anchor” subsequent thoughts. This trap is particularly dangerous as it’s deliberately used in many occasions, such as by experienced salesmen, who will show you a higher-priced item first, “anchoring” that price in your mind, for example. What can you do about it? Always view a problem from different perspectives. 2. In one experiment a group of people were randomly given one of two gifts — half received a decorated mug, the other half a large Swiss chocolate bar. 3. 4.

Critical Thinking On The Web Top Ten Argument Mapping Tutorials. Six online tutorials in argument mapping, a core requirement for advanced critical thinking.The Skeptic's Dictionary - over 400 definitions and essays. The Fallacy Files by Gary Curtis. Best website on fallacies. What is critical thinking? Nobody said it better than Francis Bacon, back in 1605: For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things … and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture. A shorter version is the art of being right. More definitions... Program for Critical Thinking Program for better decision making

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