There are so many obstacles, both personal and institutional, we face in trying to improve our lives as well as the society we live in. But we too often overlook the way we think about thinking as one of those obstacles.
How we think, as well as what we think about or pay attention to, influences the answers we derive and our emotional state. This might be one reason why the GOP so vigorously use twisted logic to attack the search for truth⎼ about Jan. 6 and DJT, about science, public schools, and education in general and certainly about gun violence. This is not just a dangerous political maneuver, but one that could threaten our survival as a nation and as a species, because it turns our most precious resource⎼ our minds and ability to think⎼ into an enemy to be feared and fought against.
We often conceptualize intelligence as our ability to learn, solve problems, or select goals and calculate how to reach them. But intelligence and thinking are not just a road to a desired end but a quality of our journey. It involves the ability to let go as well as dig deeper, not just to think but rethink our assumptions and beliefs. To know our limitations. The Greek philosopher Socrates supposedly said that what made him wise was that he knew he knew nothing.
Organizational psychologist Adam Grant, in his book Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, spells out how our mistaken idea of thinking can lead to distorting what we look at. And the brighter we supposedly are, the more blind we can be. What makes us intelligent, he says, is an ability to question our assumptions, and beliefs. To act like scientists testing our hypotheses.
We often resist rethinking, not only because of the time and energy required, but because it would mean questioning ourselves. Such questioning might add more unpredictability to an already unpredictable, often threatening world. And we’d have to admit we’re wrong, and capable of being very wrong. Our identity is tied closely to our beliefs and what we think are facts. To change our viewpoint can feel like abandoning our sense of ourselves. We might prefer the “comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt.”
Many of us use one of 3 models for thinking: a preacher defending their sacred beliefs, a prosecutor proving the “other side” wrong, or a politician seeking approval. Instead of thinking clearly, we often “listen to opinions that make us feel good instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat… and surround ourselves with people who agree with our conclusions” instead of those who challenge our thought process.
The result is what’s called the Dunning Kruger Effect. This is based on studies showing that people who scored the lowest on tests of reasoning and grammar had the most inflated idea of their abilities. The less we know in a particular domain, the more we overestimate our intelligence in that domain, and the more rigidly we hold our beliefs. Instead of recognizing what we don’t know or have yet to learn, we hide from the realization. We fall easily into the bias of thinking we’re not biased.
We might think this doesn’t apply to us, but I saw this operate in my own life. After returning to teaching after a 10-year absence, for a few years I found myself presenting answers to students more than modeling ways to question. I held viewpoints with more conviction than I felt because I didn’t want to expose my lack of knowledge.
And we pay a price for this lack of self-awareness. The COVID pandemic was made more virulent not only by new strains of the virus but by those following their bias or beliefs instead of science. Or those who did not reconsider old assumptions even when they no longer reflected reality. For example, many of us assumed that if we had no symptoms, we had no transmissible illness. The result⎼ thousands were made sick or died. In 2019 and 2020, we assumed supply lines of consumer goods would remain stable and basics like toilet paper would always be available. Or that there’d always be new tv programs, always be restaurants and stores open, gyms, theatres, schools, and doctors available.
Our society is suffering the devastating effects of the wall built right down the middle of this nation. And the concrete holding this wall together is a rigidity in how we think of ourselves and what we think we know. Such a rigidity in our thinking can allow those with political and economic power to manipulate us and maintain that power.
Grant’s discussion of the need for re-thinking is not new. Theories of critical thinking have long espoused the need for constant reflection on our conclusions and thinking process. Educators have talked for years about the need for metacognition, or thinking about our thinking.
In my book on Compassionate Critical Thinking, I showed that self-reflection is extremely difficult if we haven’t practiced some form of mindfulness. If we are not experienced with noticing the rising of emotions like fear, hate, or greed, three roots of bias, then we will have more difficulty noticing distortions in our thinking. If we are not proficient with imagination, and empathy, we will have more difficulty realizing the implications, accuracy, or applicability of our theories.
But Grant goes a step beyond pointing out the need for rethinking. He gives scientific information on how to do it. He recommends we adopt the mode of a scientist testing a hypothesis. That we be humble, aware of our limits. That we doubt what we (think we) know and be curious about what we don’t know. And we constantly update our viewpoints.
Many of his suggestions and conclusions about how to talk with others are surprising. For example, he argues against the assumption that for others to hear us we need to make things simple or turn complex situations into tiny sound bites.
We often fall victim to a binary bias. We talk about being right or wrong, believers or nonbelievers⎼ or of two sides of an argument when there are countless sides. But studies show that as consumers of information we favor content with complexity or diversity and communicators who recognize there are uncertainties. News reports that include caveats or exceptions are more likely to keep a listener’s interest and trust. So, when trying to persuade someone, we need to admit the limits of what we know.
People are more likely to listen to us and act if we emphasize the positive and can demonstrate the collective benefit of that action; for example, we can discuss how an action will create a more sustainable and caring community, or more personal freedom.
To get in the door, start by finding points of agreement. We can initiate difficult conversations by recognizing the humanity of the person we’re speaking with. “I have a lot of respect for people who stand by their principles.” We can talk with people who have views different from our own as if we were interviewing them, listening carefully, summarizing what we hear, and asking how they know what they think they know so we uncover their beliefs. It’s more proficient to guide someone to self-discovery than try to impose our own views. Only later do we rebut what we discover is inaccurate.
We are all fragile beings, trying to live as best we can in a world that exceeds our ability to control or understand it. Our ability to think rationally is one of our most powerful aids in our survival. But the light rationality creates doesn’t show us things as they are. It only shows abstractions, although sometimes beautiful and entrancing, partial views created by the shadows words and numbers cast. It can fool us into imagining we can separate the rational from the emotional, us from the universe, now from eternity.
The antidote to this is not just more critical, fact-based, scientific thinking. It is thinking of thinking as a process that includes and befriends moments of not-thinking. It includes taking periodic breaks, to feel what we feel, to simply be present with the physical world and all the other beings we share the world with. In this way we loosen the hold our assumptions, thoughts and beliefs have on our sense of reality, integrate what we’ve learned, and place ourselves in a much larger context. We can then more easily test, reflect on or question what we think⎼ and rethink.
I don’t know if we can use Grant’s methods to reach those who hold their ideas so absolutely they would kill to maintain them. But we can try with those who give us the opportunity. To think well, and to live well, we must constantly reconsider what we think, and constantly reconnect with the world we live in, or we end up turning the real into a mere thought⎼ and thoughts disappear so quickly.
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