Thinking and Decision Making

Thinking and Decision Making

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Thinking and Decision Making

Critical thinking is a process that relates to many types of thinking styles. They include logical thinking, creative thinking, pessimistic thinking, optimistic thinking, persuasive thinking, and scientific thinking. These styles may be applied within organizations or businesses during the decision-making process. The different styles of thinking can affect the way people make decisions personally and professionally. This is why it is critical to make the best decision without bias to obtain the most effective resolution to the problem. In this paper three types of thinking styles will be discuss. They are logical thinking, persuasive thinking, and scientific thinking and how they compare and contrast with making decisions and applying the critical thinking process through examples in the workplace.

"Tell me what is a thought and of what substance it is made"? - William Blake. To understand the different types of thinking styles and to compare and contrast them, first identify what thinking means. One of the most useful ways to define thinking is by examining the results of human communication. Everything that enters our mind is processed or thought of, and it is our choice on whether or not we respond.

Information is received through listening, observing, or reading. The information is disseminated by speaking, acting, or writing responses back. This proves the true definition that communication mirrors thoughts, and it is just that simple People don't realize they are doing it.

Although communication mirrors thoughts, it can still be a cloudy mirror that at times may not leave enough understanding to how others may demonstrate their thoughts. For some it is about the basics such as thinking to dialogue, it involves validation and insights that allows anyone to understand that they cannot have one without the other. Another is thinking to writing, it gives clarity, exactness, awareness, and richness. In many people's opinion this is the most common form of thinking. It allows them to take others thoughts wherever they go. The last important fact to identify to completely understand and analyze thinking is miss-thinking. Most have experienced it, and it can have an outcome that could leave an impression that can out shine at times, any positive thinking that may occur. When beginning to analyze the characteristics of thinking one can begin to understand how they impact everyday life.

Critical-Thinking Process

Logical Thinking is a combination of different thinking styles. One could define it as the use of the mind in an effective, intelligent, and creative way directed toward the solution of a problem. Based on observing facts, identifying the issues, applying the process to analyze facts, organizing facts, clarifying what needs to be accomplished and then to create a workable plan based on the information.

Persuasive thinking is said to be an art. The ability to influence someone to do something is called persuasion. Persuasion is most powerful and enduring when it is both honest and built up on a solid foundation. Everyone prospers when it involves accurate facts, clean logic, and persuaders who have integrity. However, some persuaders are deliberately inaccurate, illogical, or dishonest; they bend and distort their messages to satisfy their own needs for power or possessions (Kirby & Goodpaster, 2007, p. 272). Persuasive thinking is most effective by thinking clearly and using logical persuasive techniques.

Scientific thinking is having accurate evidence. Scientific thinking does not depend on opinions; its conclusions are drawn from evidence. The steps are first to define the problem through observation, hypothesis formulation, experimentation,