He participated, was a skilled debater, and Monday he would argue persuasively for one position. But the next day or later in the class Monday he would criticize this position, and present strong arguments for the other position s. When we did this, so we understood more accurately and thoroughly, we usually recognized that even when we have valid reasons for preferring one view, people with other views also may have good reasons, both logical and ethical, for their choices, and this helped us develop respectful attitudes. Originally, all I the two paragraphs above was all I wrote about about Understanding and Respect. Then I wrote a brief explanation of why our teacher's goal wasn't a postmodern relativism. For decades, I've been optimistic.

Then during I observed the continuing increase of hostile polarizations that often lead to inaccurate understandings and disrespectful attitudes. I began learning more about the causes and effects of motivated reasoning. Although I'm less optimistic than earlier, I still think we should continue pursuing this worthy goal. Teachers can help students improve their logical skills of critical thinking — while they're encouraging accurate understanding and respectful attitudes — by designing argumentation activities that help students accurately understand the main views for an issue. One teaching method is that of my teacher, with HIM doing the expert analysis-and-debating Monday, and also Tuesday, with an overall result when all days were combined of accurately describing different views and the best arguments for each view.

But in the context of critical thinking, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone by a skillful use of evidence-and-logic. During an argumentation activity, students should reduce hostile attitudes that can lead to antagonistic words and angry confrontations. One way to pursue this goal is to help students improve their beneficial uses of empathy with kindness. sources of controversy: When a teacher tries to accurately describe different views, and the best arguments for each view, some people will think the descriptions are non-accurate because the teacher is being non-neutral.

This is due to both perception because many people think a treatment-of-views is neutral only if it's biased in the way they want and reality because it's impossible for a teacher to describe views in a way that is totally neutral. Because of this, teachers have a rational reason to avoid controversy, and therefore to avoid a Monday-plus-Tuesday activity. strategies to reduce controversy: A simple strategy that is rational for a teacher because it can increase the quality of their personal life even though it decreases the quality of their teaching is to avoid instruction like Monday-and-Tuesday activities that might be considered controversial.

If this is done well, a teacher is less likely to be justifiably criticized for being personally biased. But this might not be enough to avoid controversy, especially if some students sometimes don't use wise filtering when they are actively debating. During a time in the mid's when American society wasn't as polarized, our teacher confronted this problem directly but without much detail in his first class with his main rule, "don't be a nut" who will cause trouble. analogy with peanut allergies, cognitive therapy to mimic bad-experience but in safe contexts ; and I'll link to summaries videos: short short long , and written reviews ]].

You can respect someone and their views, yet criticize their views by using evidence-and-logic plus values. It should be socially acceptable to disagree with others, to explain — using evidence-and-logic plus values — why we think our views are better. But we can help make the process of disagreeing about some things although agreeing about most things in life more enjoyable and productive. Basically, it's a tendency for people to believe what they want to believe, and find reasons for believing it. com says "Motivated reasoning is a form of reasoning in which people access, construct, and evaluate arguments in a biased fashion to arrive at or endorse a preferred conclusion.

The term motivated in motivated reasoning refers to the fact that people use reasoning strategies that allow them to draw the conclusions they want to draw i. motivated reasoning refers [only] to situations in which people want to confirm their preferred conclusion, rather than to [other] situations in which people's reasoning is driven by an accuracy motivation, " by wanting to reach a conclusion that is strongly justified by a logical evaluation of all available evidence. motivated reasoning occurs when people quoting Wikipedia "use emotionally-biased reasoning to produce justifications or make decisions that are most desired rather than those that accurately reflect the evidence, while still [even though their motivated justifications don't "accurately reflect the evidence"] reducing cognitive dissonance.

In other words, motivated reasoning is the tendency to find arguments in favor of conclusions we want to believe to be stronger than arguments for conclusions we do not want to believe. note: In the quotations above and below, italics and [comments in brackets] are added by me. and it's only one aspect of a person's general overconfidence about many kinds of personal abilities in many areas of life. We'll begin by looking at a common deviation from one goal of critical thinking, which ideally should produce appropriate confidence: An evidence-based logical evaluation should lead to improved understanding that promotes an appropriate humility about conclusions, with a logically-justifiable appropriate confidence that is not too little, not too much.

inappropriate over-confidence: We often see people being overconfident about the logical justification for their own personal views, and the views of their groups. A major cause of overconfidence is the motivated reasoning that often is used by people, both individually and in groups. Being in a group often leads to social pressures, with group dynamics that influence the reasoning of members, and reinforce our tendencies to be individually overconfident. dissonance in thinking that occurs when they recognize an inconsistency between their beliefs, or between their beliefs and actions. This motive-and-strategy can lead a person to over-estimate the logical justifications for their own confidence, so they become unjustifiably over-confident about themselves, and in an extra step that doesn't have to occur, but can occur they become disrespectful of others.

All of these psychological motives often are related to practical motives. Definitions of motivated reasoning describe the general motivation of wanting to believe "what we want to believe" in a "preferred conclusion" that is "most desired. a summary: Why are so many so confident? goals: We should try to reduce the amount of motivated reasoning and the negative effects when it's used by ourselves and by others, when it's used by you and me, and them. causes: Motivated Reasoning {MR} can help a person feel good, gain allies, persuade people, achieve goals. one effect: When MR is not regulated by accurate self-evaluations, a motive of wanting confidence can lead to overconfidence.

other effects: During a process of critical thinking, a person can use MR consciously or unconsciously in many ways, While a person is gathering information, MR motivates them to have confirmation bias by seeking-and-accepting evidence that confirms supports their own view, while ignoring-or-rejecting evidence that disconfirms their view or confirms opposing views. In high school our Monday-plus-Tuesday experiences taught us that " IF we want accurate understanding, we should get the best information and arguments that all position-views can claim as support. MR affects a person's ability to recognize fallacious reasoning by themself and by others , their decision to either accept a fallacy that supports their views or challenge a fallacy that opposes their view, supports another view when it's used in a logical argument by another person, and their willingness to use fallacies when they construct their own arguments.

They use gentle criticism for their own view when evaluating its pros-and-cons, but use harsh criticism for other views. They tend to ignore actual complexities that would challenge their overconfidence. When their thinking is dominated by MR, an overall result is to reverse their sequence-of-logic; with MR, first comes the desired conclusion, followed by evidence-and-logic to support their conclusion. One way to adjust logic with MR is to oversimplify. Imagine a trial where a judge is trying to determine which of two or more competing policies will have more practical utility.

Also, there is complexity in using cause-effect reasoning to make predictions about issues with multiple complex causes and multiple complex outcomes, with outcome-effects that are good and bad, affecting a variety of people in different ways. In situations that require coping with complexity, a judge-thinker tries to evaluate by using critical thinking that is minimally biased. Reversing the Process — doing Conclusion first, then Evaluation. Sometimes the overall result of MR-logic is to reverse the usual sequence of reasoning. In a process that is logical, without bias, we should first do an objective evaluation by using unbiased evidence-and-logic plus values, and then reach a conclusion.

two possible results of MR: Although a person's Motivated Reasoning can lead to a changing of views {or actions}, instead MR usually leads to increasing confidence in existing views {or actions}. In either way, by changing or maintaining, MR can help a person achieve personal goals, e. by gaining more allies in a new group or old group , or by improving their self-perception of internal consistency because they have reduced their cognitive dissonance. reasons to not-change or to change, using unbiased Logical Reasoning and biased Motivated Reasoning: When a person re-examines one of their views by continuing to rationally evaluate it with unbiased reasoning using evidence-and-logic plus values , usually they decide that a change-of-view isn't justified.

What causes the difference in being willing to change? Maybe in one situation this person self-defines the change as wisdom because it's justified by their evaluation , while in the other situation they think a change would be a sign of weakness. Or maybe in the overall context of their life, in one situation but not the other a change is personally beneficial. And a tendency for being willing to change differs from one person to another. They will change their views when it seems wise — if they find justifiable evidence-based Logical Reasons for a change — because they see the change as wisdom rather than weakness. I want to self-educate myself by learning from experience , and if new experiences to get more knowledge, do more evaluation lead to a different conclusion, this is a beneficial change.

Is this influence-by-MR reduced by intelligence? It's useful to distinguish between different kinds of rationality. One definition of MR says " motivated reasoning refers [only] to situations in which people want to confirm their preferred conclusion, rather than to [other] situations in which people's reasoning is driven by an accuracy motivation " so they want to search for truth by using unbiased evaluation. Here we see two aspects of overall motivation; people want to find truth, and they have other motives. The relative strength of these motives will vary, depending on the context. in their whole life as a whole person. A broad definition of rationality is used in a research review cited by Winston Sieck , Myside Bias, Rational Thinking, and Intelligence by Keith Stanovich, Richard West, Maggie Toplak:.

Personal Rationality and Societal Rationality: Even though fallacious arguments using biased motivated reasoning can seem to be personally rational due to benefits that are short-range are beneficial for only some people and short-term, fallacies are societally irrational because the overall effects are detrimental for society. Then the judge tries to be neutral non-biased when evaluating the evidence-and-logic, trying to determine which truth-claim is more accurate, in what ways. A wise judge tries to do neutral judging, tries to avoid biased judging based on biased reasoning , on reasoning that is motivated by personally wanting to believe one of the claims. By contrast, each lawyer wants their own claim to win, so they are motivated to do biased arguing by adjusting all factors evidence, logic, values to favor the policy they want.

a clarification: I'm not criticizing the ethical character of people who serve as lawyers. Similarly, I'm not criticizing the ethical character of the people who bravely serve us as soldiers. Victory-Seeking Soldiers and Truth-Seeking Scouts: Another useful analogy developed by Julia Galef illustrates how different goals for thinking lead to different ways of thinking. so you want an accurate knowledge-of-reality that will be a solid foundation for an effective planning of battle strategies. During a discussion, you also can think like a scout who wants to find truth.

similarities: In each analogy we compare biased thinking by a lawyer or soldier, trying to win with unbiased thinking by a judge or scout, trying to determine truth. if more people were less lawyer-like less soldier-like? personal applications: I find that each analogy is useful for different situations, for when I'm alone be a scout-and-judge or interacting with others be a diplomatic scout. The Ethics of Scout-becoming-Soldier: Of course, nobody is purely soldier or purely scout. Each of us is some of both, with their strengths depending on what's happening in our life-context, and how we're responding. Unfortunately, when this happens our understanding is weaponized, and often the result is a decrease of respect, due to Hostile Polarization: In current society a common tendency is hostile polarizations that lead some people — especially when they're in groups — to have disrespectful attitudes toward people who disagree with them.

Important Principles: When a person and their group takes a strong position on an issue they think is extremely important, it's more difficult to think an opposing position can be supported as in our Monday-and-Tuesday classes by "good reasons, both logical and ethical," and that people holding this position should be respected. In this context an opponent may be viewed as an enemy who must be defeated in us-against-them warfare. This attitude does have a rational basis because — even though it's almost always wise to avoid "warfare" — we shouldn't try to buy peace at the high cost of abandoning important principles. Yes, it should be avoided. Instead we should emphasize the possibility and desirability of trying to consistently use objective logical thinking.

When we're thinking about our views, we should aim for a level of confidence that is appropriate is not too high or too low , steering a path between the two errors of confidence described by Bertrand Russell: "error is not only the absolute error of believing what is false, but also the quantitative error of believing more or less strongly than is warranted by the degree of credibility properly attaching to the proposition believed, in relation to the believer's knowledge. But usually a postmodernist isn't self-humbly underconfident about their own views. But the essential foundations of radical postmodernism do clash with the worthy goals of objectively-logical critical thinking.

People me, you, others have a human tendency to use motivated reasoning so we can "find reasons for believing what we want to believe. This section asks an important question: if a person uses illogical fallacious reasoning when they are communicating with other people to provide information or explain arguments , are they behaving unethically? My views are clearly stated throughout the page, especially in the new parts written in beginning with the Monday-and-Tuesday approach of my favorite teacher. An intentional use of fallacy is a trick that's used with a goal of misleading others and deceiving them. By contrast, an unintentional use of fallacy is an error that produces self-deception, although when the fallacy is communicated to others this can also mislead them. Although most of us consider an intentionally dishonest "trick" to be an unethical lie, we typically don't think an unintentional "error" is unethical.

If they don't try to improve their own communicating, so they continue to promote fallacies, are they ethically blameless? what if they use selective bias when choosing their targets, so they challenge only the fallacies by their opponents, while encouraging fallacies by their allies? Although honesty is a high-ranking virtue, it doesn't always have the highest priority. would your lie be virtuous if it helps your country win a battle during a war? In this situation, will the long-term total benefits for many in society justify the short-term deceptions, i. We should acknowledge the tendency and ability of humans to rationalize, to self-justify our behaviors in ways that reduce our cognitive dissonance.

When it's taken to an extreme, thinking that "the intentionally dishonest use of fallacious arguments is virtuous if Or, moving to another extreme, we see the foolishness of radical postmodern relativists who deny the desirability of trying to use evidence-and-logic objectively; with critical thinking that isn't biased by motivated thinking, and this leads them — and others, if we're not vigilant — into other kinds of foolishness. a writer should take a simple-and-clear position, then strongly defend it. Why not? If motivated reasoning helps a person feel good, gain allies, persuade people, and achieve goals, their MR is personally rational for them [because it provides benefits for them and for their sub-groups within society, although it isn't necessarily beneficial for society as a whole], even though their MR isn't objectively rational because it isn't unbiased reasoning.

We see two aspects of overall motivation; people want to find truth, and they have other motives. Why should we discourage an encouraging of lies? Because, re: personal rationality, it can especially in the long run damage the credibility of an individual as in " the boy who cried wolf " or group; quotes about lies and honesty. And because, re: societal rationality, it can damage the quality of our society. If a person is a skillful critical thinker, will they be less likely to use their skill in unethical ways? For example,. Information for parents and carers including learning and wellbeing resources, advice, study skills, a quick guide glossary, homework help, tools for learning remotely, support for additional needs and more.

The NSW Department of Education is committed to employing the best and brightest teachers who can teach and make a difference in NSW public schools. Here we examine how critical thinking skills can be used by students across all content areas and its importance in processing large amounts of data. The Australian Curriculum defines critical thinking as "at the core of most intellectual activity that involves students learning to recognise or develop an argument, use evidence in support of that argument, draw reasoned conclusions, and use information to solve problems.

This definition includes behaviours such as explaining, evaluating, analysing and hypothesising. Critical thinking is also classified as a general capability. This means that it can be developed both across and within different subject domains. It is widely agreed that critical thinking is a necessary capability across all content areas, and in a rapidly changing world. Teaching critical thinking is an area of continued research and understanding. Some common features that students need to become critical thinkers include:. The position of critical thinking as a general capability, highlights its importance across all key learning areas. This is likely to become increasingly important as students will need to sift through large amounts of data, understand its source, and make decisions as to its accuracy.

Skip to content Skip to search. A NSW Government website - Education. Log in Staff Staff portal Inside the department Students Student portal Key links for students Other users Extranet All users Forgot password. Error while loading notifications. You have no notifications. title}} Remove this notification. My Essentials. Error while loading essentials. You have no essentials. Edit my essentials. Ask for help.

To avoid misunderstanding, in the context of "critical thinking" we need to understand what "critical" does mean, and doesn't mean. In fact, a more accurate term would be logical thinking re: its process or evaluative thinking re: its goal. The result of evaluation can range from positive to negative, from acceptance to rejection or anything in-between. Yes, critical evaluation can produce a glowing recommendation. On this page, for example, the quotes and links — which are recommended, but as with all sources of information should be used with an attitude of "critical thinking" evaluation — are the result of my own critical thinking.

Here are two brief definitions of what it is: Critical thinking is "reasonably and reflectively deciding what to believe or do. Critical thinking means making reasoned judgments. Basically, it is using criteria to judge the quality of something, from cooking to a conclusion of a research paper. In essence, critical thinking is a disciplined manner of thought that a person uses to assess the validity of something: of a statement, news story, argument, research, etc. You can read Our Concept of Critical Thinking from The Critical Thinking Community which offers a comprehensive Library of Articles for you to explore.

Barbara Fowler has selected 19 brief definitions of critical thinking from a variety of sources, and Robert Ennis has a brief point outline and a Long Definition. Characteristics of Critical Thinkers. For a quick overview, read Characteristics of Critical Thinking which begins with "What is Critical Thinking? Linda Elder and Richard Paul describe Valuable Intellectual Traits Intellectual Humility, Courage, Empathy, Integrity, Perseverance, Faith In Reason, and Fairmindedness and Universal Intellectual Standards Clarity, Accuracy, Precision, Relevance, Depth, Breadth, and Logic.

For a more comprehensive overview, use their 35 Dimensions of Critical Thought as a launching pad to read 35 pages with brief, clear descriptions of Affective Strategies, Cognitive Strategies Macro-Abilities , and Cognitive Strategies Micro-Skills. And you can find much more by exploring the sitemap for CriticalThinking. Willing and Able, with Disposition and Skill: An effective thinker must be willing to think and able to think. These requirements — for disposition be willing and skill be able — are described in the pages above, and with more detail in a series of papers by Peter Facione, Noreen Facione, Carol Giancarlo, and Joanne Gainen.

I suggest The Motivation to Think in Working and Learning and Professional Judgment and the Disposition Toward Critical Thinking ; or you can read the abstracts to see what looks interesting. A person's critical thinking will be more generally-beneficial if they're able to think well and use their thinking well, in ways that will be more beneficial in more ways for more people. A person's beneficial use of critical thinking can decrease if they're not "able to think well" e. if they can't recognize fallacious reasoning "that is logically incorrect" or they unintentionally use it with unconscious motivated reasoning or if they don't "use their thinking well" e.

if they intentionally use fallacious reasoning in ways that might be considered unethical. Usually, creative generation is the most exciting part of creative-and-critical Productive Thinking and it's very important. But critical evaluation i. Guided Creativity with Creative Thinking being motivated-and-guided by Critical Thinking: When you are trying to Solve a Problem, you Evaluate Options for a Problem-Solution by using 3 Elements — Predictions and Observations plus Goals — in 3 kinds of Comparisons, in a Reality Check and two Quality Checks. Your critical Evaluation of an Option it's a possible Problem-Solution can motivate you to creatively Generate a New Option, with your critical Evaluation guiding your creative Generation in a critical - and - creative process of Guided Generation.

As explained in the pages above, critical thinking is essential for effective functioning in the modern world. IOU — Soon, probably mid-October , here I will describe and quote from, and link to web-pages that describe its importance, after evaluating some of the many pages about this. Education in critical thinking offers an alternative to a drift toward postmodern relativism, by emphasizing that we can "distinguish between facts and opinions or personal feelings, judgments and inferences, inductive and deductive arguments, and the objective and subjective.

Three Categories of Questions explains why, because students don't recognize questions involving "reasoned judgment" which are neither fact nor opinion , they "fail to see the difference between offering legitimate reasons and evidence in support of a view and simply asserting the view as true. You can use online tutorials of Critical Thinking Web sitemap about Logic, Fallacy, Argument Analysis, Venn Diagrams, Scientific Reasoning, and much more. The essence of critical thinking is logic. And logical evaluation — by using reality checks and quality checks — is the essence of Design-Thinking Process and Scientific Method.

On the other end of the logic spectum, we see a variety of logical fallacies that include circular reasoning and strawman arguments. Useful ideas about critical thinking and education are in Critical Thinking by Design Joanne Kurfiss and Critical Thinking: Basic Questions and Answers Richard Paul. For a broad overview, A Brief History of the Idea of Critical Thinking. When a student understands the practical value of critical Evaluative Thinking in their everyday life they will be more motivated to improve this valuable skill. Growth Mindset: One of the best things a teacher can do for students is helping them develop-and-use a growth mindset. A growth mindset will help them improve their skills in all areas of life, including their critical thinking. Thinking is encouraged by a creative use of Thinking Activities, such as Aesop's Activities or Socratic Teaching Six Types of Socratic Questions and other teaching tactics that encourage active learning.

Dany Adams explains how, "because the scientific method is a formalization of critical thinking, it can be used as a simple model that removes critical thinking from the realm of the intuitive and puts it at the center of a straightforward, easily implemented, teaching strategy," in Critical Thinking and Scientific Method. Understanding Logical Fallacies: This worthy educational goal is the focus for a wide variety of activities that are educationally valuable and are interesting for students. Therefore, I've made a special page with L INKS and Q UOTES about Logical Fallacies. What is a fallacy? Wikipedia's List of Fallacies begins with a simple definition: "a fallacy is reasoning that is logically incorrect.

Their article on Fallacy says re: effects "a fallacious argument may be deceptive by appearing to be better than it really is" and re: ethics "some fallacies are committed intentionally to manipulate or persuade by deception, while others are committed unintentionally due to carelessness or ignorance. In some situations, in some ways, a use of fallacies can be considered unethical. Bayesian Logic: I. and much more. Assessment: This is very difficult. Accurate evaluation of a thinking skill — or even defining precisely what the "skill" is, and how we can observe and measure it — is much more difficult than evaluating ideas-knowledge. Some educators have accepted the challenge: for example, for Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards and by CriticalThinking.

org and by InsightAssessment. Critical Thinking on the Web offers links to many interesting, useful resources about critical thinking in a WIDE variety of areas, for teaching more. Its value is simple: if we can take charge of our own minds, we can take charge of our lives. He participated, was a skilled debater, and Monday he would argue persuasively for one position. But the next day or later in the class Monday he would criticize this position, and present strong arguments for the other position s. When we did this, so we understood more accurately and thoroughly, we usually recognized that even when we have valid reasons for preferring one view, people with other views also may have good reasons, both logical and ethical, for their choices, and this helped us develop respectful attitudes.

Originally, all I the two paragraphs above was all I wrote about about Understanding and Respect. Then I wrote a brief explanation of why our teacher's goal wasn't a postmodern relativism. For decades, I've been optimistic. Then during I observed the continuing increase of hostile polarizations that often lead to inaccurate understandings and disrespectful attitudes. I began learning more about the causes and effects of motivated reasoning. Although I'm less optimistic than earlier, I still think we should continue pursuing this worthy goal.

Teachers can help students improve their logical skills of critical thinking — while they're encouraging accurate understanding and respectful attitudes — by designing argumentation activities that help students accurately understand the main views for an issue. One teaching method is that of my teacher, with HIM doing the expert analysis-and-debating Monday, and also Tuesday, with an overall result when all days were combined of accurately describing different views and the best arguments for each view. But in the context of critical thinking, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone by a skillful use of evidence-and-logic.

During an argumentation activity, students should reduce hostile attitudes that can lead to antagonistic words and angry confrontations. One way to pursue this goal is to help students improve their beneficial uses of empathy with kindness. sources of controversy: When a teacher tries to accurately describe different views, and the best arguments for each view, some people will think the descriptions are non-accurate because the teacher is being non-neutral. This is due to both perception because many people think a treatment-of-views is neutral only if it's biased in the way they want and reality because it's impossible for a teacher to describe views in a way that is totally neutral.

Because of this, teachers have a rational reason to avoid controversy, and therefore to avoid a Monday-plus-Tuesday activity. strategies to reduce controversy: A simple strategy that is rational for a teacher because it can increase the quality of their personal life even though it decreases the quality of their teaching is to avoid instruction like Monday-and-Tuesday activities that might be considered controversial. If this is done well, a teacher is less likely to be justifiably criticized for being personally biased. But this might not be enough to avoid controversy, especially if some students sometimes don't use wise filtering when they are actively debating.

During a time in the mid's when American society wasn't as polarized, our teacher confronted this problem directly but without much detail in his first class with his main rule, "don't be a nut" who will cause trouble. analogy with peanut allergies, cognitive therapy to mimic bad-experience but in safe contexts ; and I'll link to summaries videos: short short long , and written reviews ]]. You can respect someone and their views, yet criticize their views by using evidence-and-logic plus values. It should be socially acceptable to disagree with others, to explain — using evidence-and-logic plus values — why we think our views are better.

But we can help make the process of disagreeing about some things although agreeing about most things in life more enjoyable and productive. Basically, it's a tendency for people to believe what they want to believe, and find reasons for believing it. com says "Motivated reasoning is a form of reasoning in which people access, construct, and evaluate arguments in a biased fashion to arrive at or endorse a preferred conclusion. The term motivated in motivated reasoning refers to the fact that people use reasoning strategies that allow them to draw the conclusions they want to draw i.

motivated reasoning refers [only] to situations in which people want to confirm their preferred conclusion, rather than to [other] situations in which people's reasoning is driven by an accuracy motivation, " by wanting to reach a conclusion that is strongly justified by a logical evaluation of all available evidence. motivated reasoning occurs when people quoting Wikipedia "use emotionally-biased reasoning to produce justifications or make decisions that are most desired rather than those that accurately reflect the evidence, while still [even though their motivated justifications don't "accurately reflect the evidence"] reducing cognitive dissonance. In other words, motivated reasoning is the tendency to find arguments in favor of conclusions we want to believe to be stronger than arguments for conclusions we do not want to believe.

note: In the quotations above and below, italics and [comments in brackets] are added by me. and it's only one aspect of a person's general overconfidence about many kinds of personal abilities in many areas of life. We'll begin by looking at a common deviation from one goal of critical thinking, which ideally should produce appropriate confidence: An evidence-based logical evaluation should lead to improved understanding that promotes an appropriate humility about conclusions, with a logically-justifiable appropriate confidence that is not too little, not too much. inappropriate over-confidence: We often see people being overconfident about the logical justification for their own personal views, and the views of their groups.

A major cause of overconfidence is the motivated reasoning that often is used by people, both individually and in groups. Being in a group often leads to social pressures, with group dynamics that influence the reasoning of members, and reinforce our tendencies to be individually overconfident. dissonance in thinking that occurs when they recognize an inconsistency between their beliefs, or between their beliefs and actions. This motive-and-strategy can lead a person to over-estimate the logical justifications for their own confidence, so they become unjustifiably over-confident about themselves, and in an extra step that doesn't have to occur, but can occur they become disrespectful of others. All of these psychological motives often are related to practical motives.

Definitions of motivated reasoning describe the general motivation of wanting to believe "what we want to believe" in a "preferred conclusion" that is "most desired. a summary: Why are so many so confident?

Yet without critical thinking systematically designed into instruction, learning is transitory and superficial. Education for a Changing World. if they intentionally use fallacious reasoning in ways that might be considered unethical. Students come without training in it, while faculty tend to take it for granted as an automatic by-product of their teaching. Is motivated reasoning and its effects decreased by high intelligence?

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