8 Cognitive Traits for Achieving Critical Thinking Mastery
A guide for higher-order thinking and achieving your goals
A couple articles ago, I wrote about the principles and elements of bullet-proof reasoning.
This article is about what separates an average thinker from a higher level thinker.
It has to do with 8 intellectual traits.
Achieving these 8 traits should make you a rock star in critical thinking.
Here’s a summary of them for your reference and use.
1. Intellectual humility
This one’s about being aware of one’s limits in knowledge.
We don’t know what we don’t know, and, we can only be so much aware of our own biases.
The converse is intellectual pretentiousness.
How to get it:
- Don’t be pretentious, boastful, or conceited with your knowledge. Practice humility.
2. Intellectual courage
This one’s about addressing viewpoints, ideas, and beliefs that we may have strong emotions towards, usually negative.
It’s about facing them rather than avoiding them altogether because doing the latter doesn’t allow you to consider the whole picture.
We can’t be true to our thinking if we’re avoiding ideas because of emotional reactions to them. That’s not rational thinking.
The converse is intellectual cowardice.
How to get:
- Welcome ideas and see where they take you.
- Suspend judgment and what you know, at least initially.
3. Intellectual empathy
If you want to understand and consider all viewpoints in a problem or issue, you have to place yourself in the shoes of those viewpoints.
Understanding the viewpoint of others includes trying to understand their assumptions, premises, and ideas.
The converse is being narrow-minded.
How to get:
- Put aside ego for a little while to absorb other perspectives different from your own.
- Understand that you’re temporarily placing yourself in the shoes of other perspectives to understand all angles.
4. Intellectual autonomy
Think for yourself.
It requires that you not only trust the process of reasoning, but that you actually implement the elements and principles of thinking to your problems and ultimate decision-making.
The converse is conformity to what’s in front of you, never questioning or thinking for yourself and letting others do the thinking for you.
How to get:
- Learn not to follow the majority. Yes, it takes some effort, but individuality beats commonality.
- Review the elements and principles of critical thinking and apply them.
5. Intellectual integrity
It’s perhaps impossible to be completely unbiased when you have no one but yourself to put a check on your thinking.
But this recognition, of the need to be consistent in one’s own thinking, is a huge step forward.
The converse is lying to yourself, being a hypocrite and changing your thinking to fit your own needs.
How to get:
- Focus on being consistent in thoughts and actions.
6. Intellectual perseverance
This is none other than embracing serendipity, the frustration of the unknown and continuing to push forward despite it.
This is especially difficult in the beginning when learning a new topic. It’s messy, there are ideas floating around everywhere, sources are plenty, and rabbit holes unending.
But all this helps us achieve deeper understandings and insights.
The converse is intellectual laziness.
How to get:
- Understand that serendipity is the process for going deep into a topic you want to really learn about.
- Understand that learning is not a straight line, it includes going into rabbit holes and embracing it.
7. Confidence in reason
This trait, although similar to intellectual autonomy, is focused on trusting that reason will get us closer to solving our problems and making better decisions.
It’s about having faith that through reason humanity will be better served.
The converse is a distrust or intolerance of reason and evidence.
How to get:
- Understand that critical thinking is the path to increased clarity.
8. Fairmindedness
This trait tells us to reserve judgment, at least until the end or the other person has had a chance to give her entire perspective.
It tells us to give every viewpoint a fair shot and treat them equally before discarding them.
To take our feeling and emotions out of the equation when evaluating and reasoning.
The converse is intellectual unfairness.
How to get:
- Give viewpoints their equal fair shot before making declarations or giving opinions.
- Catch yourself when your emotions are about to arise and remind yourself of the need to be objective and fair.
If you want to learn more about the skill of critical thinking, take a look at the Foundational for Critical Thinking and the Center for Critical Thinking along with their many published books.
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