Critical thinking: definitions, applications, and development

Psychology and Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking and Psychology

Critical thinking is the examination and test of propositions of any kind which are offered for acceptance, in order to find out whether they correspond to reality or not.... It is our only guarantee against delusion, deception, superstition, and misapprehension of ourselves and our earthly circumstances." William Graham Sumner spoke these words early in the 19th century and since then his influence in the field of critical thinking has grown. Educators today use critical thinking as a basic method of teaching and therapists using various cognitive-behaviorial techniques, use it to teach their clients to analyze their own thoughts and actions as a result of Sumner's guidance. (Sumner, 1963, 95) therapist, realizing that much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced, and therefore may try to get his or her patient to think critically; that is, to stop manipulating ideas to make them fit interests, realizing that the quality of life, all the goals the patient produces, the relationships the patient makes, and the environments the patient builds around them depends precisely on the quality and directions of their thoughts. (Scriven, 2004)

Research into the value of critical thinking probably came about when Freud became influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of the behavior of early human societies. Later theorists in the field of psychology, such as Hyman Spotnitz, a modern psychoanylist, and William Graham Sumner, expanded Freud's theory to include the ability of the human mind to think critically, or to bend one's mind (forgetting the bad and remembering chosen events) to form one's impression of life. Melanie Klein theorized that a child's perception of what is occuring around them determines whether they develop into depressive or schizoid-depressive personalities, or whether, with proper guidance, they develop normally. (Klein, 1966) it is important that research continue in the field of psychology to determine what techniques of critical thinking may aid the disturbed patient.