Thinking and Decision Making

Thinking and Decision Making

Human factors such as environment, stress, emotions, and bias influence how a person uses critical thinking when making decisions. "Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action" (Scriven & Paul, 2009, Summary, para. 1). The team will analyze, compare, and contrast three different thinking styles: emotional, logical, and pessimistic. The team will address how to apply critical thinking to decision-making in the workplace, using these types of thinking styles addressed in this paper.

Analyze

Thinking styles are part of the critical thinking process, which involves individual gathering information and facts better to resolve, and come to logical decision about a process. Emotional, logical, and pessimistic thinking involves different aspects by individuals who must gather information, analyze, and make a solid decision. The first style emotional thinking individuals will base their decisions from their emotions instead of gathering the facts. Next is logical thinking, which deals with the ability to solve problems and make smart decisions. Last, pessimistic, is a person who always has a negative attitude toward anything in life or in business. Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines pessimism as "An inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome" (Merriam-Webster's, 2011).

Compare and contrast

Thinking styles play an important role in critical thinking. Emotional thinking style makes decisions on how he or she is feeling. If a person is upset this can cause a person to make a bad decision. This can lead to regrets or embarrassment in business and at home, which can result in bad decisions in the critical thinking process. Emotional and pessimistic are intelligences, and by understanding his or her own intelligence keep biases out of the ending results. Logical is a straightforward technique used to create a conclusion. Logical thinking is one style each individual deals with every day. In the critical thinking process logical thinking can help in the decision making process because individuals have to gather, analyze, and brainstorm to reach a decision that will solve the problem. A pessimistic thinking style can cause a person to make a bad decision or quit on a critical project because he or she allows negative thoughts during the critical thinking process. The main goal is to know the problem, create a plan, and fix the problem through the critical thinking process.

Workplace examples

The thinking styles of emotional, logical, and pessimistic are present every day in the workforce. An example of emotionally awareness in the workforce is the manager has a friend at work subordinate to the manager. The employee has been with the company for many years and understands the company structure and is very loyal to the organization. However, the employee is producing the lowest revenue in the department, month after