Critical Thinking Skills
Various strategies facilitate effective decision-making that in turn makes us stronger truth-seekers, solve problems effectively and draw warranted conclusions in a situation. This paper compares the critical thinking approach in Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy from Bechara et al. (1997) and the critical thinking skills as depicted by Facione & Gittens (2016). The critical thinking aspects of Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy and Think critically can be combined to help one become a more effective critical thinker.
Summary of the article
The overt reasoning is usually required on the declarative reasoning when one is required to decide in dangerous situations which include the knowledge that pertains to the premises, alternatives of the action and the outcomes of the action made embedding the previous experience that is patient to an individual. Through an investigation of an alternative possibility, it was found that overt reasoning is usually preceded by the nonconscious biasing step that adopts the neural systems and not those supporting the declarative knowledge. For the individual who has damaged prefrontal and decision-making defects, parallel results are usually reported psychophysiological, self-account and behavioral measures. However, the normal start by choosing the advantageously before they can look at the strategy that best work for them (Bechara et al. 1997).
On the other hand, the prefrontal patients are known to continue making choices disadvantageously before realization even where they are aware of the right strategy. Furthermore, there is usually the tendency of the normal to start generating the anticipatory skin conductance responses (SCRs) when they ponder a choice whose results turn out to be risky prior to becoming aware that the choices they made were truly a risky choice for them. On the other hand, this case was not existent with the patients as they never developed SCRs despite the fact that there are those who can tell the risky choices that have been taken (Bechara et al. 1997). The article concludes that that nonconscious biases in the normal individuals act as behavior guides before the conscious knowledge. Failing to get assistance from such biases may lead to insufficient advantageous behavior especially when they person depends only on the overt reasoning.
Comparing the main ideas
Interpretation is one of the core critical thinking skills learned in class that facilitates in effective decision-making approach. In the interpretation, an individual engages in subcategorization of skills, clarification of the meaning and decoding of the significance of a piece of information. Similarly, self-regulation includes decision making and the assessment of the situation. It defines the individual strategies that a person uses in forming their critical thinking skills. It allows an individual in monitoring the thinking and cognitive activities which form part of the primary elements that are used in a deduction of the critical thinking results. In self-regulation, a person possesses both the self-correction and the self-regulation skills (Facione & Gittens 2016).
On the other hand, the article suggests that dependency on the overt reasoning alone may not be sufficient in ensuring acquisition of an advantageous behavior but there require to be some biases among the normal individuals. Indeed, the behavior is usually guided by the nonconscious biases among the normal individuals even before they can possess the conscious knowledge. It is not easy to make choices on the complex situations advantageously. This indicates Therefore indicating that overt reasoning plays a primary role in declarative knowledge which includes the alternatives for the action. However, the facts that pertain to the premises and the outcomes of the actions embodying the patient experience possessed by a person in the past, there is still the need for nonconscious biases for normal individuals. The nonconscious biasing uses neural systems which do not support the declarative knowledge, enabling the normal persons to choose on advantageous basis despite lacking the knowledge of the type of strategy that worked best in their case (Wagner et al., 2016). Furthermore, pondering of choices that would turn out to be risky made the normal persons generate anticipatory skin conductance responses even before they had acquired explicit knowledge that the choice they had made was risky. However, the patients are not usually affected by this aspect as illustrated in the article that they never showed anticipatory SRCs even in the cases they realized they had made risky choices.
Reconciliation of the two approaches
For one to become a strong critical thinker, knowledge can be borrowed from the two sources of effective critical thinking. In the article, one can adopt overt reasoning coupled with the nonconscious biases to become a strong critical thinker. Overt reasoning will guide a person in the declarative knowledge that sweeps across the knowledge that pertains to a premise, outcomes of actions and alternatives to actions taken and the nonconscious bias to predict the outcomes of the result because the SRCs response can easily enable a normal patient to determine a situation with risk. Combining these aspects with self-regulation will help one to make decisions and assess the situation well, thereby improving their effectiveness (Facione & Gittens 2016). Interpretation will help in clarification and understand the environment surrounding a person at the time of decision-making.
Conclusion
This paper has summarized Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy article by Bechara et al. (1997). The article identifies overt reasoning and nonconscious decision-making in normal persons as guides for critical thinking and effective decision making. Interpretation and self-regulation are identified in Think critically as among the primary skills in critical thinking approach. The critical thinking aspects of Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy and Think critically can be combined to help one become a more effective critical thinker.
References
Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1997). Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science, 275(5304), 1293-1295.
Facione, P., & Gittens, C. A. (2015). Think critically. Pearson.
Wagner, P. A., Johnson, D., Fair, F., & Fasko Jr, D. (2016). Thinking beyond the test: Strategies for re-introducing higher-level thinking skills. Rowman & Littlefield.
Psychology 304: Effective Thinking
Dr.
date
