Why can't you always escape the stereotype?

It is often said that people who are good at making decisions have critical thinking. What's the difference between critical thinking and ordinary thinking?

Keith E. Stannow, a cognitive psychologist, mentioned in Beyond IQ: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things that some people we think are smart, although they have high IQ, but lack the ability of rational thinking and action. Many people make decisions based on beliefs rather than evidence, unable to rationally decide their own beliefs, and lack reflection on the contents promoted by the media and the surrounding environment.

Critical thinking is to consciously check and eliminate loopholes and prejudices in thinking and guide actions with rational psychological procedures. Very few people have highly critical thinking. They make good use of thinking tools, but don't want to control others. They have a unique view on a more perfect and moral society, and will devote themselves to the practical activities of improving society and work hard for the goal of social perfection.

Between the two poles of thinking ability, some people know a little about critical thinking. They are smart enough to make unreasonable things reasonable in order to persuade each other to play word games. Some politicians, salesmen and health care masters all fall into this category. These people are natural actors. They always show their feelings and incite the public's nerves to move with them. However, their arguments are often not rigorous.

At the scene of "Chipa Theory", it often happens that sophists and outstanding thinkers are equally divided, and it is difficult for ordinary people to distinguish the advantages and disadvantages between them. Even in many cases, sophists react faster, quickly grasp a point of the other debater, distort the original intention without expression, be aggressive, and manipulate people's emotions and opinions.

When Mix meets Huang Zhizhong, the former frequently makes big moves like a magician, and his words don't follow common sense. His face turns to tears from time to time, taking the audience into his blowout words. The latter is cautious in reasoning and tightly stitched, and the sword is hidden in the sheath, taking the audience step by step into the logical end of his creation. In order to achieve their goals, sophists will not hesitate to distort the facts, while good debaters will not try to control others. Even at the cost of imposing manner, we will strive to safeguard justice.

There is a simple way to distinguish between the two kinds of people on the debate field and the negotiating table: the best thinkers will not use their thinking ability to pursue selfish goals. They can consciously check the clarity, accuracy, relevance, accuracy, logic, fairness, extensiveness, profundity and fairness of their thinking.

There are many innate misconceptions in our thinking, which come from our own cultural background and the way we are raised and educated. In addition, there are some misunderstandings related to our own experiences, especially those that cause our negative emotions.

There is a cripple in the movie "The Big Lobster". He thinks that the cripple is his identity tag, so his expectation for the other half is that the other half is also a cripple like him. However, in the small circle where he lives, there is no such woman, but there is a girl who often has a nosebleed. So in order to have the same qualities as the other person, he is willing to hit the wall every day until he bleeds, and then carefully approach the other person to start a relationship. Finally, they entered the marriage hall, because they both thought that in that small society with more than 100 people, the other person was their only lover, because they had the same label "nosebleeds".

Does that sound ironic? Think about it carefully and look at the young men and women around you. Many people look for love in real marriage and pretend to be themselves. Their logic of looking for love is similar to that of the characters in the play, and they all define themselves and happiness with some kind of label.

Justice is an internalized character, which is not directly related to social status. Many times it appears in the form of virtue, but this virtue is not innate, but acquired through careful and difficult thinking. The professional manuals of judges and teachers will stipulate which practices are moral and encouraging, which are forbidden and violate professional ethics, but not all people who conscientiously implement the manuals can become good judges and tutors. There are too many occasions in life, including subtle differences, which need us to identify and define.

In other words, how to enforce justice is a difficult, unclear and controversial issue. In all fairness, we need to cultivate certain thinking characteristics-humility, courage, integration, autonomy, empathy, perseverance and confidence in reasoning. Critical thinkers have an accurate and skilled grasp of these thinking characteristics.

There is a misunderstanding in many people's way of thinking, which is to prove themselves with irrational ideas. For example, in love, I like to inspect my post and stick to the point of tension. Knowing that this will make the other party disgusted, I confidently said: My last love broke up because my predecessor cheated. If I don't like my new partner in this love, I will make the same mistake again.

This reason is sympathetic at first glance, but it is obviously absurd to regard the infidelity of the other party as a causal relationship with his own lack of discipline. But similar fallacies abound in our daily thinking, including stereotypes, satire, oversimplification, oversimplification, hallucinations, fantasies, rationalization and false dilemmas. For example:

Another misunderstanding of thinking is that there is no standard of thinking to judge whether things are right or wrong. People who hold this idea feel that since everything has two sides and cannot be explained by simple inevitable connection, they should simply give up the concept of right and wrong and wait for God's arrangement. There are many similar examples, and many of us unconsciously believe:

Under the guidance of this misunderstanding, we tend to avoid the responsibility of learning and stop trying to learn new thinking modes.

In a word, whether it is self-proof with a preset point of view, or denying rational thinking and confusing the concept of right and wrong, it only provides an oversimplified answer, which is not enough to find and solve problems. Don't forget, the reason why our brains often start irrational mental programs is because human brains are very lazy and more sensitive to effortless fresh stimuli, ignoring the fact that they need to be painstakingly obtained.

Let me tell you a story.

About ten years ago, at a friend's party in Mountain View, California, a China compatriot told me in a teasing tone that they often met some neighbors with special status in local high-end apartments-these women are elegant and low-key, frequent visitors to nearby western restaurants and luxury stores, and some drive expensive white cars. So he speculated that these women were mistresses of high-ranking officials who secretly immigrated to North America, and driving a white limousine became a symbol of mistresses. I am particularly surprised that he came to such a conclusion. After all, the other party is not an ignorant person.

After living in the Bay Area for a long time, you will know that California is a beautiful place. Many beautiful women there are executives of big companies and are financially independent. Whether you are alone or dating, it is quite common to choose high-end places, and many of them are in no hurry to get married, let alone need a man to raise them.

These are the common lifestyles of local white-collar women. Why does this China friend completely ignore these basic common sense (facts) and associate white cars with underground affairs? Does he really believe that all the beautiful women driving white cars on California roads are mistresses?

There is quite a lot of this logic in life.

After all, seeing is believing, only half of it is true.

I believe in one sentence: don't patronize the visible, but also imagine the invisible world. This sentence is really unique in academic research. When we were just getting started, the first few books we read may have established our understanding of the whole subject, and the earliest scholars we contacted were also deified by us. Only after years of in-depth exploration and reading hundreds of studies can we have a relatively complete and objective understanding of a subject.

Our brains often ignore the whole picture of the facts intentionally or unintentionally. Behind an illusion, only some facts are true, and no one can get all the facts, but people who are good at rational thinking can distinguish the truth through limited and multi-angle phenomena and draw correct conclusions. For example:

Shanghai East China University of Science and Technology conducted a survey on the post-80s marriage and love situation on October 6th, 20/KLOC. The results show that the proportion of male computer majors is much higher than the average of the total statistics, and this conclusion is similar in the Survey Report on the View of Marriage and Love between Men and Women in China. Girls think that science and engineering men are more reliable and will not be careless. It seems that they need to re-examine.

The brain is full of stereotypes because we are not trained to be critical thinkers. "Critical thinking tool" (Paul &; Elder, 200 1), the author said: We don't pay attention to our egotism, we often label people (so-called stereotypes), we ignore many unpleasant views and just stick to unfounded beliefs.

However, the fact is that we all live in a world where all events are defined. In this world, every definition has a reason. This definition can't be popularized and gone far without being tested. It is only acquiesced, shared and observed in a limited circle. However, there are many ways to define each event.

There is only one way to stay awake and wise, and that is to always remind myself: "I can infer something from the world I can see, and I don't know what I don't see." The reason why the world is arguing about the depth of values is because the world we see is different.

refer to

Dennett SAR (1995). Darwin's dangerous view: evolution and the meaning of life. New york: Simon & Schuster.

Paul, R. Elder, L. (200 1). Critical thinking: a tool to control your study and life. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: prentiss Hole.

Stanovic, K. E. (2009). What is missing in intelligence test: rational thinking psychology. New Haven: Yale University Press.