lack of critical thinking leads to open minded skepticism

Open-Mindedness and Skepticism in Critical Thinking

How the two traits work together..

Posted April 26, 2019

In my most recent post, 12 Important Dispositions for Critical Thinking, I presented a list of dispositions that are likely to enhance the quality of one’s thinking—specifically, disposition toward critical thinking refers to an inclination, tendency, or willingness to perform a given thinking skill (Dwyer, 2017; Facione, Facione & Giancarlo, 1997; Ku, 2009; Norris, 1992; Siegel, 1999; Valenzuela, Nieto & Saiz, 2011). Though there is overlap among some of the dispositions (e.g., inquisitiveness, truth-seeking, and resourcefulness), there are, of course, important distinctions. However, in one particular case—open-mindedness and scepticism—it almost seems that the dispositions are at odds with one another.

I received feedback on the piece, and one reader recommended that, though they agree that it's good to have an open mind, some viewpoints are simply foolish, and it would be a waste of time to dwell on them. I responded with agreement, to some extent. However, even if an idea appears foolish, sometimes its consideration can lead to an intelligent, critically considered conclusion. In this way, open-mindedness follows the same mechanics as ‘brainstorming’ ideas, in that no idea is a bad one because the ‘bad ones’ sometimes provide a foundation for a ‘good one.’ I advised, furthermore, that there are important subtleties that require consideration with respect to understanding the relationship between scepticism and open-mindedness.

To better understand this relationship, it is important to first operationally define the two dispositions. Open-mindedness refers to an inclination to be cognitively flexible and avoid rigidity in thinking; to tolerate divergent or conflicting views and treat all viewpoints alike, prior to subsequent analysis and evaluation; to detach from one’s own beliefs and consider, seriously, points of view other to one’s own without bias or self-interest; to be open to feedback by accepting positive feedback and to not reject criticism or constructive feedback without thoughtful consideration; to amend existing knowledge in light of new ideas and experiences; and to explore such new, alternative or ‘unusual’ ideas. On the other hand, seemingly, the disposition towards scepticism refers to an inclination to challenge ideas; to withhold judgment before engaging all the evidence or when the evidence and reasons are insufficient; to take a position and be able to change position when the evidence and reasons are sufficient; and to look at findings from various perspectives.

Though on a foundational level, the two dispositions may seem to reside on a kind of continuum (e.g., scepticism at one end and open-mindedness at the other end), they are distinct concepts, even if there is overlap. That is, an individual can be both sceptical and open-minded at the same time. Perhaps the key issue here is to recognise that open-mindedness doesn’t mean you have to accept divergent ideas, rather just consider them.

Even with that, isn’t consideration of a foolish idea still a ‘waste of time?' Well, the decision-making behind determining whether or not something is foolish is still consideration—some level of evaluation, no matter how easy, was required to make the decision. That’s where the scepticism comes in: rejection of the ‘foolish’ idea is the outcome of appropriate evaluation. However, knowing that the idea is foolish isn’t necessarily the end of the story. You may ask yourself whether anything can be salvaged from the bad idea or the thought process behind it, for the purpose of turning it into a good one; thus, being open-minded through idea generation, such as in the aforementioned example of the mechanics behind brainstorming. But with that, there’s more to open-mindedness than that.

Open-mindedness is about being open to changing your mind in light of new evidence. It’s about detaching from your beliefs and focusing on unbiased thinking void of self-interest. It’s about being open to constructive criticism and new ideas. People who are sceptical do all of this as well—they challenge ideas and they withhold judgment until sufficient evidence is provided—they are open to all possibilities until sufficient evidence is presented. Scepticism and open-mindedness go hand-in-hand, but they may not seem that way from the surface—not until they are adequately and comprehensively defined. Once described accordingly, it is hard not to equate both with critical thinking. Well, I’d be sceptical of it, anyway.

Dwyer, C.P. (2017). Critical thinking: Conceptual perspectives and practical guidelines. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Facione, P. A., Facione, N. C., & Giancarlo, C. A. (1997). Setting expectations for student learning: New directions for higher education. Millbrae: California Academic Press.

Ku, K. Y. L. (2009). Assessing students’ critical thinking performance: Urging for measurements using multi-response format. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 4(1), 70–76.

Norris, S. P. (Ed.). (1992). The generalizability of critical thinking: Multiple perspectives on an educational ideal. New York: Teachers College Press.

Siegel, H. (1999). What (good) are thinking dispositions? Educational Theory, 49(2), 207–221.

Valenzuela, J., Nieto, A. M., & Saiz, C. (2011). Critical thinking motivational scale: A contribution to the study of relationship between critical thinking and motivation. Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, 9(2), 823–848.

Christopher Dwyer, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Technological University of the Shannon in Athlone, Ireland.

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8 Open-Mindedness, Critical Thinking, and Indoctrination

• Published: September 2017
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William Hare has made fundamental contributions to philosophy of education. His work on various matters of educational theory and practice is of the first importance and will influence the field for decades to come. Among the most important of these contributions is his hugely important work on open-mindedness, an ideal that Hare has clarified and defended powerfully and tellingly. In this paper I explore the several relationships that exist between Hare’s favored educational ideal (open-mindedness) and my own (critical thinking). Both are important educational aims, but I argue here that while both are of central importance, it is the latter that is the more fundamental of the two.

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3.2: Skepticism

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• Jim Marteney
• Los Angeles Valley College via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)

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Our first step involves being skeptical of new ideas and arguments. When someone tells you something or you read it over the internet or see it on television, are you more likely to believe it or disbelieve it? As long as it does not clash with previous beliefs we hold, science suggests that we are more likely to accept new information. In fact, in order to understand a new concept our minds must first accept the concept to even understand what it means.

In a landmark 1991 paper, Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert proposed that we process information in two steps. First, we accept information as true, and then we interrogate whether it may actually be false. In other words, we let the Trojan horse past the gate before we check to see if it’s full of Greek soldiers. “Humans,” wrote Gilbert, are “very credulous creatures who find it very easy to believe and very difficult to doubt.”

Cognitive Science Offers Tools To Rebuff Climate Deniers 1

As Dan Gilbert argues, understanding a new idea requires two steps.

• Accept that the new information is accurate to understand the new ideas.
• Once the ideas are understood, then test them to see if they are accurate.

Silence Does Not Always Mean Consent, Especially in Romance

Silence means consent is not an actual legal term and should not actually be relied on for all situations. This is especially accurate when “romance” is involved. More and more social situations, however, demand that if romantic advances are being made by an individual, that person must receive an affirmation of those advances before the romance is continued. Silence here does not mean consent.

But as you might imagine, once we accept the accuracy of a concept it becomes a challenge to then reject it. Since we are naturally prone to accept new information, our human nature is not to be initially skeptical. Being skeptical is a skill we must develop.

Our skepticism skill is challenged even more when we are presented with many “lies.” Again, Jeremy Deaton writes:

• It takes energy to scrutinize a lie.
• It takes more energy to scrutinize it when we hear that lie again and again.
• We don’t like to scrutinize a lie that supports our worldview. 2

There is a misconception over what it means to be skeptical and I am guessing that now is a good time to clearly define what it means to be skeptical. Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine and is frequently asked what it means to be a skeptic. He answers this question by saying,

As the publisher of Skeptic magazine, I am often asked what I mean by skepticism, and if I’m skeptical of everything or if I actually believe anything. Skepticism is not a position that you stake out ahead of time and stick to no matter what.

...science and skepticism are synonymous, and in both cases, it’s okay to change your mind if the evidence changes. It all comes down to this question: What are the facts in support or against a particular claim?

There is also a popular notion that skeptics are closed-minded. Some even call us cynics. In principle, skeptics are neither closed-minded nor cynical. We are curious but cautious. 3

This passage by Shermer points out four key thoughts about skeptics:

• No position is staked out ahead of time. This allows for you to examine the argument with an open mind and then decide whether you accept it or reject it.
• Skepticism follows the procedure of scientific inquiry looking to see if the evidence provided in the argument adequately supports the claim.
• It is okay to change your mind. You may have one position, but after listening to a new argument, with new and additional evidence you can now make a better decision and actually changing your mind is a good thing.
• Skeptics are not cynics. Instead Skeptics are curious, but are cautious and resist leaping to a comfortable conclusion.

An additional and often used method of learning a concept is to look at the origin of a word. For those of you who want to impress your friends, the term for this is etymology . The Basics of Philosophy website has a nice, brief examination of the term skeptic.

The term is derived from the Greek verb "skeptomai" (which means "to look carefully, to reflect"), and the early Greek Skeptics were known as the Skeptikoi. In everyday usage, Skepticism refers to an attitude of doubt or incredulity, either in general or toward a particular object, or to any doubting or questioning attitude or state of mind. It is effectively the opposite of dogmatism, the idea that established beliefs are not to be disputed,doubted or diverged from. 4 (Maston,2008)

I like the idea that this passage clearly states that being a skeptic is the opposite of being dogmatic.

Jamie Hale describes the difference between being cynical and being a skeptic.

“Cynics are distrustful of any advice or information that they do not agree with themselves. Cynics do not accept any claim that challenges their belief system. While skeptics are open-minded and try to eliminate personal biases, cynics hold negative views and are not open to evidence that refutes their beliefs. Cynicism often leads to dogmatism.” 5

He continues by stating that dogmatism “opposes independent thinking and reason.” If we want to be successful critical thinkers we need to become much more skeptical and less cynical.

In his TEDTalk Michael Shermer explains the relationship between the process of skepticism and science.

Skeptics question the validity of a particular claim by calling for evidence to prove or disprove it. In other words, skeptics are from Missouri -- the "Show Me" state. When we skeptics hear a fantastic claim, we say, "That's interesting, show me the evidence for it." 6

A key goal here is to encourage you to be more skeptical. Instead of blindly accepting or rejecting claims made by others, take the time to demand proof. Make the person or organization prove the claim they are making. And remember, you need to be open minded when listening to the argument.

Over three centuries ago the French philosopher and skeptic René Descartes, after one of the most thorough skeptical purges in intellectual history, concluded that he knew one thing for certain: “Cogito ergo sum” — “I think therefore I am.”

By a similar analysis, to be human is to think. Therefore, to paraphrase Descartes: Sum Ergo Cogito —I Am Therefore I Think 7

An effective critical thinker who is successful in arguing is a person who is more skeptical of the messages they receive. This advice is not just for those who wish to be argumentative. This advice is for every citizen.

“What we all need, as citizens, is to develop more skill in applying our skepticism. We need to spot false narratives, and also turn aside those who would replace them with pure fiction. Either we get this right or we cease to be free citizens.” 8

The problem we all experience is that it is not natural to be skeptical. Our natural state is to either flee a conflict or stand and argue. This can be explained by how our brains are structured.

• Deaton, Jeremy. "Cognitive Science Offers Tools To Rebuff Climate Deniers." CleanTechnica, https://cleantechnica.com/2017/03/29/cognitive-science-offers-tools-rebuff-climate-deniers/ . Accessed 10 June 10 2017.
• Shermer, Michael. "What is Skepticism, Anyway." Awaken , https://awaken.com/2013/02/what-is-skepticism-anyway/ . Accessed 30 October 2019.
• Maston, Luke. "Skepticism." The Basics of Philosophy , https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_skepticism.html . Accessed 10 June 2017.
• Hale, Jamie. "Thinking Like a Skeptic." PsychCentral , psychcentral.com/blog/think-like-a-skeptic/. Accessed 30 October 2019.
• Shermer, Michael. "Why People Believe Weird Things." TED , February 2006, https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_why_people_believe_weird_things .
• Shermer, Michael. "A Skeptical Manifesto." Skeptic , https://www.skeptic.com/about_us/manifesto/ . Accessed 16 November 2020.
• Inskeep, Steve. "A Finder’s Guide to Facts." NPR , https://www.npr.org/2016/12/11/505154631/a-finders-guide-to-facts .

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Actively Open-Minded Thinking and Its Measurement

Keith e. stanovich.

1 Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St. West, Toronto, ON M5S 1V6, Canada

Maggie E. Toplak

2 Department of Psychology, York University, 126 Behavioural Science Building, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada

Associated Data

Not applicable.

Actively open-minded thinking (AOT) is measured by items that tap the willingness to consider alternative opinions, sensitivity to evidence contradictory to current beliefs, the willingness to postpone closure, and reflective thought. AOT scales are strong predictors of performance on heuristics and biases tasks and of the avoidance of reasoning traps such as superstitious thinking and belief in conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, AOT is most commonly measured with questionnaires rather than performance indicators. Questionnaire contamination becomes even more of a danger as the AOT concept is expanded into new areas such as the study of fake news, misinformation, ideology, and civic attitudes. We review our 25-year history of studying the AOT concept and developing our own AOT scale. We present a 13-item scale that both is brief and accommodates many previous criticisms and refinements. We include a discussion of why AOT scales are such good predictors of performance on heuristics and biases tasks. We conclude that it is because such scales tap important processes of cognitive decoupling and decontextualization that modernity increasingly requires. We conclude by discussing the paradox that although AOT scales are potent predictors of performance on most rational thinking tasks, they do not predict the avoidance of myside thinking, even though it is virtually the quintessence of the AOT concept.

1. Actively Open-Minded Thinking and Its Measurement

In many previous publications we have articulated the differences between the concept of rationality and the concept of intelligence ( Stanovich 2009 , 2011 ; Stanovich et al. 2016 ). For our actions to be instrumentally rational, they must be the best means toward our goals, and for our beliefs to be epistemically rational, they must correspond to the way the world is—they must be true. Many components of instrumental rationality and epistemic rationality are assessed by heuristics and biases tasks in the psychological literature ( Baron 2008 ; Evans 2014 ; Kahneman 2011 ; Kelman 2011 ; Koehler and Harvey 2004 ; Manktelow 2012 ; Stanovich 2004 , 2011 ). Although there are several broader conceptualizations of rationality ( Mele and Rawling 2004 ; Stanovich 2013 ), the so-called axiomatic approach to rationality ( Luce and Raiffa 1957 ; Savage 1954 )—which defines rationality as adherence to certain types of consistency and coherence relationships—is well-covered by the heuristics and biases literature.

Intelligence is an underlying component that facilitates performance on heuristics and biases tasks, but it is not the only one. Individual differences in thinking dispositions also underlie differences in rational responding. Thus, rationality is the more encompassing construct. The distinction between cognitive capacity (intelligence) and thinking dispositions is an old one in psychology. Cognitive capacities are the types of cognitive processes studied by information processing researchers seeking the underlying cognitive basis of performance on IQ tests. Perceptual speed, discrimination accuracy, working memory capacity, and the efficiency of the retrieval of information stored in long-term memory are examples of cognitive capacities that underlie traditional psychometric intelligence and that have been extensively investigated. Thinking dispositions, in contrast, are better viewed as cognitive styles.

Rational thinking dispositions are those that relate specifically to the adequacy of belief formation and decision making—for example, the tendency to collect information before making up one’s mind, the tendency to seek various points of view before coming to a conclusion, the disposition to think extensively about a problem before responding, the tendency to calibrate the degree of strength of one’s opinion to the degree of evidence available, the tendency to think about future consequences before taking action, the tendency to explicitly weigh pluses and minuses of situations before making a decision, and the tendency to seek nuance and avoid absolutism. In short, individual differences in rational thinking dispositions include variation in people’s goal management, epistemic values, and epistemic self-regulation—differences in the operation of the reflective mind in our tripartite model ( Stanovich 2011 ; Stanovich et al. 2016 ).

On our Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking instrument (CART; Stanovich et al. 2016 ), thinking disposition scales are supplemental to the subtests of the CART. Thinking dispositions are not primary measures of rationality themselves, because they are not maximizing concepts like the other constructs on the CART 1 . The most important thinking disposition that we measure on the CART is actively open-minded thinking (AOT).

2. Twenty-Five Years Trying to Measure AOT

Our research group has spent over 25 years trying to understand the AOT concept and attempting to measure it. We were originally inspired by the writings of Baron ( 1985 , 1988 , 1993 ), who first named and discussed AOT as an important thinking disposition (see Baron et al. 2023 , for a history of the concept). In Stanovich and West ( 1997 ), we conceptualized AOT as a thinking disposition encompassing the cultivation of reflectiveness rather than impulsivity; the desire to act for good reasons; tolerance for ambiguity combined with a willingness to postpone closure; and the seeking and processing of information that disconfirms one’s beliefs. The items on the initial version ( Stanovich and West 1997 ) of our AOT scale tapped reasoning styles such as the disposition toward reflectivity using items such as “If I think longer about a problem I will be more likely to solve it,” and “Intuition is the best guide in making decisions,” (the latter reverse-scored). Other items tapped willingness to consider evidence contradictory to beliefs (e.g., “People should always take into consideration evidence that goes against their beliefs”) and the willingness to consider alternative opinions and explanations (“A person should always consider new possibilities”). Some items tapped the willingness to postpone closure (“There is nothing wrong with being undecided about many issues”). Philosophically, the original scale focused strongly on issues of epistemic self-regulation raised in philosophical discussions ( Goldman 1986 ; Harman 1995 ; Nozick 1993 ; Samuelson and Church 2015 ). The scale was a marker for the avoidance of epistemological absolutism; willingness to perspective-switch; and the tendency to consider alternative opinions and evidence.

In this paper, we will focus on the links between AOT and performance on heuristics and biases tasks from the reasoning literature, because that is where the bulk of our empirical offers have been directed. Recently, however, there has been a burgeoning literature (e.g., Ackerman and Thompson 2017 ; De Neys 2023 ) examining the meta-reasoning processes that are implicated when solving these types of reasoning tasks. Although we have not investigated connections between AOT and these meta-reasoning processes, there would seem to be a good deal of conceptual overlap. As mentioned above, Baron ’s ( 1985 , 1988 ) early conceptualization of AOT and our earliest attempts to operationalize the concept focused heavily on epistemic self-regulation. This emphasis provides a possible link to the meta-reasoning literature ( Ackerman and Thompson 2017 ), where the issues of monitoring ongoing thinking, allocating cognitive resources, and attentional switching are paramount. The concept of cognitive decoupling, which we elaborate later in this paper, provides a potential connection between the extant literature on AOT and the growing literature on how meta-reasoning contributes to task outcomes (e.g., Ackerman and Thompson 2017 ; Raoelison et al. 2020 ; Thompson et al. 2013 ).

We have been investigating actively open-minded thinking for over two decades now and have been continually refining the scale since that initial study ( Sá et al. 1999 ; Stanovich and West 2007 ; Stanovich et al. 2016 ; Stanovich and Toplak 2019 ). For example, Sá et al. ( 1999 ) introduced nine new items into the scale in order to measure an aspect of AOT that we termed belief identification. These items were inspired by a theoretical paper by Cederblom ( 1989 ) in which he argued for a potential thinking style centered around the extent to which people identify their beliefs with their concept of self (e.g., “Certain beliefs are just too important to abandon no matter how good a case can be made against them” [reverse-scored]). Other additions and subtractions of components occurred over the next decade. By 2007 ( Stanovich and West 2007 ), we had a 41-item instrument that was subsequently trimmed down to 30 items in our CART for adults ( Stanovich et al. 2016 ; 16 items in the short form).

In our initial studies ( Stanovich and West 1997 ) we found that our AOT scale was moderately associated with the ability to evaluate arguments. This association held even when the variance due to cognitive ability was partialled out. In several subsequent studies, we found that our AOT scale predicted performance on a variety of heuristics and biases tasks, often even after partialling cognitive ability ( Stanovich and West 1997 , 1998a , 1998b , 2000 ). This performance pattern has been found in a variety of studies conducted in many labs and has been obtained across a plethora of heuristics and biases tasks, including noncausal base-rate tasks, hypothesis evaluation tasks, four-card selection tasks, covariation detection, gambler’s fallacy, conjunction fallacy, Bayesian reasoning, framing problems, ratio bias, sample size problems, and probability matching ( Bruine de Bruin et al. 2007 ; Erceg et al. 2022 ; Finucane and Gullion 2010 ; Kokis et al. 2002 ; Parker and Fischhoff 2005 ; Pennycook et al. 2014 ; Sa and Stanovich 2001 ; Sá et al. 2005 ; Stanovich et al. 2016 ; Toplak et al. 2007 ; Toplak and Stanovich 2002 ; Toplak et al. 2011 , 2014a , 2014b ; Viator et al. 2020 ; Weller et al. 2018 ; West et al. 2008 ).

It is startling that a questionnaire measure tapping a thinking disposition correlates with so many heuristics and biases tasks and that it is often a unique predictor after cognitive ability is partialled. Equally impressive has been the recent expansion of the AOT concept as an explanatory mechanism in new and diverse areas ( Baron 2019 ; Baron et al. 2015 ; Baron et al. 2023 ; Baron et al. 2017 ), including linking the concept to optimal information acquisition ( Haran et al. 2013 ) and cognitive inhibition skills ( Campitelli and Gerrans 2014 ).

One of the earliest linkages that we observed when we began studying the AOT was that it predicted pseudoscientific beliefs and superstitious thinking. It has consistently correlated with the presence of what we termed contaminated mindware—declarative knowledge that is incorrect and that leads to suboptimal action (see Rizeq et al. 2021 ; Stanovich 2011 ; Stanovich et al. 2016 ). For example, in one of our earliest studies ( Stanovich and West 1997 ), several of the subcomponents of our first AOT test displayed significant negative correlations with superstitious thinking (flexible thinking = −.26; absolutism = −.23; dogmatism = −.19; categorical thinking = −.28). A later study using an updated composite AOT scale found a −.38 correlation between it and superstitious thinking ( Toplak et al. 2011 ). Using a more refined AOT scale, we found a −.44 correlation with a university sample and −.59 with an mTurk sample ( Stanovich et al. 2016 ), as well as correlations ranging from −. 39 to −.53 with Prolific samples ( Stanovich and Toplak 2019 ). These findings have been much replicated, as AOT scales have been found to correlate with a variety of different measures of superstitious thinking and belief in the paranormal ( Erceg et al. 2022 ; Jastrzębski and Chuderski 2022 ; Pennycook et al. 2020 ; Rizeq et al. 2021 ; Svedholm and Lindeman 2013 ; Svedholm-Hakkinen and Lindeman 2018 ).

Conspiracy belief scales measure another form of contaminated mindware that has been linked to actively open-minded thinking. These beliefs, given the lack of evidence for them, appear to be remarkably prevalent ( Oliver and Wood 2014 ), and they seem to be part of a cluster of thinking styles that interconnect with superstitious behavior and animistic thinking ( Oliver and Wood 2014 ; Rizeq et al. 2021 ; Stanovich et al. 2016 ).

Belief in specific conspiracy theories and general conspiratorial ideation have been found to correlate with AOT scales, but at a somewhat lower level than the correlations obtained with superstitious thinking. For example, Swami et al. ( 2014 ) found a significant negative correlation between the Stanovich and West ( 2007 ) AOT scale and the Belief in Conspiracy Theories Inventory ( Swami et al. 2010 , 2011 ), but the magnitude of the correlation was only −.07. Somewhat stronger results were obtained with the AOT scale that was part of our Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking ( Stanovich et al. 2016 ) and our Conspiracy Beliefs subscale. We found correlations of −.34 and −.26 in university samples but a higher −.48 correlation in an mTurk sample ( Stanovich et al. 2016 ). Using a different AOT scale, we found correlations ranging from −.19 to −.29 in Prolific samples ( Stanovich and Toplak 2019 ). These findings have been much replicated, as AOT scales have been found to correlate with a variety of different measures of conspiracy belief ( Binnendyk and Pennycook 2022 ; Erceg et al. 2022 ; Jastrzębski and Chuderski 2022 ; Pennycook et al. 2020 ; Rizeq et al. 2021 ; Yelbuz et al. 2022 ).

3. Examining a Wider Range of Correlates Leads to New Questions about AOT Scale Composition

Recent expansion of the use of the AOT scale into areas such as belief in evolution ( Deniz et al. 2008 ; Sinatra et al. 2003 ); skeptical processing of fake news ( Bronstein et al. 2019 ); accuracy in future forecasting ( Mellers et al. 2015 ); moral reasoning ( Baron et al. 2015 ); religiosity/ideology ( Baron 2019 ; Stanovich and Toplak 2019 ); and skeptical attitudes toward alternative medicine ( Svedholm-Hakkinen and Lindeman 2018 ) has raised new questions about the specific compositional structure of the AOT scales in use.

In Stanovich and Toplak ( 2019 ), we described how we were led to re-examine the way in which our original scale was constructed and revised over the years by reading some recent studies that inserted the AOT concept into discussions of religion and ideology. The extremity of the results of these studies gave us pause and forced us to think more about the logic of some of the items. First, there were the startling results of Piazza and Landy ( 2013 ), who reported some extremely high correlations between an AOT scale and various measures of religiosity: −.58 with an attitudes toward religion scale, −.59 with a religious faith questionnaire, −.63 with a Christian orthodoxy scale, −.58 with self-reported religiosity, and a truly astonishing correlation of −.70 with a morality founded on divine authority scale. Baron et al. ( 2015 ) observed a correlation similar to those of Piazza and Landy (−.61) between an AOT measure and a four-item religiosity scale. Likewise, Bronstein et al. ( 2019 ) reported a similarly high correlation of −.67 between a short-form AOT scale and a religious fundamentalism measure. Other studies, such as that of Yilmaz and Saribay ( 2017 ), have found similarly strong correlations (−.47) between AOT scores and social conservativism.

We were startled by these high correlations (in the −.50 to −.70 range), because we have run over a dozen studies employing versions of AOT scales (see Stanovich et al. 2016 ) in which religiosity and political ideology have been included as demographics questions. We have very consistently found correlations in the much lower range of −.25 to −.40 between religiosity and the AOT (correlations with ideology are almost always even lower). When puzzling over the cause of these discrepancies in the association between religiosity and AOT that our group observes versus those reported in these other studies, one of the first things we noticed was that most of the other research tended to use short-form AOT scales—often short forms of fewer than 10 items. These are much smaller scales than the 41-item AOT measure that we were using over a decade ago ( Stanovich and West 2007 ) and the 30-item revised measure that we used in the CART ( Stanovich et al. 2016 ).

More important than the sheer number of items, of course, is the specific composition of the short forms. Here, a deeper analysis of the items used across various studies revealed a potential source of the discrepancies between the results. That source appears to reside primarily in the items that Sá, West, and Stanovich introduced into the scale in 1999. Sá et al. ( 1999 ) termed these items belief identification items, but Stanovich and Toplak ( 2019 ) suggested the broader term belief revision items. Nine of these items were introduced into the AOT scale in our 1999 study. One item of a similar type was already in the earlier scale. Thus, the 41-item scale used in the mid-2000s by Stanovich and West ( 2007 ) consisted of 10 belief revision items out of a total of 41 (24.4%). The 30-item updated AOT subtest in our CART ( Stanovich et al. 2016 ) had nine belief identification items (30% of the total). It was immediately of concern to us in perusing the short forms used in other studies that the proportion of belief revision items was substantially higher. Piazza and Landy ( 2013 ), in the study that obtained extremely high correlations with a host of variables measuring religiosity, used a seven-item AOT scale that contained five belief revision items ( Yilmaz and Saribay 2017 , used the same seven-item short form). Baron et al. ( 2015 ) used an eight-item AOT short form that contained four belief revision items. Bronstein et al. ( 2019 ), who reported a substantial correlation of −.67 with a religious fundamentalism measure, used an eight-item AOT short form that contained five belief revision items. Thus, the three studies displaying religiosity correlations of .55 or above used short forms of the AOT that were composed of 71.4%, 50%, and 62.5% belief identification items. This is much higher than the roughly 24–30% composition that we have used in our versions of this instrument. We conjectured that the high proportion of belief revision items in these other studies was the source of the high correlations with religiosity.

What is the feature of the belief revision items that might be augmenting correlations with religiosity? Consider two such items:

• Beliefs should always be revised in response to new information or evidence.
• One should disregard evidence that conflicts with your established beliefs. (reverse-scored)

The general thrust of this kind of item is that the subject is being asked what should be done when encountering evidence that conflicts with a prior belief or opinion. It is important to note that no specific prior opinion is mentioned in any of these items. It is just the generic word “belief” that is used. Of course, adjusting a prior belief based on new contradictory evidence is more or less easy to do depending upon what the belief is. For example, is it my belief that I voted the right way in the presidential election of 2020? Or is it my belief that the deli counter is better at Albertsons than at Safeway? The latter is obviously going to be a belief that is more easily conditioned by evidence than the former. The generic nature of the word “belief” in these items allows the respondent to insert any imaginary opinion as the belief in question. Potential social desirability considerations may lead most people to insert a belief that is easy to change. Thus, these items are almost inviting someone to fall prey to the bias blind spot—that is, thinking that others are characterized by a particular bias but that you yourself are not ( Pronin 2007 ).

All of the above might be true for a secular person, but a person with strongly held religious convictions might well be prone to see the word “belief” as referring to their spiritual beliefs—a class of beliefs that are not going to be easily altered by evidence. In contrast, a secular person might be much less likely to see the word “belief” as denoting an imaginary opinion that is so strongly held. Our conjecture was that what a religious person does when seeing the generic word “belief” is simulate an actual stance (their spirituality) that is much more difficult to reconsider based on evidence than a generic belief or an anodyne one.

To see this, one might imagine a secular person who answered one of our belief revision items affirmatively. To such a person who answered by saying, “Well of course I’d change my belief if I got contradictory evidence, that’s what an intelligent person does”, we might imagine the conversation continuing. “OK”, we might reply, “now imagine the belief is your vote against Trump in 2020. Would you be likely to change that based on new information?” It is doubtful that the item would be so enthusiastically endorsed if we substituted in the specific belief “my vote against Trump was a good thing”.

To the extent that secular people are inserting an anodyne belief such as the preference for Pepsi over Coke as opposed to a belief strongly related to worldview such as belief in God or a particular religion, then they are advantaged on such items. This advantage, along with the corresponding disadvantage to the religious respondent who might slot in “belief in God” for the term “belief”, inflates the negative correlation between AOT and religiosity—such items are harder to agree to on the part of the religious-minded. This non-equivalence never occurred to us at the time we were creating the belief revision items, perhaps because of our own secular biases. No doubt, if the correlations had come out in the other direction, we would have been quicker to notice a problem, since those of us constructing the items were all secularists.

Stanovich and Toplak ( 2019 ) showed in a post hoc analysis of data from the CART ( Stanovich et al. 2016 ) that belief revision items on the AOT subtest showed higher correlations with both religiosity and ideology than non-belief revision items did. Importantly, the nonbelief revision items show just as strong correlations with other variables such as superstitious thinking and belief in conspiracy theories. In a new experiment, we demonstrated that subjects high in religiosity are differentially affected by the word “belief” in an item and that using that term inflates correlations between AOT and religiosity—and, to a lesser extent, the correlation between AOT and ideology. Pennycook et al. ( 2020 ) reported converging findings, in that they found that a version of the AOT that substituted the word opinion for the word belief reduced the correlation between the AOT and religious beliefs from −.42 to −.20. The correlations with ideology and various social opinions were likewise reduced.

Assessing whether opinions and beliefs are flexibly conditioned by evidence is an important component of actively open-minded thinking, but using the word belief misleadingly inflates correlations in studies where the focus shifts to the larger set of issues that we mentioned above (the relation between AOT and religiosity, ideology, voting behavior, etc.). There is no doubt that a correlation between AOT and religiosity exists. It is just that it is in the range of −.20 to −.30 rather than −.65. The difference matters, because of the contexts in which many of the correlations in the range of −.60 to −.70 have been obtained. That context has been, in many cases, studies that have used only short forms of the AOT with modest reliabilities. If these −.65 to −.70 correlations were corrected for attenuation—or if the two variables were measured as latent constructs—it would not be surprising if the relationship between them approached −1.0.

With individual differences in AOT entirely explained by religiosity, psychological research would then be saying to the public that religiosity and failing to think in an open-minded manner were, for all intents and purposes, the same thing—that being highly religious is virtually synonymous with being close-minded. Our findings, of course, support the weaker conclusion that there is a replicable moderate correlation between actively open-minded thinking and religiosity.

It is increasingly the case that the psychological correlates of worldview, voting behavior, and ideological orientation are becoming points of contention in our divided political culture ( Baron 2019 ; Baron et al. 2023 ; Crawford and Jussim 2018 ; Ditto et al. 2019 ; Duarte et al. 2015 ; Kahan et al. 2017 ; Stanovich 2017 , 2021 ). If psychological studies of this type are increasingly becoming an adjunct of politics, it is important that psychology maintain its credibility as a neutral arbiter—a credibility that has been vastly eroded in recent years by empirical evidence of the ideological bias in our science ( Ceci and Williams 2018 ; Crawford and Jussim 2018 ; Duarte et al. 2015 ; Ellis 2020 ; Haidt 2022 ; Jussim 2019 , 2022 ; Stanovich 2021 ). Greater intellectual diversity in our own lab years ago might have prevented us from continuing to use items in our AOT scale that inflated negative correlations with religiosity.

4. Scale Structure Changing over Time

Discussing the history of the belief revision items opens up the topic of the composition of AOT scales and their evolution over time. At the very beginning of our studies of AOT, we included in our scale items that we constructed ourselves that were designed to tap the AOT concept, but we also included a variety of items that were included on scales tapping related constructs. For example, in our initial 1997 scale ( Stanovich and West 1997 ), we constructed items tapping the disposition toward reflectivity (“If I think longer about a problem I will be more likely to solve it”; “Difficulties can usually be overcome by thinking about the problem, rather than through waiting for good fortune”; “Intuition is the best guide in making decisions”; and “Coming to decisions quickly is a sign of wisdom”, the latter two reverse-scored), willingness to consider evidence contradictory to beliefs (e.g., “People should always take into consideration evidence that goes against their beliefs”), willingness to consider alternative opinions and explanations (“A person should always consider new possibilities”, “Considering too many different opinions often leads to bad decisions”, the latter reverse-scored), and tolerance for ambiguity combined with a willingness to postpone closure (“There is nothing wrong with being undecided about many issues”, “Changing your mind is a sign of weakness”, and “Basically, I know everything I need to know about the important things in life”, the latter two reverse-scored).

However, to these kinds of items, we added items from extant scales of dogmatism, the openness–values and openness–ideas facets from the Revised NEO Personality Inventory ( Costa and McCrae 1992 ), and scales measuring absolutism and categorical thinking ( Epstein and Meier 1989 ). As discussed above, nine belief revision items were added in 1999 ( Sá et al. 1999 ). Our 41-item scale published in Stanovich and West ( 2007 ) has been much used, although it was still, like our earlier scales, quite a conceptual amalgam.

The 30-item AOT scale that we published in the CART, however, represented a more conceptually coherent concept of AOT than our earlier measures. Items from many scales where the construct was related to AOT but not central to the AOT concept were eliminated. So, for instance, items tapping dogmatism, absolutism, and categorical thinking were eliminated, because although these concepts are related to (lack of) AOT, they are not AOT’s defining features. Newton et al. ( 2023 ), for example, found that dogmatism/categorical thinking was separable from AOT. The openness–ideas facet items from the Revised NEO Personality Inventory were removed because they were less conceptually related to AOT than they were to need for cognition (e.g., “I enjoy working on ‘mind-twister’-type puzzles”).

We removed the openness–values facet items from the Revised NEO Personality Inventory that were in our 1997 scale for a different reason. Some of these items are contaminated by ideological and/or anti-religious bias. Specifically, they require high scorers to have a progressive worldview—high scores are harder to achieve for conservatives or those higher in religiosity ( Charney 2015 ). For example, the purpose of the item “I believe that we should look to our religious authorities for decisions on moral issues” is clearly to probe whether the individual is prone to rely on authorities to determine moral beliefs. But the specific authority that the subject has to ignore in order to score highly is a religious authority. There is no corresponding item testing whether the subject is equally reliant on secular authorities (see Stanovich and Toplak 2019 for the importance of content in an item like this). Is it more close-minded to rely on a theologian for moral guidance than to rely on a university “bio-ethicist?” Secular subjects are guaranteed to score higher on an item like this, which virtually builds in a correlation between openness and religiosity. Another item—“I believe that the different ideas of right and wrong that people in other societies have may be right for them”—seems to require that full-blown cultural relativism be endorsed in order to receive a high openness score. However, the only ideological niche where such strong relativism is highly endorsed is in an extreme form of multiculturalism that exists only on the political left. Thus, we removed all of the openness–values items from the CART version of the AOT to avoid building ideology into this scale 2 . If there is a correlation between AOT and liberalism, we want that to be an actual fact about human psychology and not something that is an artifact of item construction.

In addition to the removal of these classes of items, the 30-item CART version of the scale contained some new items that were taken from the MRM scale introduced by Stanovich ( 2008 ). MRM refers to the master rationality motive proposed by Stanovich ( 2008 ). That motive is the desire to act in accordance with good reasons. Items from this scale were added to the AOT scale on the CART, including items such as “I like to think that my actions are motivated by sound reasons” and “If a belief suits me then I am comfortable, it really doesn’t matter if the belief is true (reverse scored)”.

5. Toward a New 13-Item Recommended AOT Scale

All of these changes made the 30-item CART version of our AOT scale a much more coherent measure than the much-used 41-item version in Stanovich and West ( 2007 ), probably similar in coherence to humility scales 3 . This was even more true of the shortened 16-item version of the CART AOT scale. The greater coherence of the CART version was predictable from the factor analysis of the 41-item Stanovich and West ( 2007 ) version conducted by Svedholm-Hakkinen and Lindeman ( 2018 ). They argued that a four-factor solution was needed to capture the multidimensional nature of the scale. Interestingly, however, three of the four factors were composed of items from categories that we have since eliminated from the 30-item CART version of the scale. Consistent with our argument above, one of these three factors was labeled Liberalism and was composed largely of more openness–values items of the type that we have eliminated (“I believe that the different ideas of right and wrong that people in other societies have may be right for them”). Another factor was labeled dogmatism by Svedholm-Hakkinen and Lindeman ( 2018 ) and consisted of openness–values items that we have eliminated, in addition to dogmatism and categorical thinking items that have also been eliminated (“I think there are many wrong ways, but only one right way, to almost everything”). Finally, they identified a factor they called Belief Personification that also consisted of dogmatism items and categorical thinking items that we have eliminated (“I tend to classify people as either for me or against me”).

In fact, Svedholm-Hakkinen and Lindeman ( 2018 ) identified just one factor from items we are still using. They labeled the factor Fact Resistance, but it was actually composed primarily of items that we have called belief revision items. Importantly, when they correlated the Stanovich and West ( 2007 ) scale with other criterion variables such as superstitious thinking and trust in alternative medicine, the belief revision factor was the primary correlate. Associations with the other three factors were quite low. Overall, the analysis of our 41-item scale by Svedholm-Hakkinen and Lindeman ( 2018 ) supports the revisions in the AOT scale that we have made in the CART ( Stanovich et al. 2016 ).

It would be nice to conclude here that the AOT scale in the CART should be the default scale for researchers in this area. Unfortunately, that conclusion would be premature. First of all, at 30 items, the scale is overly long for many investigations with time limits. Even the 16-item shortened form is on the long end for some studies. Many investigations in the AOT literature use scales no longer than 10 items.

Even more importantly, our AOT scale in the CART contains a number of belief revision items that implicate the ideological/religious bias that we discussed earlier. It is becoming increasingly important that AOT scales not contain biases of these types as the investigations using the scale proliferate into politically charged areas (e.g., studies of fake news, conspiracy theories, and politically charged issues such as climate change). Increasingly, the scale is being used to adjudicate issues in the literature of political psychology. It is even more important in these types of areas that the scale not be biased ideologically or in terms of worldview. The conclusion that “liberals are more open-minded” will be specious if based on an instrument that has such a correlation built-in.

For all of these reasons, we feel compelled to present a new recommended AOT scale based on our own research and our reading of the recent AOT literature. That scale is presented in Table 1 . In the right-hand column of Table 1 , we have listed the primary AOT concepts that are tapped by each item. Several of the items tap more than one AOT concept. Subjects responded on a six-point scale with no neutral point: disagree strongly (1), disagree moderately (2), disagree slightly (3), agree slightly (4), agree moderately (5), agree strongly (6).

Recommended 13-Item Actively Open-Minded Thinking Scale.

R = reverse-scored. REF = tendency toward reflection. ALT = concern for alternative explanations. BR = belief revision item. AMB = tolerance for ambiguity. OC = tendency toward overconfidence. BEL_ID = belief identification item. REASONS = value placed on thinking motivated by reasons. TRUTH = value placed on truth. Subjects responded on a six-point scale with no neutral point: disagree strongly (1), disagree moderately (2), disagree slightly (3), agree slightly (4), agree moderately (5), agree strongly (6).

There are 13 items in our recommended scale, 12 of which appeared in the AOT scale used in the CART. However, several of these items, particularly the belief revision items, have been slightly rewritten. For example, to reflect the findings of Stanovich and Toplak ( 2019 ), the word belief was removed from items—usually being replaced with the word “opinion” or “something I think” (see Pennycook et al. 2020 , who used this substitution). The single item that did not appear in the AOT scale of the CART but is included in Table 1 as part of the recommended scale (“Intuition is the best guide in making decisions”, reverse-scored) was originally in the Stanovich and West ( 2007 ) scale, and thus, we have a lot of data on that item as well. Based on an analysis of the 12 items in Table 1 that were present in the CART AOT, this scale would have a reliability of .84 (Cronbach’s alpha) and would factor as having a single dominant factor (only one eigenvalue > 1).

6. The AOT Measures Psychological Tendencies to Decouple and Decontextualize—A Critical Aspect of Modernity

It is important to measure AOT carefully and without bias for two reasons. First, as noted above, the concept is increasingly being used in broader areas of sociocultural concern such as belief in alternative medical practices; belief in pseudoscience and conspiracies; detection of fake news; moral decision-making; and debates about the origins and correlates of political ideologies ( Baron 2019 ; Bronstein et al. 2019 ; Pennycook et al. 2020 ; Stenhouse et al. 2018 ). Secondly, it is becoming increasingly clear that in the domain of rational thinking, AOT is a uniquely potent predictor. It is ubiquitously linked to subtests in our CART test ( Stanovich et al. 2016 ). The CART is a very comprehensive measure of rational thought and is composed of 20 different subtests (and 4 supplemental scales, which include AOT). Our 30-item AOT scale not only was correlated with every one of the 20 subtests but accounted for variance over and above cognitive ability in the vast majority of them (17 out of 20). Despite the multifariousness of the rationality construct itself (which is why the CART contains 20 subtests), a particular thinking style—actively open-minded thinking—does permeate almost all of the components (from probabilistic reasoning to avoiding overconfidence and many more).

What are the central features of thinking that make the AOT such a good predictor of rational thinking? We would argue that the common psychological dimension is the tendency to engage in cognitive decoupling ( Stanovich 2011 ; Stanovich and Toplak 2012 ). To a lesser extent, the items may tap a related tendency toward the decontextualization of problems.

Cognitive decoupling is particularly relevant to the heuristics and biases tasks that operationally define rationality in cognitive science ( Baron 2008 ; Kelman 2011 ; Stanovich 1999 , 2012 ), because these tasks often create hostile problem-solving environments ( Stanovich et al. 2016 ). Heuristics and biases tasks are designed to trap the cognitive miser ( Kahneman 2011 ; Stanovich 2004 , 2018 ). Tasks from this literature often have an intuitively compelling wrong answer that must be overridden, as in the famous Linda conjunction fallacy problem ( Tversky and Kahneman 1983 ), where even sophisticated responders are tempted by the attractiveness of the wrong answer. Stephen J. Gould ’s ( 1991 ) introspection was that “I know the conjunction is least probable, yet a little homunculus in my head continues to jump up and down, shouting at me—‘but she can’t be a bank teller; read the description’” (p. 469).

In a probabilistic reasoning task from the heuristics and biases literature, the entire point is to see how dominant or nondominant the statistical interpretation is over the narrative interpretation. The fact that many heuristics and biases tasks can be construed by the subject in different ways (a statistical interpretation versus a narrative interpretation, for instance) is often seen as a weakness of such tasks, when in fact it is the design feature that makes the task diagnostic.

As a result, heuristics and biases tasks create a more hostile reasoning environment than typical IQ test problems, in that the latter do not contain enticing lures toward an incorrect response. Neither is the construal of an intelligence test item left up to the subject. Instead, the instructions to an IQ test item attempt to remove ambiguity in a way that is not true of a heuristics and biases problem. The famous Linda conjunction problem would be a prime case in point. The instructions purposefully do not tell the subject how to weight the conflicting cues—the similarity of the description (“deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations”) to the classification (“feminist bank teller”) and the subset/superset relationship between feminist bank teller and bank teller. Most subjects detect the two conflicting cues in the problem ( De Neys 2014 , 2023 ), but the instructions pragmatically obscure the fact that the correct weighting of the cues is 0/100.

Thus, rational thinking paradigms attempt to measure the propensity to use a cognitive skill in a way that IQ tests do not. People who can answer an explicit probability question on a test or can accurately define “control-group” when asked may not invoke these principles when their relevance to a problem is partially disguised.

Cognitive decoupling is implicated in such hostile task environments in two ways ( Oaksford and Chater 2012 ; Stanovich 2011 ; Stanovich and Toplak 2012 ). It is implicated in the inhibitory override of the intuitive response triggered by many heuristics and biases tasks, but it is also implicated in the sustained simulation of alternative worlds that is necessary to compute the correct response. The first type of cognitive decoupling—inhibition of the prepotent response—is akin to that studied in the executive functioning literature ( Kovacs and Conway 2016 ; Miyake and Friedman 2012 ; Nigg 2017 ). However, the ability to suppress miserly processing gets the job only half done. Suppressing one response is not helpful unless there is a better response available to substitute for it. Where do these better responses come from? One answer is that they can come from processes of hypothetical reasoning and cognitive simulation ( Evans 2007 , 2010 ; Evans and Stanovich 2013 ; Stanovich 2011 ). When we reason hypothetically, we create temporary models of the world and test out actions (or alternative causes) in that simulated world. Decoupling is necessary in order to prevent our representations of the real world from becoming confused with representations of imaginary situations. The tendency to initiate such decoupling for the purposes of simulation is a dispositional variable, separable from cognitive capacity (the ability to sustain the decoupling).

Given this understanding of the importance of cognitive decoupling in heuristics and biases tasks 4 , our conjecture is that AOT scales tap the propensity to engage in these types of cognitive operations. For example, some AOT items relate to avoiding miserly processing and overriding the tendency to fix beliefs quickly or to decide quickly: “Coming to decisions quickly is a sign of wisdom” (reverse-scored). Others tap the willingness to consider possibilities beyond the focal model that is in the mind, e.g., “Considering too many different opinions often leads to muddled thinking” (reverse-scored), “Changing your mind is a sign of weakness” (reverse-scored), and “A person should always consider new information”. Additionally, many belief revision items require the subject to hold an existing belief in abeyance while simulating the effect of new information on the original belief—classic cognitive decoupling. All of these types of items are included in the recommended AOT scale in Table 1 .

AOT scales capture global attitudes that make people more willing to decouple from strong default responses and consider new and/or conflicting evidence—or, for those responding on the other end of the scale, to be more comfortable with natural responses and accumulated knowledge. The tendency to be comfortable with responses that seem intuitive or that have been imbibed by repetition in familiar environments is probably the factor that accounts for the negative .20 to .30 correlations with religiosity that are observed in the literature in scales that are not overly contaminated with the biasing term “belief”.

The need to cognitively decouple is increasingly a requirement of modernity itself (see Stanovich 2004 for a more comprehensive discussion of this point). Modernity is the result of long historical trends that have replaced local/particular traditions with science and rationality as the arbiters of truth claims. This shift coincides with an increase in environments for thinking that are hostile rather than benign. IQ tests do not pick up these hostile aspects of the cognitive environment of modernity—but rational thinking tasks do. In fact, critics who charge that heuristics and biases tasks are artificial are missing an important point. The kind of “artificiality” that they display represents a strength of such tasks rather than a weakness. It is a design feature, not a bug. Years ago, Einhorn and Hogarth ( 1981 ) made the telling point that “in a rapidly changing world it is unclear what the relevant natural ecology will be. Thus, although the laboratory may be an unfamiliar environment, lack of ability to perform well in unfamiliar situations takes on added importance” (p. 82).

What Einhorn and Hogarth are pointing out is that the argument that laboratory tasks are not like “real life” is becoming less and less true. “Life”, in fact, is becoming more like the tests! For example, market economies contain agents who will exploit automatic responding for profit (better buy that “extended warranty” on a $150 electronic device!). This puts a premium on overriding intuitive responses that will be exploited by others in a market economy. The danger of such miserly tendencies ( Stanovich 2018 ) in the domain of personal finance is suggested by the well-known finding that consumers of financial services often purchase high-cost products that underperform in terms of investment return when compared to the low-cost strategies recommended by true experts (e.g., dollar-cost averaging into no-load index mutual funds; see Bazerman 2001 ). The reason is, of course, that the high-cost fee-based products and services are the ones with high immediate recognizability in the marketplace.

Many rational thinking tasks require subjects to decontextualize in a particular way—by “ignoring what they know” or by ignoring irrelevant context (belief bias in syllogisms, the famous Linda problem, etc.). That makes these tasks a good proxy for an aspect of scientific thinking, because, in science, we are often required to ignore what we know or believe. Testing a control group when you fully expect it to underperform compared to an experimental group is a form of ignoring what you believe. Science is a way of systematically ignoring what we know, at least temporarily (during the test), so that we can recalibrate our belief after the evidence is in.

Likewise, many aspects of the contemporary legal system put a premium on detaching prior belief and world knowledge from the process of evidence evaluation. Modernity increasingly requires decontextualizing in the form of stripping away what we personally “know” due to its emphasis on such characteristics as fairness, rule-following despite context, even-handedness, sanctioning of nepotism, unbiasedness, universalism, inclusiveness, and legally mandated equal treatment.

7. The Paradox of AOT and Myside Thinking

A consistent observation in our earliest studies of individual differences in rational thinking was that almost every cognitive bias was correlated with intelligence as measured with a variety of cognitive ability indicators ( Stanovich 1999 ). As discussed above, individual differences in most cognitive biases were also predicted by actively open-minded thinking.

Despite these consistent findings involving almost every other cognitive bias, myside bias has failed to correlate with AOT scales in the same manner as other biases. For example, in our study using Perkins ’ ( 1985 ) argument generation paradigm ( Toplak and Stanovich 2003 ), we found substantial myside biases on several issues (people tended to give more arguments in favor of their position than against), but the degree of myside bias was not correlated with several thinking dispositions, including AOT, dogmatism, and need for cognition. Macpherson and Stanovich ( 2007 ) examined myside bias in both argument generation and evidence evaluation and also measured two different thinking dispositions: AOT and need for cognition. None of the four resulting correlations were significant.

In our studies of naturalistic myside bias ( Stanovich and West 2007 ) and argument evaluation ( Stanovich and West 2008 ), relationships between myside bias and rational thinking dispositions were also negligible. Guay and Johnston ( 2022 ) examined myside thinking in political reasoning and found that the need for certainty and openness did not predict the magnitude of the myside effect.

Kahan and Corbin ( 2016 ) found an interaction between myside thinking and AOT scores, but the interaction was in the opposite of the expected direction. Conservatives and liberals who were high in AOT had more diverging opinions on climate change than conservatives and liberals who were low in AOT 5 . Stenhouse et al. ( 2018 ) found no significant interaction between AOT and ideological difference in climate-change attitudes. Although not replicating the interaction observed by Kahan and Corbin ( 2016 ), the Stenhouse et al. ( 2018 ) results (as well those of Clements and Munro 2021) converged with their results and those of Macpherson and Stanovich ( 2007 ) and Stanovich and West ( 2007 ) in finding no evidence that higher AOT scores attenuate tendencies toward myside thinking.

In a followup study, Eichmeier and Stenhouse ( 2019 ) found a significant correlation between party identification and AOT scores (as have most studies; see Stanovich and Toplak 2019). However, using an argument evaluation paradigm, they found no indication that AOT scores were related to the myside bias observed in the argument strength ratings (see also Beatty and Thompson 2012 ; Clements and Munro 2021 ). Thus, the findings from the Stenhouse lab ( Eichmeier and Stenhouse 2019 ; Stenhouse et al. 2018 ) are exactly parallel to those from the Stanovich lab ( Macpherson and Stanovich 2007 ; Stanovich and Toplak 2019 ; Stanovich and West 2007 ). Both find that AOT scores correlate in the .20 to .30 range with ideology/partisanship, but neither lab finds an indication that AOT itself actually predicts the avoidance of myside bias. Although conservatives score lower on AOT scales, they do not display larger myside bias effects than liberals ( Ditto et al. 2019 ; Guay and Johnston 2022 ; Stanovich 2021 ).

This convergence of findings is disconcerting, because of all the biases one would expect to be correlated with AOT, it would be myside bias ( Baron 1993 , 2019 ; Baron et al. 2023 ). Baron et al. ( 2015 ) argue that “AOT is a set of dispositions aimed at avoiding ‘myside bias’, the tendency to think in ways that strengthen whatever possible conclusions are already strong” (p. 267). In a later treatment of the concept, Baron et al. ( 2023 ) argue that the core of AOT encompasses avoiding myside bias and avoiding overconfidence in favored conclusions. The findings indicating that AOT does not correlate with direct measures of myside bias constitute an embarrassment to this view. The findings also do not fit well with our view, articulated above, that the AOT taps processes of decoupling and decontextualization that support the detachment needed to deal with the hostile environment of heuristics and biases tasks. It seems as though such detachment from the intuitive response is facilitated on normal heuristics and biases tasks such as the Linda problem but is not brought to bear when the problem involves detaching from a favored belief.

We would argue that strength of belief is an issue here that may make the findings a little more congenial to our view. Belief bias does indeed correlate with AOT as we would expect, but myside bias does not. Belief bias occurs when people have difficulty evaluating conclusions that conflict with what they know about the world. For example: “all living things need water; roses need water; therefore, roses are living things” is an invalid syllogism. Belief bias has been most extensively studied in the syllogistic reasoning and conditional reasoning literatures ( Evans 2017 ), but it is observed in other paradigms as well ( Levin et al. 1993 ; Stanovich and West 1997 , 1998b ; Thompson and Evans 2012 ).

Belief bias is not the same as myside bias. Belief bias occurs when real-world knowledge interferes with reasoning performance. Myside bias is a bias toward searching and interpreting evidence in a manner that tends to favor the hypothesis we want to be true ( Mercier 2017 ; Stanovich et al. 2013 ). What turns a belief bias into a myside bias? Myside bias refers to processing in favor of existing opinions that are currently highly valued. To use a distinction discussed years ago by Abelson ( 1988 ), myside bias concerns the beliefs that individuals hold with high conviction. Convictions—unlike more typical beliefs—are accompanied by emotional commitment and ego preoccupation. Convictions also tend to have undergone more cognitive elaboration (see Abelson 1988 ; and also Fazio 2007 , and Howe and Krosnick 2017 , for more contemporary discussions). Skitka et al. ( 2005 ) found that attitudes rooted in moral mandates tended to become convictions. Convictions that were rooted in such moral judgments were especially potent predictors of outcome variables (social distance, good will, etc.).

To illustrate the difference between a simple belief and a conviction, imagine a thought experiment where you were on another planet (Zircan), otherwise exactly like Earth, and heard from someone that on planet Zircan roses were never red and were always brown. You would have no trouble acquiring that belief. You would feel no urge to argue with anyone that roses can be red. On planet Zircan, they simply are not, and you would have no trouble giving up your belief that roses can be red. On the other hand, if you were to hear that on planet Zircan it was believed that left-handed people were morally inferior to right-handed people, you likely would not accept that belief and in fact would try to argue against it. You would instead defend your belief that the moral worth of human beings does not depend on whether they are left-handed or right-handed. That belief is a conviction for you in a way that the belief that roses can be red is not.

Convictions often derive from worldviews that spawn so-called protected values—those that resist trade-offs with other values ( Baron and Spranca 1997 ). Protected values (sometimes termed sacred values; see Ditto et al. 2012 ; Tetlock 2003 ) are viewed as moral obligations that arise from deontological rules concerning action, and the thought of violating them often provokes anger. Experiments have shown that subjects are reluctant to trade or engage in monetary tradeoffs when protected values are at stake ( Baron and Leshner 2000 ; Bartels and Medin 2007 ). Interestingly, Fisher and Keil ( 2014 ) found that the closer beliefs were to convictions, the more poorly calibrated subjects were—almost always believing that they could provide good arguments for their convictions when in fact they could not.

In further writings on the idea that some beliefs can become convictions, Abelson ( 1986 ; Abelson and Prentice 1989 ) makes the distinction between what he calls testable beliefs and distal beliefs. Testable beliefs are closely tied to the real world and the words we use to describe that world (e.g., roses are red). They can be verified by observations—sometimes easily made personal observations but other times requiring reliance on the expertise of others and the more sophisticated methods of science. In contrast, distal beliefs cannot be directly verified by experience, nor can they be easily confirmed by turning to experts or scientific consensus. For example, you may think that pharmaceutical companies make excessive profits, or that your state should spend more on mental health and less on green initiatives. Certainly, economic statistics and public policy facts might condition distal beliefs such as these (either strengthening or weakening our attachment to them) but they cannot verify our distal beliefs in the same manner that they can verify testable ones. Many distal beliefs embody our values. When they do, they are apt to become convictions, because they will lead to emotional commitment and ego preoccupation, as argued by Abelson ( 1988 ). Distal beliefs often derive from a person’s general worldview or, in politics, from their ideology.

Myside bias centers on distal beliefs, not testable ones. Belief bias, in contrast, concerns testable beliefs. This is why belief bias is more remediable by education and more correlated with cognitive ability than myside bias ( Stanovich 2021 ). The proposition that health care spending is the second largest item in the US federal budget is a testable belief. The proposition that Americans spend too much on health care is a distal belief. Certainly, economic facts might alter our attitude toward the latter proposition, but they cannot verify this distal belief in the same manner that they can verify testable beliefs. The conclusions that interfere with reasoning in the case of belief bias are testable beliefs. Myside bias, in contrast, occurs when people evaluate and generate evidence in a manner favorable toward their prior opinions and attitudes—where the attitudes in question are convictions.

It is possible that these distinctions (testable versus distal; ego involvement versus noninvolvement; sacred values versus non-sacred) help to explain the curious paradox regarding AOT as a bias predictor—namely, that it predicts a plethora of biases except the one closest to its definition. Building on our view of AOT as a measure of the tendency to detach and decontextualize, one hypothesis might be that with myside bias paradigms, we are seeing the limits of individual detachment. Heuristics and biases tasks, as discussed above, often involve a conflict between a classically normative response and a classically nonnormative one 6 . De Neys ( 2014 , 2023 ) has shown that in many cases the conflict between the two responses is detected at some cognitive level. The detected conflict might broach awareness to a sufficient degree that tendencies toward detachment can be helpful. In contrast, many myside bias paradigms (particularly the more naturalistic ones; see Stanovich and West 2007 ) may not provide opportunities for any conflict to be detected, thus neutering the possibility of high AOT subjects using their skills. Alternatively, the involvement of convictions may be overwhelming even in cases where awareness of alternative reactions has taken place.

Relevant here may be another property of myside bias—that it displays little domain generality ( Stanovich 2021 ). People who display a high degree of myside bias in one domain do not tend to show a high degree of myside bias in a different domain. However, different beliefs vary reliably in the degree of myside bias that they engender. In short, it might not be people who are characterized by more or less myside bias but beliefs that differ in how strongly they are structured to repel contradictory ideas. These facts about myside bias have profound implications because they invert the way we think about beliefs. Models that focus on the properties of acquired beliefs, such as memetic theory, may provide better frameworks for the study of myside bias (see Stanovich 2021 ). The focus of memetics on the properties of beliefs rather than the psychological characteristics of the host is consistent with research showing that the degree of myside bias is better predicted by the former than the latter. They also might render the individual difference findings regarding AOT somewhat less paradoxical.

Detaching from a prepotent response in a heuristics and biases task such as the Linda problem may be vastly easier than using AOT tendencies toward detachment and decoupling to overturn a conviction and/or weaken a commitment to a sacred value. The levels of detachment and decontextualization required for the latter are orders of magnitude higher than the parallel cognitive requirements in a typical heuristics and biases task. This would be consistent with the argument previously made by Stanovich ( 2021 ) that myside bias is an outlier bias in the rational thinking literature.

The parallel explanation from within Baron ’s ( 2017 ; Baron 2019 ; Baron et al. 2015 ; Baron et al. 2023 ) conception of the AOT stresses that responses on the scale are an indication of the endorsement of norms or standards of good thinking. However, people adhere more or less to those standards, and they may differentially adhere to them based on the issue in question. Hence, Baron ( 2017 ) argues that “People may endorse AOT in a self-report questionnaire about beliefs, and they may behave consistently with it in most domains, but they may have gaps when they are strongly committed to a particular view” (p. 2). This argument is very parallel to that made with respect to our own decoupling/detachment view of what the AOT measures. Since most myside paradigms involve issues where the subjects are indeed likely to be “strongly committed to a particular view”, the Baron framework will arrive at the same place as us regarding individual differences in myside tasks that deal with conviction-based beliefs—AOT will not be a good indicator of who avoids myside bias in those domains. That means, however, that AOT will be less useful in some of the domains where we need it most—for example, social policy and politics.

For the first several decades of work in the heuristics and biases tradition ( Kahneman and Tversky 1973 ; Tversky and Kahneman 1974 ), from the 1970s to the 1990s, myside bias was treated as simply another bias on a growing list of biases (anchoring bias, hindsight bias, availability bias, etc.) and its occurrence in the laboratory paradigms that were designed to study it was deemed non-normative, without much discussion in most papers. That initial stance now seems oversimplified. Myside bias does not act like any other bias in the traditional lists of thinking errors in this literature in terms of individual differences. We have also noted how it shows little domain generality.

Finally, Stanovich ( 2021 ) has reviewed the extensive literature showing that it is not easy to demonstrate that myside bias is non-normative. It is unclear whether most myside thinking should even be considered a bias that leads to non-normative responses. For example, many utility-based theories that model beliefs in terms of cost and benefits ( Loewenstein and Molnar 2018 ; Sharot et al. 2023 ) show that the early dismissal of myside bias as an irrational tendency was premature. Even in the domain of pure epistemic rationality, Stanovich ( 2021 ) has discussed how so-called knowledge projection models of myside bias show it is rational in many circumstances ( Hahn and Harris 2014 ; Koehler 1993 ). The detachment and decoupling tendencies of AOT may not work against the epistemic mechanisms rationally acting as governors and damping down belief change. However, AOT does predict normative responding in many other tasks that do not have so many inertial components as myside bias.

8. Final Thoughts

At the end of a thoughtful chapter on AOT, Baron et al. ( 2023 ) mentioned that, in their view, “AOT is thus a moral virtue as well as a personal one” (p. 24). This statement provides a provocative way to probe our feelings about our own work. Specifically, do we believe that AOT is a moral virtue? Referring to AOT in the abstract, that is a difficult question for us, although we have some sympathy with the position. However, we have less sympathy with the idea that extant AOT scales are measuring something we would want to call a moral virtue. Undoubtedly, AOT scales are measuring something very central to the kind of thinking that is tapped on heuristics and biases tasks. Because such tasks tap aspects of rationality, AOT scales are measuring something very important. Nevertheless, the inability of AOT scales to associate with the avoidance of myside bias in a variety of paradigms is a very troubling finding. Avoiding myside bias is the quintessence of the most important theoretical treatments of actively open-minded thinking ( Baron 1993 , 2019 ; Baron et al. 2023 ). To say that we have a measure that predicts much other rational thinking but not the quintessence of the concept is a disconcerting conclusion.

It is a disconcerting conclusion in just the way that the conclusion to Steve Pinker ’s ( 2021 ) recent book on rationality was disconcerting. In the first nine chapters of his book, we learn that humans have many tools of rationality at their disposal. The brain is full of automatic propensities that have been honed over millennia to optimally regulate our responses to stimuli in environments that are not rapidly changing. Also available to us are all the cultural tools of rational thought that have been discovered throughout history (probabilistic reasoning, signal detection theory, expected utility theory, logic, game theory, scientific inference). By the process of cultural ratcheting, we have accomplished any number of supreme achievements such as curing illness, decoding the genome, and uncovering the most minute constituents of matter. All of this exists alongside surveys showing that 41% of the population believes in extrasensory perception, 32% in ghosts and spirits, and 25% in astrology—just a few of the pseudoscientific beliefs that Pinker ( 2021 ) mentions. These facts highlight what Pinker calls the rationality paradox: “How, then, can we understand this thing called rationality which would appear to be the birthright of our species yet is so frequently and flagrantly flouted?” (p. 6).

Pinker ( 2021 ) admits that the solution to this “pandemic of poppycock” (p. 286) is not to be found in correcting the many thinking biases that he covers in his book. We cannot remediate this kind of rational thinking through providing information. People captured by this poppycock have too much mindware—not too little (see Stanovich et al. 2016 ). Pinker notes that “nothing from the cognitive psychology lab could have predicted QAnon, nor are its adherents likely to be disabused by a tutorial in logic or probability” (p. 287). This admission uncomfortably calls to mind a quip by Scott Alexander ( 2021 ) that “of the fifty-odd biases discovered by Kahneman, Tversky, and their successors, forty-nine are cute quirks, and one is destroying civilization. This last one is confirmation bias—our tendency to interpret evidence as confirming our pre-existing beliefs instead of changing our minds.” This quip is not literally correct, because the “other 49” are not “cute quirks” with no implications in the real world. In his final chapter, Pinker describes and cites research showing that these biases have been linked to real-world outcomes in the financial, occupational, health, and legal domains (as we did in the last chapter of our book on the CART, Stanovich et al. 2016). They are not just cute quirks. Nevertheless, the joke hits home. That is why Stanovich ( 2021 ) wrote a whole book on the one bias that is “destroying civilization”—myside bias.

Relationships involving the AOT parallel the Alexander quip—it predicts most of the “other 49” and fails to predict “the one that is destroying civilization”. It is clear why it is a bias that is difficult to avoid. It involves convictions—our most sacred and emotionally salient beliefs. To avoid it, people would need to be more skeptical of the strongest beliefs that they have acquired. They would have to learn to treat their beliefs less like possessions and more like contingent hypotheses (see Stanovich 2021 ). People would also need to be particularly skeptical of the beliefs that were acquired in their early lives—those that were passed on by parents, relatives, and their peers. It is likely that these beliefs have not been subjected to selective tests, because they were acquired during a developmental period when their host lacked reflective capacities.

All of this is heavy lifting at the individual level, however, and it is sobering to admit that AOT scales do not provide accurate measures of the tendency to avoid myside bias. If we want to get at people’s attitudes toward scientific evidence on a contested issue, we actually have to take a domain-specific belief that a person has on the matter, present them with contradictory evidence, and see how they assimilate that contradictory evidence (as some studies have done; see Ditto et al. 2019). You cannot just ask people on a questionnaire whether it is good to pay attention to contradictory evidence.

Ultimately, we all need to rely on the “institutions of rationality” ( Rauch 2021 ) that provide the epistemic tools to deal with what Pinker ( 2021 ), aptly channeling the work of (Dan Kahan 2016 ; Kahan et al. 2017 ), calls the “Tragedy of the Belief Commons”. Cultural institutions can enforce rules whereby people benefit from rational tools without having to learn the tools themselves. Pinker ( 2021 ) describes some institutional reforms within the media and the internet but laments the state of our universities and their “suffocating left-wing monoculture, with its punishment of students and professors who question dogmas on gender, race, culture, genetics, colonialism, and sexual identity and orientation” (p. 313). He describes how “on several occasions correspondents have asked me why they should trust the scientific consensus on climate change, since it comes out of institutions that brook no dissent” (p. 314). In short, the public is coming to know that universities have approved positions on certain topics, and thus is quite rationally reducing its confidence in research that comes out of them. It is thus consistent with the earlier evidence we have reviewed on how myside bias is independent of intelligence and educational status that university faculties—full of cognitive ability and educational attainment—cannot free themselves from myside bias.

Funding Statement

Preparation of this manuscript was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant number 435-2018-0874.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, K.E.S. and M.E.T.; writing—original draft preparation, K.E.S.; writing—review and editing, K.E.S. and M.E.T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

1 Optimal functioning does not result from maximizing cognitive styles. Instead, rationality, plotted against most thinking dispositions, is an inverted U-shaped function. One does not maximize rationality by maximizing the reflectivity/impulsivity dimension, for example, because a person doing so might get lost in interminable pondering and never make a decision. One does not maximize the dimension of belief flexibility either, because such a person might end up with a pathologically unstable personality. Reflectivity and belief flexibility are “good” cognitive styles only in the sense that most people are too low in both dimensions ( Baron 2008 ). Most people would be more rational if they increased their degrees of reflectivity and belief flexibility, but this does not mean that either of these thinking dispositions should always be maximized.

2 Most of the other facets of openness, as measured in scales tapping the Big Five personality dimensions, are not related to AOT, as conceptualized in the rational thinking literature—for example, facets such as openness to fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, and actions.

3 For example, the comprehensive intellectual humility scale developed by Krumrei-Mancuso and Rouse ( 2016 ) includes five items measuring belief identification (e.g., “I feel small when others disagree with me on topics that are close to my heart”, reverse-scored), five items measuring belief revision (e.g., “I am open to revising my important beliefs in the face of new information”), six items measuring respect for the opinion of others (e.g., “I can have great respect for someone, even when we don’t see eye-to-eye on important topics”), and six items measuring the avoidance of overconfidence (e.g., “My ideas are usually better than other people’s ideas”). Likewise, the short humility scale studied by Leary et al. ( 2017 ) mixes belief revision items (“I reconsider my opinions when presented with new evidence”) with items tapping respect for alternative opinions (“I recognize the value in opinions that are different from my own”).

4 Our characterization of heuristics and biases tasks as implicating decoupling holds only for those instances where the task truly does create a hostile environment (see Stanovich 2018 ) for a particular subject because the normative response has not been practiced to automaticity. In cases where the normative response has been practiced to an automaticity so great that it dominates the intuitive response, there is no response conflict and cognitive decoupling is not required (see De Neys 2023 ; Thompson et al. 2018 ).

5 Most of the criticisms of this study by Baron ( 2017 ) would not reverse the direction of the association between polarization and AOT. They would, instead, drive the association toward zero, thus making the Kahan and Corbin ( 2016 ) results more consistent with the conclusion drawn in this section.

6 Stanovich ( 2018 ) discusses all the complexities involved in pinpointing the cognitive source of the two responses—particularly the classically normative one, which can originate from either System 1 or System 2.

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From Socrates to the present day, skepticism and doubt have been at the forefront of philosophical thought. Skepticism has been used to challenge existing beliefs and assumptions, while doubt has been used to question and probe ideas, concepts, and beliefs. In this article, we explore the philosophical and critical thinking perspectives on skepticism and doubt. We will look at how they have been used throughout history to shape our thinking and inform our decisions.

We will also examine the implications of skepticism and doubt for our society today and how they can be used to foster greater understanding and collaboration. Skepticism and doubt have long been seen as tools of inquiry and analysis. They have been used to challenge established conventions, challenge accepted wisdom, and explore new ideas. As such, skepticism and doubt can be seen as essential elements of philosophical thinking. This article will explore the various ways in which skepticism and doubt have been employed by philosophers throughout history, as well as their implications for critical thinking. We will also examine the implications of skepticism and doubt in today's world.

We will look at how they can be used to promote greater understanding, collaboration, and progress in our society. We will also explore the potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on skepticism and doubt, such as the tendency to become too skeptical or too trusting of ideas. Finally, we will discuss how skepticism and doubt can be used in a constructive manner to promote meaningful dialogue and progress. Skepticism and doubt are two closely related concepts that have been discussed in philosophy and critical thinking for centuries. They involve questioning beliefs or assumptions, and seeking evidence in order to form one’s own conclusions.

Historically, skepticism and doubt have been used to challenge existing beliefs and accepted truths

Today, skepticism and doubt can still be used to think more critically about our beliefs and assumptions, by questioning our beliefs and assumptions, we can avoid making decisions based on false information or our own biases, when we question our beliefs and assumptions, it can help us to think more deeply about our positions and arguments, if taken too far, they can lead to a sense of cynicism or apathy, which can prevent us from forming meaningful connections with others or taking meaningful action.

By questioning our beliefs and assumptions, we can avoid making decisions based on false information or biases. We can also identify potential pitfalls in our reasoning and uncover alternative perspectives that we may not have considered before. Finally, when engaging in debates or discussions, skepticism and doubt can help us to think more deeply about our positions and arguments. However, it is important to use skepticism and doubt judiciously in order to avoid falling into a state of cynicism or apathy. For those looking to learn more about skepticism and doubt, there are a number of resources available.

What is Skepticism and Doubt?

Philosophical skepticism can be divided into several different types, including Cartesian skepticism, Pyrrhonism, Academic skepticism, and Humean skepticism. Cartesian skepticism is the view that nothing can be known with absolute certainty, while Pyrrhonism holds that nothing can be known with absolute certainty and that one should suspend judgement until further evidence is obtained. Academic skepticism maintains that no knowledge is certain and that wisdom is achieved through doubt, while Humean skepticism suggests that knowledge is based on experience and can never be certain. Scientific skepticism is a form of inquiry that uses scientific methods to investigate claims made in the absence of definitive proof. This type of skepticism is based on the premise that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence in order to be accepted as valid.

The Historical Roots of Skepticism and Doubt

Descartes argued that people should use their own reason and experience to form beliefs, rather than relying solely on the teachings of others. He was an advocate of the “method of doubt”, which instructed people to doubt all of their beliefs until they could be proven true. Descartes’ ideas were highly influential and were taken up by other philosophers such as David Hume. Hume argued that humans are limited in their knowledge, and that we should not assume our beliefs to be true unless there is sufficient evidence for them.

The Application of Skepticism and Doubt

Additionally, by applying doubt to our problem-solving abilities, we can avoid the potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on instinct or intuition. For example, if we are presented with a complicated problem, we may be tempted to rush to a solution without considering the wider implications of our decision. However, by taking a moment to consider the implications of our decision and question any underlying assumptions, we can make sure that our solution is as informed and well-considered as possible. In addition to helping us think more critically, skepticism and doubt can help us develop a healthier sense of self-awareness. By questioning our own beliefs and assumptions, we can gain a better understanding of our own thought processes and the biases which might be influencing them.

Resources for Learning More About Skepticism and Doubt

Carroll 2.The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A Peer-Reviewed Academic Resource 3.The Skeptics Society: Promoting Science and Reason Since 1992 4.Doubtful News: Keeping You Informed on Strange and Unusual Claims Podcasts: 1.Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena 2.The Partially Examined Life: Philosophy for the Rest of Us 3.Reasonable Doubts: Exploring the Claims of Christianity 4.Think Twice: Exploring the Relationship between Science and ReligionIn conclusion, skepticism and doubt are important philosophical and critical thinking tools that can help us better understand our world, beliefs, assumptions, and perspectives. By engaging in questioning and challenging our beliefs and assumptions, we are able to think more critically and gain new insights. Furthermore, skepticism and doubt can be used to inform our decision-making processes, problem-solving abilities, and more. Finally, there are a variety of resources available for readers to learn more about skepticism and doubt and how to apply them to their everyday lives.

Skepticism , doubt , critical thinking , philosophical thinking , and decision-making are all key concepts explored in this article.

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Critical thinking skills: the essential tool for combatting coercive control

What is critical thinking.

Critical thinking is a deliberate thought process used to evaluate information. It means specifically and intentionally examining information to determine its validity and relevance. It is an essential skill in improving your cognitive processes, but importantly is your first line of defense for preventing coercion and coercive control, including identifying misinformation and fake news.

Critical thinking, sometimes called healthy skepticism, is a learned skill, using reflective, analytical thinking to make a reasonable, rational decision on what to believe or do. Even the most intelligent people have to learn it and practise it consciously. Once learned, critical thinking helps us to resist emotional appeals that might otherwise undermine our reasoning. 

Re-evaluating information and conclusions:

Critical thinkers are typically not afraid to admit they were wrong, or to change their stance in light of new information. Sticking doggedly to your beliefs, even in light of new evidence, is a common but difficult trait, and critical thinkers will actively challenge their own ideas.

The best way to practise this critical thinking skill is to never stop learning. Seek more, new information. Ask questions of and debate with others. Find ways to challenge the status quo.

Key tenets of critical thinking

The key skills in critical thinking & how to improve them.

Whenever you consider an issue, critical thinking is about using a deliberate set of skills to evaluate the issue, before drawing a conclusion about what to believe or what to do. Ultimately, thinking critically is about slowing down the process of cognitive reasoning, so that decisions are made later in the thinking process, after additional information and resources have been gathered.

The key tenets of critical thinking are:

Observation gives you an opportunity to notice and identify the critically important details in the context of the information. In a personal interaction, it may be the way that a person behaves or interacts, or the facial expressions that they use, while in written communication, it may be discrepancies in the detail or the use of particular words. Observation helps you to form the initial basis of whether statements may be true or not.

To improve your observation skills, consciously slow down the pace at which you process information, and train yourself to pay closer attention to what is going on. Useful techniques include active listening, journaling, and mindfulness to give you time to examine that you see, hear and interact with. Self-reflection can take you one step further, identifying trends in your behaviours, gaps in your knowledge, or your potential biases.

Analysis is about viewing a statement, problem, or piece of information outside of its original context. It involves knowing what facts, data or information are important, and whether separate sources of information can enhance knowledge or understanding. This may include additional research and asking relevant questions before assessing the findings objectively.

The best way to improve your analysis skills is to acquire more knowledge, particularly if it is an area that you are unfamiliar with. Read books or articles, listen to podcasts, and actively seek out views that oppose your own, trying to see the merit in their arguments. Doing this helps to push and improve your thinking skills, get in the rhythm of questioning what you are told, and improve your ability to make sound, effective decisions.

Inference is the process by which we draw conclusions. What is essential is that inferring during the critical thinking framework requires us to infer after first observing and analysing. What typically happens in normal cognitive processes is that people infer first instead, deriving meaning and drawing conclusions within split seconds of receiving information. During critical thinking stages, this process is slowed down and the inference happens when further information is available. It helps stop fake news statements being as believable for example.

Inference is considered to be a foundational skill which underpins learning. The best way to improve it is to self-reflect and consider how you can infer better next time. Give yourself a framework of questions that allow you to evaluate your own inference skills, and then improve on them next time. Examples include “What did I infer?”, “What information did I use to infer? Were there any gaps or assumptions?”, “How good was my thinking?”, and “Do I need to change how I think”. It really is a matter of practise – something that also happens with life experiences – so give yourself plenty of dedicated opportunity to practise.

Communicate:

Communication is essential both to explain how you have drawn a particular conclusion, but also to facilitate others to test and debate those conclusions. Communicating an issue beyond what you have read or heard, encourages your brain to reconsider the information out of context and reevaluate its importance. Be aware of your own bias though and ensure that you are not changing the information to fit your own narrative.

Communicating better starts with having difficult conversations and developing better habits. Debate is an extremely powerful tool in testing our assumptions and identifying gaps in our knowledge. Communicating better means holding ourselves to account, and ensuring quality conversations including active listening and giving respect, regardless of differences in our views.

Problem Solve:

Using critical thinking skills in your daily life may require problem-solving. This is about how you execute plans or developments to improve your skills. In the context of coercive control, problem solving is the least applied tenet of critical thinking, in that the purpose of the critical thinking is to question what you know or are told, rather than to drive a specific action. It does however still have value in your critical thinking toolkit and is good to practise.

To improve your problem-solving ability, the best thing to do is to solve problems. Start by stating what the problem is, why you need to solve it, and what success looks like, then employ problem-solving skills to draw a conclusion. Reflect on how you can problem-solve better, or improve your knowledge, then implement these changes next time around.

Key Critical Thinking Definitions

Intelligent disobedience.

We need to be able to voice our concerns, to assert our rights, and to stand up to injustice. Intelligent disobedience is “doing right when what you’re told to do is wrong.” 

Learn more about Intelligent Disobedience

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the ability to make decisions based upon evidence rather than emotions. Critical thinking helps us to collect and consider the facts, and understand the bigger picture.

Learn more about Critical Thinking

Scam Detection

If we ask the right questions, any scam or trick will fall apart. It is surprising how obvious manipulation techniques become when you know what they are. This is our scam detection kit.

Learn more about Scam Detection

Courageous Followership

Courageous followers speak truth to power. We must learn how to stand up to the excesses of our leaders and overcome the groupthink urge to simply do as we are told. We can only have ethical leaders if we are courageous followers.

Learn more about Courageous Followership

Trickery is a tool of manipulation

The tools of the trade.

Scams, which are often synonymous with “bamboozle” or “trickery” covers all the of approaches used by human predators to deliberately manipulate an individual. It is a known and deliberate process with the predator targeting a victim directly (face-to-face) or indirectly through mediums such as social media.

If the predator approaches a target directly, it will often begin with a charm-offensive. Flattery is commonly applied, and there will be a focussed agenda. The problem with many scams and group recruitment agendas is that they happen gradually, building trust before any influence is actually applied, which makes it hard to notice. Reflect on your own behaviours and beliefs – has anyone encouraged you to exhibit new behaviours?  

If the predator approaches a target indirectly, such as through email, social media, or another form of storytelling, then their focus will be on manipulative language. They employ the same tricks that work in sales and advertising, just on a more specific and targeted scale. Free gifts, limited-time offers, “once in a lifetime” opportunities, can all be employed to coerce an individual, for example to join a cult, gang, or extreme political group. If bribery doesn’t work, emotional manipulation often will, appealing to an individual’s fears or dreams, or exploiting their principals.

These approaches have little to do with critical thinking: even the most rational people are prey to predators, and as neuroscientist  Jill Bolte Taylor  says, “‘Although many of us may think of ourselves as  thinking creatures that feel , biologically we are  feeling creatures that think .”

This flower is our gift for you!

A cheap gift may be offered – some pick-up artists give necklaces, timeshare scammers offer free drinks and meals; cult recruiters may give flowers or incense sticks, or offer a free survey or personality test. When a stranger offers you something for nothing, they are acting out a deliberate script, and they are definitely trying to sell you something. It is time to walk away.

Con artists offer big rewards for small investments, offering us a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to cash in. Many will justify their actions by saying that greedy people deserve to be conned, but the truth is that we all want to make a profit in life, so it is easy to be taken in. If it seems too good to be true, it most likely isn’t true.

Another manipulative tactic is to insist that the offer is taken up immediately – time pressure is an essential element of trickery: “buy now or lose the deal” is the message of the predator; if we’re given time to think it over, we’re more likely to see the trick, and that’s bad for business. Simply put, if you must “buy now,” don’t.

Emotional manipulation can go either way: into your darkest fears, or into your highest hopes and dreams. It is not a good idea to share either your fears or your dreams with a stranger, because it creates emotional vulnerability. The scammer will offer to mend your fears or to help you achieve your dreams, but will more likely increase your fears, empty your wallet, and shatter your dreams.

These approaches have little to do with critical thinking: even the most rational people are prey to predators, and as neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor says, “‘Although many of us may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel , biologically we are feeling creatures that think .”

Perhaps the most important advice is never to take sweets – or anything else – from strangers; don’t sign anything without taking it home and talking it over with friends; and take a long hard look at that friendly stranger, before handing over any cash or making a commitment.

Resources for Critical Thinkers

• Skeptic’s Dictionary – a searchable collection of articles debunking myths of all sorts, religious, secular and pseudoscientific
• Snopes.com  – the ubiquitous debunking site
• Science Fraudwatch  – debunking pseudoscientific frauds
• Quackwatch – a database dedicated to exposing medical quackery
• Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice – debunking novel, controversial, and untested mental health claims.
• Financial Fraud Research Center – for information on financial fraud
• USFDA Fraudwatch – for information on health and food fraud, from the United States Food & Drug Administration
• FTC Fraudwatch – information on financial fraud, from the United States Federal Trade Commission

Standing up and doing the right thing

Intelligent disobedience means the ability to assert ourselves when we disagree. It is “doing right when what you’re told to do is wrong”. Too often, we teach children to simply obey, rather than teaching them to reason and express their views.

Obedience can be a sell out

Sometimes in emergencies it is necessary to act on the directions of a leader, but most of the time we are better off discussing options and considering possibilities. Obedience can strengthen groupthink and compliance with ill-conceived plans.

We are too often willing to accept information without checking the source. Fake news is readily believed, and reliable sources of information dismissed, because we have not learned how to collect and examine evidence. Intelligent disobedience is the first stage of this process: we have the right to doubt, to question any information presented to us. Only tyrants teach otherwise.

Intelligent disobedience is not rebellion against authority, but rather the best check against tyranny. Children – and adults – should be taught to disagree agreeably.

Investing in courage

Intelligent disobedience can be learned from an early age, as this video demonstrates:

In his groundbreaking book, “Intelligent Disobedience: Doing Right When What You’re Told to Do Is Wrong” Ira Chaleff offers a formula for intelligent disobedience:

• Understand the mission of the organization or group, the goals of the activity of which you are a part, and the values that guide how to achieve those goals.

2. When you receive an order that does not seem appropriate to the mission, goals, and values, clarify the order as needed, then pause to further examine the problem with it, whether that involves its safety, effectiveness, cultural sensitivity, legality, morality, or common decency.

3. Make a conscious choice whether to comply with the order or to resist it and offer an acceptable alternative when there is one.

4. Assume personal accountability for your choice, recognizing that if you obey the order, you are still accountable regardless of who issued the order.

Acting or refusing to act

Intelligent Disobedience goes beyond querying or speaking up in dissent. It means refusing to obey if you think that obeying may produce avoidable harm. Intelligent Disobedience requires critical thinking, but it goes beyond critical thinking into acting or refusing to act. We cannot claim innocence by saying “I told them I thought it was wrong” if we proceed to obey anyway.

Heroes or Devils

Courageous followership speaks truth to power. It overcomes the groupthink that fails to challenge leaders about ill-considered and potentially dangerous decisions.

Focus on the Leader

Our culture is very much focused on celebrity, and we celebrate our leaders, without necessarily understanding that behind every great leader there is usually a great team enabling that leader.

Leaders are usually seen as heroes or devils – there is little mid-ground. Most Britons revere Churchill and revile Chamberlain, but Churchill’s excesses and failures are disregarded, as is Chamberlain’s considerable political acumen. The same can be said of many leaders – they are a mix of sense and folly, as are we all. 

Charisma Is Not Always Intrinsic

Sociologist Max Weber pointed out that “charisma” is a quality given to leaders by their followers, rather than something intrinsic. He was among the first to study the role of followers, rather than concentrating simply on the capacity of leaders.

At times, opposition is the only answer. Gandhi stood up to the cruel imperialism of the British Raj. Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King gave their lives to oppose racism. But courageous followership is appropriate in all situations. It is “courageous,” because there are risks involved. Courageous followership demands that we stand up for what we know to be true.

Five Styles of Followership

Robert E Kelly, a pioneer in the field, has set out five basic styles of followership: the sheep, who simply follow the leader; the yes-people, who are highly supportive of the leader and uncritical; the alienated, who are generally critical of the leader; the pragmatics, who wait to see which way the wind is blowing before weighing in on the stronger side; and the star followers, who think for themselves, are active and contribute positive energy.

Courageous followers fit into this last category – they are “star followers.” As Kelly says, “They do not accept the leader’s decision without their own independent evaluation of its soundness. If they agree with the leader, they give full support. If they disagree, they challenge the leader, offering constructive alternatives that will help the leader and the organization get where they want to go.

See Chaleff, Riggio and Lipman-Blumen eds, The Art of Followership: How Great Followers Create Great Leaders and Organizations

Devil’s Advocate

In his study of groupthink, Irving Janis suggested that all groups should deliberately include a devil’s advocate. The Catholic Church used to appoint a devil’s advocate to argue against any proposed saint. The advocate’s job is to find contrary evidence. The best devil’s advocates would be star followers.

In a free country, people should show their opposition to statements and practices that they disapprove of, but we might also consider how to be better followers: how to influence the incumbent president by using (and perhaps improving) the system to complain, and make suggestions toward betterment.

No Test for Politicians

It is surprising that there is no test to ensure that politicians are psychologically competent. We need to inhibit psychopaths and narcissists, and we should seek compassionate people to lead us, but good leadership will only win out if we are courageous followers.

Courageous followership is absolutely about questioning, when needed; about helping positional leaders see their blind spots, and helping them understand the impact of their actions on success and on morale, as well as taking an ethical stand when needed. Crucially, these actions are effective if the follower performs their own job well and authentically supports the leader.

Test of Core Values

If what the leader  is asking has a reasonable chance of success, and doesn’t violate core human values, even if the follower would prefer a different course, following is inherent to the follower role. In other words, following requires not continuously competing for the lead role. So the courage to serve or support the leader and the mission is foundational. In that context the positional follower can then successfully question, offer candid critiques, suggest alternative courses, and so forth.

Further Reading:

Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower: Standing Up to and for Our Leaders

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Lucien engelen and the medicine of the future, openmind books, scientific anniversaries, what happened to amelia earhart, featured author, latest book, skeptical activism and critical thinking.

In everyday life, normally we do not explicitly declare ourselves “skeptics” even though we may have some disbeliefs, and we certainly need to be sure about any information we are going to use in a formal manner. We can talk about skepticism in terms of the afterlife, or the possible reversal of climate change ; but in our daily routines, we especially try to verify the information we possess to prevent reflections that lead us to erroneous positions or solutions. 

Around three decades ago, in order to properly deal with the increasing amount of information of varying quality we receive, the information literacy movement gained significant momentum; in sync with the more popular critical thinking movement . The goal was for everyone – starting in school – to think more and better (well-documented, with an open and flexible mind, aware of our prejudices, more objectively), and not to be given ideas that have already thought out for us. 

The “critical thinking” construct (to which philosophers, psychologists, educators, etc. have contributed) described a cognition that was autonomous, meticulous, insightful, disciplined, self-demanding – each of us with our own unique intellect. This is how we should be educated in order to incorporate and apply knowledge more effectively, and certainly, to be less susceptible to deception, manipulation and post-truths. Without critical thinking, there is no room for personal growth or development. 

The skeptical movement 

At the time, 30 years ago, another movement gained momentum, one that is currently very well-known: the skeptical movement, whose activists are commitment to a specific dialectical activism. This cause is embraced above all to serve as a warning, as a sort of whistleblowing regarding the so-called pseudosciences and paranormal phenomena, all of which are generally considered deceptive.  There are numerous expressions of this global trend, which is also fairly active in Spain (ARP,  Círculo Escéptico   and other platforms). Online we immediately come across skeptics with a variety of different attitudes, some with fervor. 

This cause/trend is presented to us soundly aligned with science and the scientific method, but also – the reason for these paragraphs – with critical thinking. Yes, with this desirable way of thinking that has been understood in different ways, even outside of the critical thinking movement. For example, Círculo Escéptico even considers skepticism and critical thinking synonyms, which suggests an ad hoc interpretation of the latter. 

Skeptic messages question the credibility of numerous topics (homeopathy, osteopathy, acupuncture, psychoanalysis, hypnosis, pilates, reiki, yoga, kinesiology, astrology, aliens, tarot, spiritualism, clairvoyance, telepathy, ouija, haunted houses, etc.). While considering that believers surely have their legitimate reasons to believe and will continue to do so, voices emerge that question the intentions or utility of the movement. It does not seem to address the cardinal topic of faith: religion is not one of the priorities.

Critical thinking to educate us 

It is worth asking what the critical thinking we are discussing has in common with this skeptical-scientific thinking with a set focus. It’s possible that the overlap is small. Indeed, the connection is stressed, and observers may end up merging, or confusing critical thinking with skepticism, the scientific method or reproving criticism.

In this respect, by taking a look at the critical thinking movement , and being aware of its desire to improve our cognitive education, it may be helpful to point out the following in the profile of a critical thinker: 

• Their predisposition is not aimed at reporting deception or errors, but at properly documenting and obtaining responses that seem convincing and sound. 
• They attempt to verify and confirm information before using it, but this attitude does not come from skeptical criticism, rather from the desire to get the task right. 
• They think for themselves. They believe what they decide to believe and respect this attitude in others. It’s not about imposing their positions, even if they support them assertively.  
• They are inquisitive (but not questioning) in their inquiries, and are therefore sometimes creative and innovative. 
• Of their intellectual virtues, humility and caution stand out, and they certainly avoid assuming they are right or possess the truth, even though they strive for both.  
• They are aware of their prejudices, concerns, feelings, intentions and interests, and reflect on their own thoughts. They are not impulsive or intemperate thinkers. 
• They try to see things from different perspectives, with sufficient empathy, aware that the reality shown to us is at times complex and relative.

The above does not at all attempt to describe the profile of a critical thinker. It simply explains what separates a critical thinker from an activist skeptical thinker (whose legitimacy and contribution we are not questioning).

In order to cite greater overlap between both profiles, we would have to make the critical thinkers’ minds more rigid, give greater dominance to their left hemisphere, attribute in them the desire to guide others’ beliefs, and place emphasis on the purpose of reflection instead of on the way of thinking. And that would take us very far from the “critical thinking” construct.

José Enebral Fernández

Related publications.

• Sociocentrism and Critical Thinking
• Post-Truth Politics, the Fifth Estate and the Securitization of Fake News
• The Challenge of Incorporating Empathy to the Educational Model

More about Humanities

Communications, more publications about josé enebral fernández, comments on this publication.

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The Role of Skepticism in Science

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Skepticism is a philosophy that traces to the ancient Greeks. It is based on the view that explanations of events are evaluated after collecting all relevant evidence and carefully considering all possibilities. Even then, the explanation should be considered only tentative. This, of course, is fully consistent with the role of hypotheses and their evaluation in science. Hypotheses are tentative explanations and ultimately cannot be proven, but only disproven. Yet, hypotheses are often readily elevated to an accepted descriptive status. A failure to subject hypotheses to critical evaluation—that is, skeptical analysis—seems to be a quirk of the human brain to accept readily available explanations that at least superficially explain the evidence. The skeptic is required to consider all relevant evidence from several viewpoints to judge the relevant merit of competing explanations.

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Kinraide TB, Denison RF (2003) Strong inference: the way of science. Am. Bio. Teach. 65:419–424

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Sinclair, T., Rufty, T.W. (2022). The Role of Skepticism in Science. In: Bringing Skepticism to Crop Science. SpringerBriefs in Agriculture. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14414-1_1

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Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a widely accepted educational goal. Its definition is contested, but the competing definitions can be understood as differing conceptions of the same basic concept: careful thinking directed to a goal. Conceptions differ with respect to the scope of such thinking, the type of goal, the criteria and norms for thinking carefully, and the thinking components on which they focus. Its adoption as an educational goal has been recommended on the basis of respect for students’ autonomy and preparing students for success in life and for democratic citizenship. “Critical thinkers” have the dispositions and abilities that lead them to think critically when appropriate. The abilities can be identified directly; the dispositions indirectly, by considering what factors contribute to or impede exercise of the abilities. Standardized tests have been developed to assess the degree to which a person possesses such dispositions and abilities. Educational intervention has been shown experimentally to improve them, particularly when it includes dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring. Controversies have arisen over the generalizability of critical thinking across domains, over alleged bias in critical thinking theories and instruction, and over the relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking.

2.1 Dewey’s Three Main Examples

2.2 dewey’s other examples, 2.3 further examples, 2.4 non-examples, 3. the definition of critical thinking, 4. its value, 5. the process of thinking critically, 6. components of the process, 7. contributory dispositions and abilities, 8.1 initiating dispositions, 8.2 internal dispositions, 9. critical thinking abilities, 10. required knowledge, 11. educational methods, 12.1 the generalizability of critical thinking, 12.2 bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, 12.3 relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking, other internet resources, related entries.

Use of the term ‘critical thinking’ to describe an educational goal goes back to the American philosopher John Dewey (1910), who more commonly called it ‘reflective thinking’. He defined it as

active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends. (Dewey 1910: 6; 1933: 9)

and identified a habit of such consideration with a scientific attitude of mind. His lengthy quotations of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill indicate that he was not the first person to propose development of a scientific attitude of mind as an educational goal.

In the 1930s, many of the schools that participated in the Eight-Year Study of the Progressive Education Association (Aikin 1942) adopted critical thinking as an educational goal, for whose achievement the study’s Evaluation Staff developed tests (Smith, Tyler, & Evaluation Staff 1942). Glaser (1941) showed experimentally that it was possible to improve the critical thinking of high school students. Bloom’s influential taxonomy of cognitive educational objectives (Bloom et al. 1956) incorporated critical thinking abilities. Ennis (1962) proposed 12 aspects of critical thinking as a basis for research on the teaching and evaluation of critical thinking ability.

Since 1980, an annual international conference in California on critical thinking and educational reform has attracted tens of thousands of educators from all levels of education and from many parts of the world. Also since 1980, the state university system in California has required all undergraduate students to take a critical thinking course. Since 1983, the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking has sponsored sessions in conjunction with the divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association (APA). In 1987, the APA’s Committee on Pre-College Philosophy commissioned a consensus statement on critical thinking for purposes of educational assessment and instruction (Facione 1990a). Researchers have developed standardized tests of critical thinking abilities and dispositions; for details, see the Supplement on Assessment . Educational jurisdictions around the world now include critical thinking in guidelines for curriculum and assessment. Political and business leaders endorse its importance.

For details on this history, see the Supplement on History .

2. Examples and Non-Examples

Before considering the definition of critical thinking, it will be helpful to have in mind some examples of critical thinking, as well as some examples of kinds of thinking that would apparently not count as critical thinking.

Dewey (1910: 68–71; 1933: 91–94) takes as paradigms of reflective thinking three class papers of students in which they describe their thinking. The examples range from the everyday to the scientific.

Transit : “The other day, when I was down town on 16th Street, a clock caught my eye. I saw that the hands pointed to 12:20. This suggested that I had an engagement at 124th Street, at one o'clock. I reasoned that as it had taken me an hour to come down on a surface car, I should probably be twenty minutes late if I returned the same way. I might save twenty minutes by a subway express. But was there a station near? If not, I might lose more than twenty minutes in looking for one. Then I thought of the elevated, and I saw there was such a line within two blocks. But where was the station? If it were several blocks above or below the street I was on, I should lose time instead of gaining it. My mind went back to the subway express as quicker than the elevated; furthermore, I remembered that it went nearer than the elevated to the part of 124th Street I wished to reach, so that time would be saved at the end of the journey. I concluded in favor of the subway, and reached my destination by one o’clock.” (Dewey 1910: 68-69; 1933: 91-92)

Ferryboat : “Projecting nearly horizontally from the upper deck of the ferryboat on which I daily cross the river is a long white pole, having a gilded ball at its tip. It suggested a flagpole when I first saw it; its color, shape, and gilded ball agreed with this idea, and these reasons seemed to justify me in this belief. But soon difficulties presented themselves. The pole was nearly horizontal, an unusual position for a flagpole; in the next place, there was no pulley, ring, or cord by which to attach a flag; finally, there were elsewhere on the boat two vertical staffs from which flags were occasionally flown. It seemed probable that the pole was not there for flag-flying.

“I then tried to imagine all possible purposes of the pole, and to consider for which of these it was best suited: (a) Possibly it was an ornament. But as all the ferryboats and even the tugboats carried poles, this hypothesis was rejected. (b) Possibly it was the terminal of a wireless telegraph. But the same considerations made this improbable. Besides, the more natural place for such a terminal would be the highest part of the boat, on top of the pilot house. (c) Its purpose might be to point out the direction in which the boat is moving.

“In support of this conclusion, I discovered that the pole was lower than the pilot house, so that the steersman could easily see it. Moreover, the tip was enough higher than the base, so that, from the pilot's position, it must appear to project far out in front of the boat. Morevoer, the pilot being near the front of the boat, he would need some such guide as to its direction. Tugboats would also need poles for such a purpose. This hypothesis was so much more probable than the others that I accepted it. I formed the conclusion that the pole was set up for the purpose of showing the pilot the direction in which the boat pointed, to enable him to steer correctly.” (Dewey 1910: 69-70; 1933: 92-93)

Bubbles : “In washing tumblers in hot soapsuds and placing them mouth downward on a plate, bubbles appeared on the outside of the mouth of the tumblers and then went inside. Why? The presence of bubbles suggests air, which I note must come from inside the tumbler. I see that the soapy water on the plate prevents escape of the air save as it may be caught in bubbles. But why should air leave the tumbler? There was no substance entering to force it out. It must have expanded. It expands by increase of heat, or by decrease of pressure, or both. Could the air have become heated after the tumbler was taken from the hot suds? Clearly not the air that was already entangled in the water. If heated air was the cause, cold air must have entered in transferring the tumblers from the suds to the plate. I test to see if this supposition is true by taking several more tumblers out. Some I shake so as to make sure of entrapping cold air in them. Some I take out holding mouth downward in order to prevent cold air from entering. Bubbles appear on the outside of every one of the former and on none of the latter. I must be right in my inference. Air from the outside must have been expanded by the heat of the tumbler, which explains the appearance of the bubbles on the outside. But why do they then go inside? Cold contracts. The tumbler cooled and also the air inside it. Tension was removed, and hence bubbles appeared inside. To be sure of this, I test by placing a cup of ice on the tumbler while the bubbles are still forming outside. They soon reverse” (Dewey 1910: 70–71; 1933: 93–94).

Dewey (1910, 1933) sprinkles his book with other examples of critical thinking. We will refer to the following.

Weather : A man on a walk notices that it has suddenly become cool, thinks that it is probably going to rain, looks up and sees a dark cloud obscuring the sun, and quickens his steps (1910: 6–10; 1933: 9–13).

Disorder : A man finds his rooms on his return to them in disorder with his belongings thrown about, thinks at first of burglary as an explanation, then thinks of mischievous children as being an alternative explanation, then looks to see whether valuables are missing, and discovers that they are (1910: 82–83; 1933: 166–168).

Typhoid : A physician diagnosing a patient whose conspicuous symptoms suggest typhoid avoids drawing a conclusion until more data are gathered by questioning the patient and by making tests (1910: 85–86; 1933: 170).

Blur : A moving blur catches our eye in the distance, we ask ourselves whether it is a cloud of whirling dust or a tree moving its branches or a man signaling to us, we think of other traits that should be found on each of those possibilities, and we look and see if those traits are found (1910: 102, 108; 1933: 121, 133).

Suction pump : In thinking about the suction pump, the scientist first notes that it will draw water only to a maximum height of 33 feet at sea level and to a lesser maximum height at higher elevations, selects for attention the differing atmospheric pressure at these elevations, sets up experiments in which the air is removed from a vessel containing water (when suction no longer works) and in which the weight of air at various levels is calculated, compares the results of reasoning about the height to which a given weight of air will allow a suction pump to raise water with the observed maximum height at different elevations, and finally assimilates the suction pump to such apparently different phenomena as the siphon and the rising of a balloon (1910: 150–153; 1933: 195–198).

Diamond : A passenger in a car driving in a diamond lane reserved for vehicles with at least one passenger notices that the diamond marks on the pavement are far apart in some places and close together in others. Why? The driver suggests that the reason may be that the diamond marks are not needed where there is a solid double line separating the diamond line from the adjoining lane, but are needed when there is a dotted single line permitting crossing into the diamond lane. Further observation confirms that the diamonds are close together when a dotted line separates the diamond lane from its neighbour, but otherwise far apart.

Rash : A woman suddenly develops a very itchy red rash on her throat and upper chest. She recently noticed a mark on the back of her right hand, but was not sure whether the mark was a rash or a scrape. She lies down in bed and thinks about what might be causing the rash and what to do about it. About two weeks before, she began taking blood pressure medication that contained a sulfa drug, and the pharmacist had warned her, in view of a previous allergic reaction to a medication containing a sulfa drug, to be on the alert for an allergic reaction; however, she had been taking the medication for two weeks with no such effect. The day before, she began using a new cream on her neck and upper chest; against the new cream as the cause was mark on the back of her hand, which had not been exposed to the cream. She began taking probiotics about a month before. She also recently started new eye drops, but she supposed that manufacturers of eye drops would be careful not to include allergy-causing components in the medication. The rash might be a heat rash, since she recently was sweating profusely from her upper body. Since she is about to go away on a short vacation, where she would not have access to her usual physician, she decides to keep taking the probiotics and using the new eye drops but to discontinue the blood pressure medication and to switch back to the old cream for her neck and upper chest. She forms a plan to consult her regular physician on her return about the blood pressure medication.

Candidate : Although Dewey included no examples of thinking directed at appraising the arguments of others, such thinking has come to be considered a kind of critical thinking. We find an example of such thinking in the performance task on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+), which its sponsoring organization describes as

a performance-based assessment that provides a measure of an institution’s contribution to the development of critical-thinking and written communication skills of its students. (Council for Aid to Education 2017)

A sample task posted on its website requires the test-taker to write a report for public distribution evaluating a fictional candidate’s policy proposals and their supporting arguments, using supplied background documents, with a recommendation on whether to endorse the candidate.

Immediate acceptance of an idea that suggests itself as a solution to a problem (e.g., a possible explanation of an event or phenomenon, an action that seems likely to produce a desired result) is “uncritical thinking, the minimum of reflection” (Dewey 1910: 13). On-going suspension of judgment in the light of doubt about a possible solution is not critical thinking (Dewey 1910: 108). Critique driven by a dogmatically held political or religious ideology is not critical thinking; thus Paulo Freire (1968 [1970]) is using the term (e.g., at 1970: 71, 81, 100, 146) in a more politically freighted sense that includes not only reflection but also revolutionary action against oppression. Derivation of a conclusion from given data using an algorithm is not critical thinking.

What is critical thinking? There are many definitions. Ennis (2016) lists 14 philosophically oriented scholarly definitions and three dictionary definitions. Following Rawls (1971), who distinguished his conception of justice from a utilitarian conception but regarded them as rival conceptions of the same concept, Ennis maintains that the 17 definitions are different conceptions of the same concept. Rawls articulated the shared concept of justice as

a characteristic set of principles for assigning basic rights and duties and for determining… the proper distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. (Rawls 1971: 5)

Bailin et al. (1999b) claim that, if one considers what sorts of thinking an educator would take not to be critical thinking and what sorts to be critical thinking, one can conclude that educators typically understand critical thinking to have at least three features.

• It is done for the purpose of making up one’s mind about what to believe or do.
• The person engaging in the thinking is trying to fulfill standards of adequacy and accuracy appropriate to the thinking.
• The thinking fulfills the relevant standards to some threshold level.

One could sum up the core concept that involves these three features by saying that critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking. This core concept seems to apply to all the examples of critical thinking described in the previous section. As for the non-examples, their exclusion depends on construing careful thinking as excluding jumping immediately to conclusions, suspending judgment no matter how strong the evidence, reasoning from an unquestioned ideological or religious perspective, and routinely using an algorithm to answer a question.

If the core of critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking, conceptions of it can vary according to its presumed scope, its presumed goal, one’s criteria and threshold for being careful, and the thinking component on which one focuses As to its scope, some conceptions (e.g., Dewey 1910, 1933) restrict it to constructive thinking on the basis of one’s own observations and experiments, others (e.g., Ennis 1962; Fisher & Scriven 1997; Johnson 1992) to appraisal of the products of such thinking. Ennis (1991) and Bailin et al. (1999b) take it to cover both construction and appraisal. As to its goal, some conceptions restrict it to forming a judgment (Dewey 1910, 1933; Lipman 1987; Facione 1990a). Others allow for actions as well as beliefs as the end point of a process of critical thinking (Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b). As to the criteria and threshold for being careful, definitions vary in the term used to indicate that critical thinking satisfies certain norms: “intellectually disciplined” (Scriven & Paul 1987), “reasonable” (Ennis 1991), “skillful” (Lipman 1987), “skilled” (Fisher & Scriven 1997), “careful” (Bailin & Battersby 2009). Some definitions specify these norms, referring variously to “consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey 1910, 1933); “the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning” (Glaser 1941); “conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication” (Scriven & Paul 1987); the requirement that “it is sensitive to context, relies on criteria, and is self-correcting” (Lipman 1987); “evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations” (Facione 1990a); and “plus-minus considerations of the product in terms of appropriate standards (or criteria)” (Johnson 1992). Stanovich and Stanovich (2010) propose to ground the concept of critical thinking in the concept of rationality, which they understand as combining epistemic rationality (fitting one’s beliefs to the world) and instrumental rationality (optimizing goal fulfillment); a critical thinker, in their view, is someone with “a propensity to override suboptimal responses from the autonomous mind” (2010: 227). These variant specifications of norms for critical thinking are not necessarily incompatible with one another, and in any case presuppose the core notion of thinking carefully. As to the thinking component singled out, some definitions focus on suspension of judgment during the thinking (Dewey 1910; McPeck 1981), others on inquiry while judgment is suspended (Bailin & Battersby 2009), others on the resulting judgment (Facione 1990a), and still others on the subsequent emotive response (Siegel 1988).

In educational contexts, a definition of critical thinking is a “programmatic definition” (Scheffler 1960: 19). It expresses a practical program for achieving an educational goal. For this purpose, a one-sentence formulaic definition is much less useful than articulation of a critical thinking process, with criteria and standards for the kinds of thinking that the process may involve. The real educational goal is recognition, adoption and implementation by students of those criteria and standards. That adoption and implementation in turn consists in acquiring the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker.

Conceptions of critical thinking generally do not include moral integrity as part of the concept. Dewey, for example, took critical thinking to be the ultimate intellectual goal of education, but distinguished it from the development of social cooperation among school children, which he took to be the central moral goal. Ennis (1996, 2011) added to his previous list of critical thinking dispositions a group of dispositions to care about the dignity and worth of every person, which he described as a “correlative” (1996) disposition without which critical thinking would be less valuable and perhaps harmful. An educational program that aimed at developing critical thinking but not the correlative disposition to care about the dignity and worth of every person, he asserted, “would be deficient and perhaps dangerous” (Ennis 1996: 172).

Dewey thought that education for reflective thinking would be of value to both the individual and society; recognition in educational practice of the kinship to the scientific attitude of children’s native curiosity, fertile imagination and love of experimental inquiry “would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social waste” (Dewey 1910: iii). Schools participating in the Eight-Year Study took development of the habit of reflective thinking and skill in solving problems as a means to leading young people to understand, appreciate and live the democratic way of life characteristic of the United States (Aikin 1942: 17–18, 81). Harvey Siegel (1988: 55–61) has offered four considerations in support of adopting critical thinking as an educational ideal. (1) Respect for persons requires that schools and teachers honour students’ demands for reasons and explanations, deal with students honestly, and recognize the need to confront students’ independent judgment; these requirements concern the manner in which teachers treat students. (2) Education has the task of preparing children to be successful adults, a task that requires development of their self-sufficiency. (3) Education should initiate children into the rational traditions in such fields as history, science and mathematics. (4) Education should prepare children to become democratic citizens, which requires reasoned procedures and critical talents and attitudes. To supplement these considerations, Siegel (1988: 62–90) responds to two objections: the ideology objection that adoption of any educational ideal requires a prior ideological commitment and the indoctrination objection that cultivation of critical thinking cannot escape being a form of indoctrination.

Despite the diversity of our 11 examples, one can recognize a common pattern. Dewey analyzed it as consisting of five phases:

• suggestions , in which the mind leaps forward to a possible solution;
• an intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity into a problem to be solved, a question for which the answer must be sought;
• the use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea, or hypothesis , to initiate and guide observation and other operations in collection of factual material;
• the mental elaboration of the idea or supposition as an idea or supposition ( reasoning , in the sense on which reasoning is a part, not the whole, of inference); and
• testing the hypothesis by overt or imaginative action. (Dewey 1933: 106–107; italics in original)

The process of reflective thinking consisting of these phases would be preceded by a perplexed, troubled or confused situation and followed by a cleared-up, unified, resolved situation (Dewey 1933: 106). The term ‘phases’ replaced the term ‘steps’ (Dewey 1910: 72), thus removing the earlier suggestion of an invariant sequence. Variants of the above analysis appeared in (Dewey 1916: 177) and (Dewey 1938: 101–119).

The variant formulations indicate the difficulty of giving a single logical analysis of such a varied process. The process of critical thinking may have a spiral pattern, with the problem being redefined in the light of obstacles to solving it as originally formulated. For example, the person in Transit might have concluded that getting to the appointment at the scheduled time was impossible and have reformulated the problem as that of rescheduling the appointment for a mutually convenient time. Further, defining a problem does not always follow after or lead immediately to an idea of a suggested solution. Nor should it do so, as Dewey himself recognized in describing the physician in Typhoid as avoiding any strong preference for this or that conclusion before getting further information (Dewey 1910: 85; 1933: 170). People with a hypothesis in mind, even one to which they have a very weak commitment, have a so-called “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998): they are likely to pay attention to evidence that confirms the hypothesis and to ignore evidence that counts against it or for some competing hypothesis. Detectives, intelligence agencies, and investigators of airplane accidents are well advised to gather relevant evidence systematically and to postpone even tentative adoption of an explanatory hypothesis until the collected evidence rules out with the appropriate degree of certainty all but one explanation. Dewey’s analysis of the critical thinking process can be faulted as well for requiring acceptance or rejection of a possible solution to a defined problem, with no allowance for deciding in the light of the available evidence to suspend judgment. Further, given the great variety of kinds of problems for which reflection is appropriate, there is likely to be variation in its component events. Perhaps the best way to conceptualize the critical thinking process is as a checklist whose component events can occur in a variety of orders, selectively, and more than once. These component events might include (1) noticing a difficulty, (2) defining the problem, (3) dividing the problem into manageable sub-problems, (4) formulating a variety of possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (5) determining what evidence is relevant to deciding among possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (6) devising a plan of systematic observation or experiment that will uncover the relevant evidence, (7) carrying out the plan of systematic observation or experimentation, (8) noting the results of the systematic observation or experiment, (9) gathering relevant testimony and information from others, (10) judging the credibility of testimony and information gathered from others, (11) drawing conclusions from gathered evidence and accepted testimony, and (12) accepting a solution that the evidence adequately supports (cf. Hitchcock 2017: 485).

Checklist conceptions of the process of critical thinking are open to the objection that they are too mechanical and procedural to fit the multi-dimensional and emotionally charged issues for which critical thinking is urgently needed (Paul 1984). For such issues, a more dialectical process is advocated, in which competing relevant world views are identified, their implications explored, and some sort of creative synthesis attempted.

If one considers the critical thinking process illustrated by the 11 examples, one can identify distinct kinds of mental acts and mental states that form part of it. To distinguish, label and briefly characterize these components is a useful preliminary to identifying abilities, skills, dispositions, attitudes, habits and the like that contribute causally to thinking critically. Identifying such abilities and habits is in turn a useful preliminary to setting educational goals. Setting the goals is in its turn a useful preliminary to designing strategies for helping learners to achieve the goals and to designing ways of measuring the extent to which learners have done so. Such measures provide both feedback to learners on their achievement and a basis for experimental research on the effectiveness of various strategies for educating people to think critically. Let us begin, then, by distinguishing the kinds of mental acts and mental events that can occur in a critical thinking process.

• Observing : One notices something in one’s immediate environment (sudden cooling of temperature in Weather , bubbles forming outside a glass and then going inside in Bubbles , a moving blur in the distance in Blur , a rash in Rash ). Or one notes the results of an experiment or systematic observation (valuables missing in Disorder , no suction without air pressure in Suction pump )
• Feeling : One feels puzzled or uncertain about something (how to get to an appointment on time in Transit , why the diamonds vary in frequency in Diamond ). One wants to resolve this perplexity. One feels satisfaction once one has worked out an answer (to take the subway express in Transit , diamonds closer when needed as a warning in Diamond ).
• Wondering : One formulates a question to be addressed (why bubbles form outside a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , how suction pumps work in Suction pump , what caused the rash in Rash ).
• Imagining : One thinks of possible answers (bus or subway or elevated in Transit , flagpole or ornament or wireless communication aid or direction indicator in Ferryboat , allergic reaction or heat rash in Rash ).
• Inferring : One works out what would be the case if a possible answer were assumed (valuables missing if there has been a burglary in Disorder , earlier start to the rash if it is an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug in Rash ). Or one draws a conclusion once sufficient relevant evidence is gathered (take the subway in Transit , burglary in Disorder , discontinue blood pressure medication and new cream in Rash ).
• Knowledge : One uses stored knowledge of the subject-matter to generate possible answers or to infer what would be expected on the assumption of a particular answer (knowledge of a city’s public transit system in Transit , of the requirements for a flagpole in Ferryboat , of Boyle’s law in Bubbles , of allergic reactions in Rash ).
• Experimenting : One designs and carries out an experiment or a systematic observation to find out whether the results deduced from a possible answer will occur (looking at the location of the flagpole in relation to the pilot’s position in Ferryboat , putting an ice cube on top of a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , measuring the height to which a suction pump will draw water at different elevations in Suction pump , noticing the frequency of diamonds when movement to or from a diamond lane is allowed in Diamond ).
• Consulting : One finds a source of information, gets the information from the source, and makes a judgment on whether to accept it. None of our 11 examples include searching for sources of information. In this respect they are unrepresentative, since most people nowadays have almost instant access to information relevant to answering any question, including many of those illustrated by the examples. However, Candidate includes the activities of extracting information from sources and evaluating its credibility.
• Identifying and analyzing arguments : One notices an argument and works out its structure and content as a preliminary to evaluating its strength. This activity is central to Candidate . It is an important part of a critical thinking process in which one surveys arguments for various positions on an issue.
• Judging : One makes a judgment on the basis of accumulated evidence and reasoning, such as the judgment in Ferryboat that the purpose of the pole is to provide direction to the pilot.
• Deciding : One makes a decision on what to do or on what policy to adopt, as in the decision in Transit to take the subway.

By definition, a person who does something voluntarily is both willing and able to do that thing at that time. Both the willingness and the ability contribute causally to the person’s action, in the sense that the voluntary action would not occur if either (or both) of these were lacking. For example, suppose that one is standing with one’s arms at one’s sides and one voluntarily lifts one’s right arm to an extended horizontal position. One would not do so if one were unable to lift one’s arm, if for example one’s right side was paralyzed as the result of a stroke. Nor would one do so if one were unwilling to lift one’s arm, if for example one were participating in a street demonstration at which a white supremacist was urging the crowd to lift their right arm in a Nazi salute and one were unwilling to express support in this way for the racist Nazi ideology. The same analysis applies to a voluntary mental process of thinking critically. It requires both willingness and ability to think critically, including willingness and ability to perform each of the mental acts that compose the process and to coordinate those acts in a sequence that is directed at resolving the initiating perplexity.

Consider willingness first. We can identify causal contributors to willingness to think critically by considering factors that would cause a person who was able to think critically about an issue nevertheless not to do so (Hamby 2014). For each factor, the opposite condition thus contributes causally to willingness to think critically on a particular occasion. For example, people who habitually jump to conclusions without considering alternatives will not think critically about issues that arise, even if they have the required abilities. The contrary condition of willingness to suspend judgment is thus a causal contributor to thinking critically.

Now consider ability. In contrast to the ability to move one’s arm, which can be completely absent because a stroke has left the arm paralyzed, the ability to think critically is a developed ability, whose absence is not a complete absence of ability to think but absence of ability to think well. We can identify the ability to think well directly, in terms of the norms and standards for good thinking. In general, to be able do well the thinking activities that can be components of a critical thinking process, one needs to know the concepts and principles that characterize their good performance, to recognize in particular cases that the concepts and principles apply, and to apply them. The knowledge, recognition and application may be procedural rather than declarative. It may be domain-specific rather than widely applicable, and in either case may need subject-matter knowledge, sometimes of a deep kind.

Reflections of the sort illustrated by the previous two paragraphs have led scholars to identify the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a “critical thinker”, i.e., someone who thinks critically whenever it is appropriate to do so. We turn now to these three types of causal contributors to thinking critically. We start with dispositions, since arguably these are the most powerful contributors to being a critical thinker, can be fostered at an early stage of a child’s development, and are susceptible to general improvement (Glaser 1941: 175)

8. Critical Thinking Dispositions

Educational researchers use the term ‘dispositions’ broadly for the habits of mind and attitudes that contribute causally to being a critical thinker. Some writers (e.g., Paul & Elder 2006; Hamby 2014; Bailin & Battersby 2016) propose to use the term ‘virtues’ for this dimension of a critical thinker. The virtues in question, although they are virtues of character, concern the person’s ways of thinking rather than the person’s ways of behaving towards others. They are not moral virtues but intellectual virtues, of the sort articulated by Zagzebski (1996) and discussed by Turri, Alfano, and Greco (2017).

On a realistic conception, thinking dispositions or intellectual virtues are real properties of thinkers. They are general tendencies, propensities, or inclinations to think in particular ways in particular circumstances, and can be genuinely explanatory (Siegel 1999). Sceptics argue that there is no evidence for a specific mental basis for the habits of mind that contribute to thinking critically, and that it is pedagogically misleading to posit such a basis (Bailin et al. 1999a). Whatever their status, critical thinking dispositions need motivation for their initial formation in a child—motivation that may be external or internal. As children develop, the force of habit will gradually become important in sustaining the disposition (Nieto & Valenzuela 2012). Mere force of habit, however, is unlikely to sustain critical thinking dispositions. Critical thinkers must value and enjoy using their knowledge and abilities to think things through for themselves. They must be committed to, and lovers of, inquiry.

A person may have a critical thinking disposition with respect to only some kinds of issues. For example, one could be open-minded about scientific issues but not about religious issues. Similarly, one could be confident in one’s ability to reason about the theological implications of the existence of evil in the world but not in one’s ability to reason about the best design for a guided ballistic missile.

Critical thinking dispositions can usefully be divided into initiating dispositions (those that contribute causally to starting to think critically about an issue) and internal dispositions (those that contribute causally to doing a good job of thinking critically once one has started) (Facione 1990a: 25). The two categories are not mutually exclusive. For example, open-mindedness, in the sense of willingness to consider alternative points of view to one’s own, is both an initiating and an internal disposition.

Using the strategy of considering factors that would block people with the ability to think critically from doing so, we can identify as initiating dispositions for thinking critically attentiveness, a habit of inquiry, self-confidence, courage, open-mindedness, willingness to suspend judgment, trust in reason, wanting evidence for one’s beliefs, and seeking the truth. We consider briefly what each of these dispositions amounts to, in each case citing sources that acknowledge them.

• Attentiveness : One will not think critically if one fails to recognize an issue that needs to be thought through. For example, the pedestrian in Weather would not have looked up if he had not noticed that the air was suddenly cooler. To be a critical thinker, then, one needs to be habitually attentive to one’s surroundings, noticing not only what one senses but also sources of perplexity in messages received and in one’s own beliefs and attitudes (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
• Habit of inquiry : Inquiry is effortful, and one needs an internal push to engage in it. For example, the student in Bubbles could easily have stopped at idle wondering about the cause of the bubbles rather than reasoning to a hypothesis, then designing and executing an experiment to test it. Thus willingness to think critically needs mental energy and initiative. What can supply that energy? Love of inquiry, or perhaps just a habit of inquiry. Hamby (2015) has argued that willingness to inquire is the central critical thinking virtue, one that encompasses all the others. It is recognized as a critical thinking disposition by Dewey (1910: 29; 1933: 35), Glaser (1941: 5), Ennis (1987: 12; 1991: 8), Facione (1990a: 25), Bailin et al. (1999b: 294), Halpern (1998: 452), and Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo (2001).
• Self-confidence : Lack of confidence in one’s abilities can block critical thinking. For example, if the woman in Rash lacked confidence in her ability to figure things out for herself, she might just have assumed that the rash on her chest was the allergic reaction to her medication against which the pharmacist had warned her. Thus willingness to think critically requires confidence in one’s ability to inquire (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
• Courage : Fear of thinking for oneself can stop one from doing it. Thus willingness to think critically requires intellectual courage (Paul & Elder 2006: 16).
• Open-mindedness : A dogmatic attitude will impede thinking critically. For example, a person who adheres rigidly to a “pro-choice” position on the issue of the legal status of induced abortion is likely to be unwilling to consider seriously the issue of when in its development an unborn child acquires a moral right to life. Thus willingness to think critically requires open-mindedness, in the sense of a willingness to examine questions to which one already accepts an answer but which further evidence or reasoning might cause one to answer differently (Dewey 1933; Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b; Halpern 1998, Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). Paul (1981) emphasizes open-mindedness about alternative world-views, and recommends a dialectical approach to integrating such views as central to what he calls “strong sense” critical thinking.
• Willingness to suspend judgment : Premature closure on an initial solution will block critical thinking. Thus willingness to think critically requires a willingness to suspend judgment while alternatives are explored (Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Halpern 1998).
• Trust in reason : Since distrust in the processes of reasoned inquiry will dissuade one from engaging in it, trust in them is an initiating critical thinking disposition (Facione 1990a, 25; Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001; Paul & Elder 2006). In reaction to an allegedly exclusive emphasis on reason in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, Thayer-Bacon (2000) argues that intuition, imagination, and emotion have important roles to play in an adequate conception of critical thinking that she calls “constructive thinking”. From her point of view, critical thinking requires trust not only in reason but also in intuition, imagination, and emotion.
• Seeking the truth : If one does not care about the truth but is content to stick with one’s initial bias on an issue, then one will not think critically about it. Seeking the truth is thus an initiating critical thinking disposition (Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). A disposition to seek the truth is implicit in more specific critical thinking dispositions, such as trying to be well-informed, considering seriously points of view other than one’s own, looking for alternatives, suspending judgment when the evidence is insufficient, and adopting a position when the evidence supporting it is sufficient.

Some of the initiating dispositions, such as open-mindedness and willingness to suspend judgment, are also internal critical thinking dispositions, in the sense of mental habits or attitudes that contribute causally to doing a good job of critical thinking once one starts the process. But there are many other internal critical thinking dispositions. Some of them are parasitic on one’s conception of good thinking. For example, it is constitutive of good thinking about an issue to formulate the issue clearly and to maintain focus on it. For this purpose, one needs not only the corresponding ability but also the corresponding disposition. Ennis (1991: 8) describes it as the disposition “to determine and maintain focus on the conclusion or question”, Facione (1990a: 25) as “clarity in stating the question or concern”. Other internal dispositions are motivators to continue or adjust the critical thinking process, such as willingness to persist in a complex task and willingness to abandon nonproductive strategies in an attempt to self-correct (Halpern 1998: 452). For a list of identified internal critical thinking dispositions, see the Supplement on Internal Critical Thinking Dispositions .

Some theorists postulate skills, i.e., acquired abilities, as operative in critical thinking. It is not obvious, however, that a good mental act is the exercise of a generic acquired skill. Inferring an expected time of arrival, as in Transit , has some generic components but also uses non-generic subject-matter knowledge. Bailin et al. (1999a) argue against viewing critical thinking skills as generic and discrete, on the ground that skilled performance at a critical thinking task cannot be separated from knowledge of concepts and from domain-specific principles of good thinking. Talk of skills, they concede, is unproblematic if it means merely that a person with critical thinking skills is capable of intelligent performance.

Despite such scepticism, theorists of critical thinking have listed as general contributors to critical thinking what they variously call abilities (Glaser 1941; Ennis 1962, 1991), skills (Facione 1990a; Halpern 1998) or competencies (Fisher & Scriven 1997). Amalgamating these lists would produce a confusing and chaotic cornucopia of more than 50 possible educational objectives, with only partial overlap among them. It makes sense instead to try to understand the reasons for the multiplicity and diversity, and to make a selection according to one’s own reasons for singling out abilities to be developed in a critical thinking curriculum. Two reasons for diversity among lists of critical thinking abilities are the underlying conception of critical thinking and the envisaged educational level. Appraisal-only conceptions, for example, involve a different suite of abilities than constructive-only conceptions. Some lists, such as those in (Glaser 1941), are put forward as educational objectives for secondary school students, whereas others are proposed as objectives for college students (e.g., Facione 1990a).

The abilities described in the remaining paragraphs of this section emerge from reflection on the general abilities needed to do well the thinking activities identified in section 6 as components of the critical thinking process described in section 5 . The derivation of each collection of abilities is accompanied by citation of sources that list such abilities and of standardized tests that claim to test them.

Observational abilities : Careful and accurate observation sometimes requires specialist expertise and practice, as in the case of observing birds and observing accident scenes. However, there are general abilities of noticing what one’s senses are picking up from one’s environment and of being able to articulate clearly and accurately to oneself and others what one has observed. It helps in exercising them to be able to recognize and take into account factors that make one’s observation less trustworthy, such as prior framing of the situation, inadequate time, deficient senses, poor observation conditions, and the like. It helps as well to be skilled at taking steps to make one’s observation more trustworthy, such as moving closer to get a better look, measuring something three times and taking the average, and checking what one thinks one is observing with someone else who is in a good position to observe it. It also helps to be skilled at recognizing respects in which one’s report of one’s observation involves inference rather than direct observation, so that one can then consider whether the inference is justified. These abilities come into play as well when one thinks about whether and with what degree of confidence to accept an observation report, for example in the study of history or in a criminal investigation or in assessing news reports. Observational abilities show up in some lists of critical thinking abilities (Ennis 1962: 90; Facione 1990a: 16; Ennis 1991: 9). There are items testing a person’s ability to judge the credibility of observation reports in the Cornell Critical Thinking Tests, Levels X and Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). Norris and King (1983, 1985, 1990a, 1990b) is a test of ability to appraise observation reports.

Emotional abilities : The emotions that drive a critical thinking process are perplexity or puzzlement, a wish to resolve it, and satisfaction at achieving the desired resolution. Children experience these emotions at an early age, without being trained to do so. Education that takes critical thinking as a goal needs only to channel these emotions and to make sure not to stifle them. Collaborative critical thinking benefits from ability to recognize one’s own and others’ emotional commitments and reactions.

Questioning abilities : A critical thinking process needs transformation of an inchoate sense of perplexity into a clear question. Formulating a question well requires not building in questionable assumptions, not prejudging the issue, and using language that in context is unambiguous and precise enough (Ennis 1962: 97; 1991: 9).

Imaginative abilities : Thinking directed at finding the correct causal explanation of a general phenomenon or particular event requires an ability to imagine possible explanations. Thinking about what policy or plan of action to adopt requires generation of options and consideration of possible consequences of each option. Domain knowledge is required for such creative activity, but a general ability to imagine alternatives is helpful and can be nurtured so as to become easier, quicker, more extensive, and deeper (Dewey 1910: 34–39; 1933: 40–47). Facione (1990a) and Halpern (1998) include the ability to imagine alternatives as a critical thinking ability.

Inferential abilities : The ability to draw conclusions from given information, and to recognize with what degree of certainty one’s own or others’ conclusions follow, is universally recognized as a general critical thinking ability. All 11 examples in section 2 of this article include inferences, some from hypotheses or options (as in Transit , Ferryboat and Disorder ), others from something observed (as in Weather and Rash ). None of these inferences is formally valid. Rather, they are licensed by general, sometimes qualified substantive rules of inference (Toulmin 1958) that rest on domain knowledge—that a bus trip takes about the same time in each direction, that the terminal of a wireless telegraph would be located on the highest possible place, that sudden cooling is often followed by rain, that an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug generally shows up soon after one starts taking it. It is a matter of controversy to what extent the specialized ability to deduce conclusions from premisses using formal rules of inference is needed for critical thinking. Dewey (1933) locates logical forms in setting out the products of reflection rather than in the process of reflection. Ennis (1981a), on the other hand, maintains that a liberally-educated person should have the following abilities: to translate natural-language statements into statements using the standard logical operators, to use appropriately the language of necessary and sufficient conditions, to deal with argument forms and arguments containing symbols, to determine whether in virtue of an argument’s form its conclusion follows necessarily from its premisses, to reason with logically complex propositions, and to apply the rules and procedures of deductive logic. Inferential abilities are recognized as critical thinking abilities by Glaser (1941: 6), Facione (1990a: 9), Ennis (1991: 9), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 99, 111), and Halpern (1998: 452). Items testing inferential abilities constitute two of the five subtests of the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser 1980a, 1980b, 1994), two of the four sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), three of the seven sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), 11 of the 34 items on Forms A and B of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992), and a high but variable proportion of the 25 selected-response questions in the Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Experimenting abilities : Knowing how to design and execute an experiment is important not just in scientific research but also in everyday life, as in Rash . Dewey devoted a whole chapter of his How We Think (1910: 145–156; 1933: 190–202) to the superiority of experimentation over observation in advancing knowledge. Experimenting abilities come into play at one remove in appraising reports of scientific studies. Skill in designing and executing experiments includes the acknowledged abilities to appraise evidence (Glaser 1941: 6), to carry out experiments and to apply appropriate statistical inference techniques (Facione 1990a: 9), to judge inductions to an explanatory hypothesis (Ennis 1991: 9), and to recognize the need for an adequately large sample size (Halpern 1998). The Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) includes four items (out of 52) on experimental design. The Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) makes room for appraisal of study design in both its performance task and its selected-response questions.

Consulting abilities : Skill at consulting sources of information comes into play when one seeks information to help resolve a problem, as in Candidate . Ability to find and appraise information includes ability to gather and marshal pertinent information (Glaser 1941: 6), to judge whether a statement made by an alleged authority is acceptable (Ennis 1962: 84), to plan a search for desired information (Facione 1990a: 9), and to judge the credibility of a source (Ennis 1991: 9). Ability to judge the credibility of statements is tested by 24 items (out of 76) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) and by four items (out of 52) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). The College Learning Assessment’s performance task requires evaluation of whether information in documents is credible or unreliable (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Argument analysis abilities : The ability to identify and analyze arguments contributes to the process of surveying arguments on an issue in order to form one’s own reasoned judgment, as in Candidate . The ability to detect and analyze arguments is recognized as a critical thinking skill by Facione (1990a: 7–8), Ennis (1991: 9) and Halpern (1998). Five items (out of 34) on the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992) test skill at argument analysis. The College Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) incorporates argument analysis in its selected-response tests of critical reading and evaluation and of critiquing an argument.

Judging skills and deciding skills : Skill at judging and deciding is skill at recognizing what judgment or decision the available evidence and argument supports, and with what degree of confidence. It is thus a component of the inferential skills already discussed.

Lists and tests of critical thinking abilities often include two more abilities: identifying assumptions and constructing and evaluating definitions.

In addition to dispositions and abilities, critical thinking needs knowledge: of critical thinking concepts, of critical thinking principles, and of the subject-matter of the thinking.

We can derive a short list of concepts whose understanding contributes to critical thinking from the critical thinking abilities described in the preceding section. Observational abilities require an understanding of the difference between observation and inference. Questioning abilities require an understanding of the concepts of ambiguity and vagueness. Inferential abilities require an understanding of the difference between conclusive and defeasible inference (traditionally, between deduction and induction), as well as of the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. Experimenting abilities require an understanding of the concepts of hypothesis, null hypothesis, assumption and prediction, as well as of the concept of statistical significance and of its difference from importance. They also require an understanding of the difference between an experiment and an observational study, and in particular of the difference between a randomized controlled trial, a prospective correlational study and a retrospective (case-control) study. Argument analysis abilities require an understanding of the concepts of argument, premiss, assumption, conclusion and counter-consideration. Additional critical thinking concepts are proposed by Bailin et al. (1999b: 293), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 105–106), and Black (2012).

According to Glaser (1941: 25), ability to think critically requires knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning. If we review the list of abilities in the preceding section, however, we can see that some of them can be acquired and exercised merely through practice, possibly guided in an educational setting, followed by feedback. Searching intelligently for a causal explanation of some phenomenon or event requires that one consider a full range of possible causal contributors, but it seems more important that one implements this principle in one’s practice than that one is able to articulate it. What is important is “operational knowledge” of the standards and principles of good thinking (Bailin et al. 1999b: 291–293). But the development of such critical thinking abilities as designing an experiment or constructing an operational definition can benefit from learning their underlying theory. Further, explicit knowledge of quirks of human thinking seems useful as a cautionary guide. Human memory is not just fallible about details, as people learn from their own experiences of misremembering, but is so malleable that a detailed, clear and vivid recollection of an event can be a total fabrication (Loftus 2017). People seek or interpret evidence in ways that are partial to their existing beliefs and expectations, often unconscious of their “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998). Not only are people subject to this and other cognitive biases (Kahneman 2011), of which they are typically unaware, but it may be counter-productive for one to make oneself aware of them and try consciously to counteract them or to counteract social biases such as racial or sexual stereotypes (Kenyon & Beaulac 2014). It is helpful to be aware of these facts and of the superior effectiveness of blocking the operation of biases—for example, by making an immediate record of one’s observations, refraining from forming a preliminary explanatory hypothesis, blind refereeing, double-blind randomized trials, and blind grading of students’ work.

Critical thinking about an issue requires substantive knowledge of the domain to which the issue belongs. Critical thinking abilities are not a magic elixir that can be applied to any issue whatever by somebody who has no knowledge of the facts relevant to exploring that issue. For example, the student in Bubbles needed to know that gases do not penetrate solid objects like a glass, that air expands when heated, that the volume of an enclosed gas varies directly with its temperature and inversely with its pressure, and that hot objects will spontaneously cool down to the ambient temperature of their surroundings unless kept hot by insulation or a source of heat. Critical thinkers thus need a rich fund of subject-matter knowledge relevant to the variety of situations they encounter. This fact is recognized in the inclusion among critical thinking dispositions of a concern to become and remain generally well informed.

Experimental educational interventions, with control groups, have shown that education can improve critical thinking skills and dispositions, as measured by standardized tests. For information about these tests, see the Supplement on Assessment .

What educational methods are most effective at developing the dispositions, abilities and knowledge of a critical thinker? Abrami et al. (2015) found that in the experimental and quasi-experimental studies that they analyzed dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring each increased the effectiveness of the educational intervention, and that they were most effective when combined. They also found that in these studies a combination of separate instruction in critical thinking with subject-matter instruction in which students are encouraged to think critically was more effective than either by itself. However, the difference was not statistically significant; that is, it might have arisen by chance.

Most of these studies lack the longitudinal follow-up required to determine whether the observed differential improvements in critical thinking abilities or dispositions continue over time, for example until high school or college graduation. For details on studies of methods of developing critical thinking skills and dispositions, see the Supplement on Educational Methods .

12. Controversies

Scholars have denied the generalizability of critical thinking abilities across subject domains, have alleged bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, and have investigated the relationship of critical thinking to other kinds of thinking.

McPeck (1981) attacked the thinking skills movement of the 1970s, including the critical thinking movement. He argued that there are no general thinking skills, since thinking is always thinking about some subject-matter. It is futile, he claimed, for schools and colleges to teach thinking as if it were a separate subject. Rather, teachers should lead their pupils to become autonomous thinkers by teaching school subjects in a way that brings out their cognitive structure and that encourages and rewards discussion and argument. As some of his critics (e.g., Paul 1985; Siegel 1985) pointed out, McPeck’s central argument needs elaboration, since it has obvious counter-examples in writing and speaking, for which (up to a certain level of complexity) there are teachable general abilities even though they are always about some subject-matter. To make his argument convincing, McPeck needs to explain how thinking differs from writing and speaking in a way that does not permit useful abstraction of its components from the subject-matters with which it deals. He has not done so. Nevertheless, his position that the dispositions and abilities of a critical thinker are best developed in the context of subject-matter instruction is shared by many theorists of critical thinking, including Dewey (1910, 1933), Glaser (1941), Passmore (1980), Weinstein (1990), and Bailin et al. (1999b).

McPeck’s challenge prompted reflection on the extent to which critical thinking is subject-specific. McPeck argued for a strong subject-specificity thesis, according to which it is a conceptual truth that all critical thinking abilities are specific to a subject. (He did not however extend his subject-specificity thesis to critical thinking dispositions. In particular, he took the disposition to suspend judgment in situations of cognitive dissonance to be a general disposition.) Conceptual subject-specificity is subject to obvious counter-examples, such as the general ability to recognize confusion of necessary and sufficient conditions. A more modest thesis, also endorsed by McPeck, is epistemological subject-specificity, according to which the norms of good thinking vary from one field to another. Epistemological subject-specificity clearly holds to a certain extent; for example, the principles in accordance with which one solves a differential equation are quite different from the principles in accordance with which one determines whether a painting is a genuine Picasso. But the thesis suffers, as Ennis (1989) points out, from vagueness of the concept of a field or subject and from the obvious existence of inter-field principles, however broadly the concept of a field is construed. For example, the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning hold for all the varied fields in which such reasoning occurs. A third kind of subject-specificity is empirical subject-specificity, according to which as a matter of empirically observable fact a person with the abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker in one area of investigation will not necessarily have them in another area of investigation.

The thesis of empirical subject-specificity raises the general problem of transfer. If critical thinking abilities and dispositions have to be developed independently in each school subject, how are they of any use in dealing with the problems of everyday life and the political and social issues of contemporary society, most of which do not fit into the framework of a traditional school subject? Proponents of empirical subject-specificity tend to argue that transfer is more likely to occur if there is critical thinking instruction in a variety of domains, with explicit attention to dispositions and abilities that cut across domains. But evidence for this claim is scanty. There is a need for well-designed empirical studies that investigate the conditions that make transfer more likely.

It is common ground in debates about the generality or subject-specificity of critical thinking dispositions and abilities that critical thinking about any topic requires background knowledge about the topic. For example, the most sophisticated understanding of the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning is of no help unless accompanied by some knowledge of what might be plausible explanations of some phenomenon under investigation.

Critics have objected to bias in the theory, pedagogy and practice of critical thinking. Commentators (e.g., Alston 1995; Ennis 1998) have noted that anyone who takes a position has a bias in the neutral sense of being inclined in one direction rather than others. The critics, however, are objecting to bias in the pejorative sense of an unjustified favoring of certain ways of knowing over others, frequently alleging that the unjustly favoured ways are those of a dominant sex or culture (Bailin 1995). These ways favour:

• reinforcement of egocentric and sociocentric biases over dialectical engagement with opposing world-views (Paul 1981, 1984; Warren 1998)
• distancing from the object of inquiry over closeness to it (Martin 1992; Thayer-Bacon 1992)
• indifference to the situation of others over care for them (Martin 1992)
• orientation to thought over orientation to action (Martin 1992)
• being reasonable over caring to understand people’s ideas (Thayer-Bacon 1993)
• being neutral and objective over being embodied and situated (Thayer-Bacon 1995a)
• doubting over believing (Thayer-Bacon 1995b)
• reason over emotion, imagination and intuition (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
• solitary thinking over collaborative thinking (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
• written and spoken assignments over other forms of expression (Alston 2001)
• attention to written and spoken communications over attention to human problems (Alston 2001)
• winning debates in the public sphere over making and understanding meaning (Alston 2001)

A common thread in this smorgasbord of accusations is dissatisfaction with focusing on the logical analysis and evaluation of reasoning and arguments. While these authors acknowledge that such analysis and evaluation is part of critical thinking and should be part of its conceptualization and pedagogy, they insist that it is only a part. Paul (1981), for example, bemoans the tendency of atomistic teaching of methods of analyzing and evaluating arguments to turn students into more able sophists, adept at finding fault with positions and arguments with which they disagree but even more entrenched in the egocentric and sociocentric biases with which they began. Martin (1992) and Thayer-Bacon (1992) cite with approval the self-reported intimacy with their subject-matter of leading researchers in biology and medicine, an intimacy that conflicts with the distancing allegedly recommended in standard conceptions and pedagogy of critical thinking. Thayer-Bacon (2000) contrasts the embodied and socially embedded learning of her elementary school students in a Montessori school, who used their imagination, intuition and emotions as well as their reason, with conceptions of critical thinking as

thinking that is used to critique arguments, offer justifications, and make judgments about what are the good reasons, or the right answers. (Thayer-Bacon 2000: 127–128)

Alston (2001) reports that her students in a women’s studies class were able to see the flaws in the Cinderella myth that pervades much romantic fiction but in their own romantic relationships still acted as if all failures were the woman’s fault and still accepted the notions of love at first sight and living happily ever after. Students, she writes, should

be able to connect their intellectual critique to a more affective, somatic, and ethical account of making risky choices that have sexist, racist, classist, familial, sexual, or other consequences for themselves and those both near and far… critical thinking that reads arguments, texts, or practices merely on the surface without connections to feeling/desiring/doing or action lacks an ethical depth that should infuse the difference between mere cognitive activity and something we want to call critical thinking. (Alston 2001: 34)

Some critics portray such biases as unfair to women. Thayer-Bacon (1992), for example, has charged modern critical thinking theory with being sexist, on the ground that it separates the self from the object and causes one to lose touch with one’s inner voice, and thus stigmatizes women, who (she asserts) link self to object and listen to their inner voice. Her charge does not imply that women as a group are on average less able than men to analyze and evaluate arguments. Facione (1990c) found no difference by sex in performance on his California Critical Thinking Skills Test. Kuhn (1991: 280–281) found no difference by sex in either the disposition or the competence to engage in argumentative thinking.

The critics propose a variety of remedies for the biases that they allege. In general, they do not propose to eliminate or downplay critical thinking as an educational goal. Rather, they propose to conceptualize critical thinking differently and to change its pedagogy accordingly. Their pedagogical proposals arise logically from their objections. They can be summarized as follows:

• Focus on argument networks with dialectical exchanges reflecting contesting points of view rather than on atomic arguments, so as to develop “strong sense” critical thinking that transcends egocentric and sociocentric biases (Paul 1981, 1984).
• Foster closeness to the subject-matter and feeling connected to others in order to inform a humane democracy (Martin 1992).
• Develop “constructive thinking” as a social activity in a community of physically embodied and socially embedded inquirers with personal voices who value not only reason but also imagination, intuition and emotion (Thayer-Bacon 2000).
• In developing critical thinking in school subjects, treat as important neither skills nor dispositions but opening worlds of meaning (Alston 2001).
• Attend to the development of critical thinking dispositions as well as skills, and adopt the “critical pedagogy” practised and advocated by Freire (1968 [1970]) and hooks (1994) (Dalgleish, Girard, & Davies 2017).

A common thread in these proposals is treatment of critical thinking as a social, interactive, personally engaged activity like that of a quilting bee or a barn-raising (Thayer-Bacon 2000) rather than as an individual, solitary, distanced activity symbolized by Rodin’s The Thinker . One can get a vivid description of education with the former type of goal from the writings of bell hooks (1994, 2010). Critical thinking for her is open-minded dialectical exchange across opposing standpoints and from multiple perspectives, a conception similar to Paul’s “strong sense” critical thinking (Paul 1981). She abandons the structure of domination in the traditional classroom. In an introductory course on black women writers, for example, she assigns students to write an autobiographical paragraph about an early racial memory, then to read it aloud as the others listen, thus affirming the uniqueness and value of each voice and creating a communal awareness of the diversity of the group’s experiences (hooks 1994: 84). Her “engaged pedagogy” is thus similar to the “freedom under guidance” implemented in John Dewey’s Laboratory School of Chicago in the late 1890s and early 1900s. It incorporates the dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring that Abrami (2015) found to be most effective in improving critical thinking skills and dispositions.

What is the relationship of critical thinking to problem solving, decision-making, higher-order thinking, creative thinking, and other recognized types of thinking? One’s answer to this question obviously depends on how one defines the terms used in the question. If critical thinking is conceived broadly to cover any careful thinking about any topic for any purpose, then problem solving and decision making will be kinds of critical thinking, if they are done carefully. Historically, ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving’ were two names for the same thing. If critical thinking is conceived more narrowly as consisting solely of appraisal of intellectual products, then it will be disjoint with problem solving and decision making, which are constructive.

Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives used the phrase “intellectual abilities and skills” for what had been labeled “critical thinking” by some, “reflective thinking” by Dewey and others, and “problem solving” by still others (Bloom et al. 1956: 38). Thus, the so-called “higher-order thinking skills” at the taxonomy’s top levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation are just critical thinking skills, although they do not come with general criteria for their assessment (Ennis 1981b). The revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson et al. 2001) likewise treats critical thinking as cutting across those types of cognitive process that involve more than remembering (Anderson et al. 2001: 269–270). For details, see the Supplement on History .

As to creative thinking, it overlaps with critical thinking (Bailin 1987, 1988). Thinking about the explanation of some phenomenon or event, as in Ferryboat , requires creative imagination in constructing plausible explanatory hypotheses. Likewise, thinking about a policy question, as in Candidate , requires creativity in coming up with options. Conversely, creativity in any field needs to be balanced by critical appraisal of the draft painting or novel or mathematical theory.

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• Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking (AILACT)
• Center for Teaching Thinking (CTT)
• Critical Thinking Across the European Higher Education Curricula (CRITHINKEDU)
• Critical Thinking Definition, Instruction, and Assessment: A Rigorous Approach (criticalTHINKING.net)
• Critical Thinking Research (RAIL)
• Foundation for Critical Thinking
• Insight Assessment
• Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21)
• The Critical Thinking Consortium
• The Nature of Critical Thinking: An Outline of Critical Thinking Dispositions and Abilities , by Robert H. Ennis

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