Critical Thinker

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What are the characteristics and barriers of a good critical thinker? Critical thinking is an every day skill used to analyze our thoughts and make appropriate decisions. Everyday people around the world are faced with the challenge to think critically, whether they are a first-time car buyer or trying to talk a friend out of doing something ignorant. Critical thinking allows us to be flexible and open-minded when it comes to new ideas. There are characteristics as well as barriers of a good critical thinker. There are good characteristics to becoming a good critical thinker, which include flexibility, open-minded skepticism, and effective communications. Firstly, as a good critical thinker, flexibility allows for minor changes in life. By …show more content…

Firstly, experience is one of the bases of critical thinking. Due to the lack of experience it may block one from fully understanding the situation. For example, “I was turned down for the job I interviewed for” (Boss, 2014). Instead of me questioning why… I am only able to focus on the fact that I was turned down. Secondly, there are different types of resistance that may affect ones ability to think critically. Resistances may include avoiding someone due to different views, being ignorant caused by lack of knowledge, or being distracted by the television to hinder us from thinking critically. Lastly, according to Boss, narrow-mindedness, “such as absolutism, egocentrism, and ethnocentrism can become barriers to critical thinking.” Being narrow-minded is someone who is prejudice, does not care about anyone else’s thoughts or is willing to learn about another culture. In conclusion, there are characteristics as well as barriers of a critical thinker. The characteristics of a good critical thinker are flexibility, open-minded skepticism and effective communication skills. Barriers of a good critical thinker are having lack of experience, resistances, such as avoidance, ignorance and distraction, as well as being narrow-minded. Critical thinking is a skill that is used on a daily basis all around the

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