Sometimes people make decisions that are beyond their and their reasonable thinking. Instead, their thinking mostly depends on a particular situation or on other people’s experiences. That means that their principles and prejudice are based on subjective meaning, and therefore they don’t realize indeed to what consequences it might lead. On the other hand, there are people who believe that decision–making is an independent and personal process consisting of objective evaluation of the decision and the process of thinking itself. Those people always try to discover a decent ground for accepting the appropriate position. So let us find the most effective approach in making a decision and try to answer the question of whether we need to apply critical thinking in the decision-making process.
First of all, significant importance should be paid to the definition of the thinking process itself. “Thinking process is the process that is connected with mental activities of your brain” Further on, it affects our perceiving of the world and its understanding. By means of thinking and understanding, a person acquires certain knowledge that in the future will be utilized in similar situations (Magdalena, 2008). However, while gathering information, a person can form his/her own judgments and attitudes to the given facts so that he/she could obtain an experience. Despite the fact that the thinking process is considered to be an individual and independent one, there is an obvious possibility of influencing the way people think and perceive. To be more precise, minds can be easily controlled and imposed by unpredictable statements. Considering this a critical thinking is a contrary way of analyzing information that is based on a person’s own judgments. In other words, a critical thinking process stands at the upper level of thinking. Critical thinking gives an opportunity to recognize true and false facts. So it may be appraised as a conscious constituent part of the thinking process as a whole and cannot be considered as an inborn skill. (Diane F. Halpern, 2003).
Personally, in my life, a critical thinking plays an enormous role in the decision-making process due to the fact that only independent and objective decisions can bring some positive results and lead you closer to the assigned goal. A bright example could be given the following. While working in a team, it is always hard to create your own judgments and to set a fixed position in this or that point since you have to follow all the rules and principles of the company you work in. In other words, there is an idea that you should always report to your manager in order to meet the requirements. But I am inclined to consider this statement false owing to the fact that my work is mostly connected with the decision-making process. Hence comes, a good employer is one who is capable of being an idea generator and decision-maker in to accomplish his/her obligations in a proper way. In my case the ability to process data is obligatory and the main purpose of my work. As a result, a right decision might contribute both to your promotion and to the development of the company.
Taking into consideration my own example, the idea of the importance to develop critical thinking skills is to the point. And there are a lot of reasons for that. To start with, it should be admitted that we live in the era of the “information exposure” and in order to structure it and to master it, a critical thinking is of urgent importance. That is why an evaluation of the thinking process and creating your own decision-making system acquires an enormous significance. Furthermore, the development of the internet makes us learn how to choose the required information out of the data flow. (Diane F. Halpern, 2003). Secondly, the ability of critical thinking helps us to protect us from the useless information and make up decision based on the obvious facts and evidences. This skill will contribute to a
better understanding of the surrounding world. In addition, a critical thinking trains how to use your own experience on practice. And finally, if to think globally critical thinking and the decision making process in particular can strongly affect the future of the Earth, the economy of the states and the relationships between countries, the education sphere, the ecological situation. Therefore, to handle and to improve the situation there should be people who are not afraid of accepting a certain decision that can influence the fates of the current society. Especially it concerns the political sphere and the voting process.
After considering all advantages and disadvantages of the issue, it is obligatory to insist on the fact that critical thinking is in high demand. In addition, it includes not only the decision-making process but also creative thinking, solving-problems process and conclusion making as well. It is also highly applied in all spheres of life. Hence, there appears a necessity to include the study of this process in the educational process in order to train students how to objectively assess the problems and not to be influenced by the public opinion.
References
Halpern, D. F. (2003). Thought & Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking. Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Magdalena Les. (2008). Shape understanding system: the first steps toward the visual thinking machines. Australia: Springer.