Let’s first start by defining Wishful vs. Cynical Thinking.

Wishful Thinking (according to Wikipedia) is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing to evidence, rationality or reality.

Cynical Thinking (which is NOT the same thing as Critical Thinking) is thinking that is predisposed to doubt and lack of trust.  Cynical Thinkers have a pessimstic view when problem solving and decision making.

The idea of Wishful vs. Cynical Thinking came to mind for me this week when a friend told me he thinks he has a coin worth $35,000.  This particular person is not a collector and typically does not own things of value, and to be quite honest, my Cynical Thinking kicked in immediately.

1. If you “think” you have a coin worth $35,000 and yet you’re just scraping by with your bills, wouldn’t you run to a coin appraiser and sell it immediately?
2. What does this individual even know about coins that would make him think it’s worth $35k?
3. Just because this kind of coin was once sold at auction for $35k doesn’t mean that’s what his coin is worth.  After all, his version isn’t even in the original packaging, so it would be down-graded in its current condition.
4. I’ll bet it’s a fake.
5. People like “us” don’t experience miracles like this.

So after I asked him several questions he showed me the coin and I really saw the stark difference between a Wishful Thinker and my Cynical Thinking.  He told me the history of how the “Sacagawea Dollar 2000 P” came into circulation.  Apparently Cheerios ran a marketing campaign that included 5,500 of these previously unreleased Sacagawea dollars in Cheerios boxes.  It is still unknown how this happened, but non-patterned Sacagawea coins were included in this series, which means that they have a very slight design difference from the Sacagawea Dollars currently in circulation.  Translation:  rare + mistake  = valuable.  On top of the fact that these rare coins (now commonly referred to as a “Cheerios Dollar”) were available to unsuspecting cereal eaters, there’s the very real possibility that the individuals lucky enough to receive one of these 5,500 coins had no idea how valuable the coin would be.  Remember, they were still only worth a dollar in 2000.  They were created by the U.S. mint to get people excited about the upcoming release of the coin to the general population.  So, who knows how many people opened the packaging and spent the coin over the past 12 years.

So, back to my original story…after seeing the coin in person and doing some research, I examined the coin for the necessary characteristics.  I found myself looking for ways in which his coin differed from the pictures of the authentic coin.  At the same time, my friend kept telling me about all the ways in which the coin looks similar to the authentic coin.

And there’s the problem…neither Wishful Thinking nor Cynical Thinking is superior.  They’re both flawed by a logical fallacy called “Confirmation Bias.”  Instead of looking at the situation neutrally and only relying on logic and reasoning, we were both predisposed to seeking out information that proved our respective beliefs.

I wanted to prove that the coin was fake, so I paid close attention to the differences in his coin vs. a verified coin.  He wanted to believe he had a $35k coin, so he paid close attention to the similarities between his coin and the verified coin.

When you become influenced by Confirmation Bias, you stop paying attention to anything that could disprove your belief/hypothesis, and that is a major error.  That is NOT critical thinking.  So, in the end, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Wishful Thinker or Cynical Thinker because, by their very nature, the thinking is flawed from the start.

What examples of Confirmation Bias have you seen recently?

Are you scheduled to take the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal assessment for training or selection and looking for a practice test?

Then I have bad news for you.

Because the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal assessment is the most widely known assessment for measuring critical thinking skills and is most often used to select employees, therefore you will not find a practice test online.  In fact, if you’ve found a site that says it has the “real” questions to the Watson-Glaser, save your money…the site is a fraud.  We have a full-time team devoted to scouring the web to ensure that the questions in the assessment are not leaked.

The Watson-Glaser is a measure of cognitive ability, so there is really nothing you can do in a short period of time to practice the test and increase your scores anyway.

The best way to prepare for the assessment is to clear plenty of time (at least 30-45 minutes), make sure your environment is free of distractions, and read all of the questions carefully.

The assessment itself is made up of 40 questions and measures your skills in thinking, reasoning, and intelligence.  What you can expect are questions that measure your ability to understand:

• A strong versus weak argument
• Relevant versus irrelevant data
• Whether or not the conclusion follows from the data given
• Whether or not there is sufficient information to make a conclusion
• What assumptions were made

Did you just read that title and groan?  Why do so many of us find talk of New Year’s resolutions so loathsome?  Perhaps it’s because so often New Year’s resolutions are made over and over again (meaning we didn’t really commit to them in previous years).  How many years in a row have you made a resolution to lose weight, eat healthier, spend more time with your family, quit smoking, save money, etc?

A recent survey showed that:

“a little less than half of all Americans make some kind of new year’s resolution, but most don’t keep them.

75% will last a week.
64% will keep them for a month.
Only 46% will ever make it to the six month mark.”

In fact, gym memberships rise by about 30% in January, but actual gym attendance only stays high for a month or two.

The idea of making a resolution to improve oneself sounds fantastic, but having the energy/persistence to follow through with that commitment for 12 months takes considerable effort.  So, why do so many resolutions fall by the wayside so quickly and how can we think critically to make smarter/more attainable resolutions?  Here are a few tips:

• The goal is unrealistic. When I hear someone say that their resolution is to go to the gym every day I have to bite my tongue.  I happen to have a body builder and an athletic coach in my family and even they don’t work out every single day.  Instead of trying to commit to a complete behavior overhaul, try making incremental changes first.  Remember that we are naturally resistant to most change, so just like you slowly enter a hot bath so that your body can become accustomed to the temperature, you should ease in to your resolution.
• The resolution is too general. A resolution such as “Be a Better Mom” is so broad that it’s hard to nail down all of the specific tasks you’d need to accomplish to make the change.  Just like the goals you set for yourself at work, your goals should be specific and measurable.  How do you define “Being a better mom?”  Choose a resolution that you can define and assign specific activities to yourself that will help you accomplish that goal.
• Too much, too soon. If you have more than 1 resolution, that’s probably too many.  Don’t underestimate how difficult it is to make a change.  For instance, if your resolution is to stop smoking, don’t also make a “lose weight” resolution at the same time.  A life changing goal like trying to stop smoking is extremely difficult.  Don’t stack the odds against yourself by trying to take on that task as well as other equally difficult and competing goals.  Most people who try to stop smoking will gain some weight.  You will likely set yourself up for disappointment if you think you can do everything at once.
• There are no milestones. Just a few weeks ago you could hear parents all across the world warning their children to “be good because Santa is watching.”  If a parent tried that same tactic today when Christmas is 360 days away, it would have little effect because there’s too much time between now and the pay-off for good behavior.  It will be difficult to stick to your goal if you can’t celebrate for 12 more months.  Instead, set monthly goals with milestones and celebrate your progress along the way with little gifts to yourself.  This will help you stay motivated and committed to continuous improvement over the next 366 days (unless of course the Mayan calendar is correct).
• No accountability. What happens if you cheat on your goal?  Are there any consequences?  Have you ever noticed that it’s harder to disappoint someone else other than yourself?  That’s why lots of people adopt gym buddies to stay committed to the task of working out consistently.  Skipping a day at the gym when you have a gym buddy means that you’ve left the other person unsupported.  We naturally feel bad about not helping someone else that is relying on us.  That guilt alone might help you stay on task.  Choose a trusted friend to help you stay committed to your goal.  Ask them to monitor your progress, nudge you along when you’re straying, and celebrate your successes.
• Frustration kills hope. Expect setbacks.  It’s difficult for anyone to make a 100% change and stick with it for a full 12 months.  If you slip up, don’t give up entirely.  Accept that you will occasionally fall short of your goal, and be ready to adjust your plans.  Perhaps in March you will realize that your goal of saving $100 per paycheck was unrealistic.  Don’t stop saving money entirely.  Try only saving $50 from each paycheck and see how that goes for a few months.  Some progress is better than no progress.

Hopefully these suggestions will help you stick to your New Year’s resolutions.  What are your tips for successfully setting and attaining your goals?

Just 20 years ago, desktop publishing was a hot career skill, salespeople looked up prospects in the yellow pages, and financial advisors had market information that you and I didn’t. A lot has changed since then – about markets and our jobs!

Ask a friend if they know any good marketing people and they might assume you’re asking if they know anyone creative – someone to write a jingle for the next Tide commercial. But marketing today is as much about great data analytics and IT integration as it is clever slogans.

This got me thinking. What jobs have changed the most? Here are some that came to mind:

• Police officers scour criminal activity on neighborhood crime sites and Craigslist and they chase leads/tips on Google as much as they do on the street.

• CEO’s can see more of what their competitors are doing on a daily basis so a company’s strategy is more obvious. Salespeople can also follow other salespeople on Twitter.
• Nurses can get their degrees 100% online (scary).
• Church leaders proselyte and freely share beliefs and counsel to members online.
• Teachers interact with parents in school-sponsored communities and post grades instantly.
• Parents can now watch their kids’ interactions with friends and stop problems before they materialize.
• Real estate agents are more like financial & lifestyle advisors since Realtor.com launched.
• Garbage collectors probably pick up more trash as the Web has made it easier to consume.
• Athletes still make plays on the field, but they use Twitter to talk to fans and build their personal brands (which influences their value to a team’s bottom line).
• Farmers still work by the sweat of their brow, but new farmers can learn the ropes before planting their first crop.

How has your profession changed because of the web? Has the web made you any better at what you do?

For the past week I’ve been doing some very necessary, but non-stimulating work tasks.  I’ve been searching for HR organizations and building spreadsheets with contact names, phone numbers, websites, email addresses, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc (by the way, did you know there are more than 750 regional chapters of SHRM, ASTD, and OD Network?).  Anyway, for about a week my mind was lulled into a rhythm of search, open new window, copy, paste, rinse, and repeat.  I don’t mind though, because I am meticulous about data collection and probably wouldn’t trust anyone else to compile this list for me anyway.

Yesterday, however, I realized that the monotony had taken its toll.  I had just purchased my afternoon Soy Latte at Starbucks, and when the barista handed me my drink she said “Thank you” to which I responded “Love you too.”   Wait….what?!?!

That’s right!  I said “I love you!” to my local Starbucks barista! My brain was not only on auto-pilot, but it was on auto-pilot on the wrong plane!

Before you laugh too hard at my expense, you know you’ve done the same thing.  You know you’ve grabbed a meal somewhere and when the cashier said “Enjoy your meal” you responded “You too.”

It happens.  We expect a certain exchange in routine conversations and as a result, we don’t always stay engaged in what is actually being said.  How often have you been introduced to someone and because you were thinking about your own response you didn’t listen to the person’s name?

When our brains detect a routine, they reserve their energy and switch into passive mode. Routines are like kryptonite to the critical thinking process. When you’re in a routine, you don’t ask questions.  You don’t seek out new information.  You don’t see inefficiency.  You don’t challenge assumptions.  You don’t allow yourself the opportunity to make connections between unrelated concepts.

While my Starbucks love confession will only have minor implications on my life (i.e. driving a mile further to get my coffee at the next closest Starbucks from now on), any time we allow our brains to act passively we lose the opportunity to think BIG.  If I’d really been actively involved in my Starbucks visit, who knows what I might have noticed.  A patron reading an interesting book?  A conversation about an interesting topic?  An opportunity to network?  The meaning of life?  Who knows…

Instead I walked out of the Starbucks 3 shades more red than when I arrived, and with a blog post idea brewing.  Keep your eyes open, stay engaged in the moment, and save the “I love you’s” for someone who can offer you more than some extra whipped cream.

What was your most embarrassing auto-pilot moment?

Photo credit to Spenser Marie

Guest Post by Patty Duggan

When you hear the phrase, “social media,” what images come to mind? Teens posting a Facebook status about their latest break-up? Celebrities tweeting about their every move? Blogs containing everything from stupid pet photos to video game cheats to yet another person’s round-the-world trip??

Many people see social media as a harbinger for the end of critical thinking. Schools are banning teachers and students from using it, as evidenced by the recent Missouri law.

Yet a few innovative teachers have actually found ways to turn this technological enemy into an educational tool to promote critical thinking. Here are just a few examples:

Wanda Reyes at Sam Houston State University gives students in her Public Relations course assignments on YouTube. Students watch news stories on YouTube with a list of questions to help them analyze the content, then participate in a group discussion the following class period. Over the course of the semester, students learn to think critically about the content they view online and even introduce content they find independently into class discussions.

Monika Rankin at the University of Texas at Dallas used Twitter for her U.S. History class, which took place in a large, auditorium-style classroom with 90 students. Students would have mini group-discussions on a certain topic and then tweet their most important points with established hash tags for the class. The tweets were projected on a screen and would formulate a class discussion, Twitter-style, for the whole class to see. Rankin notes that the process encouraged students to engage who would not have done otherwise. It also fostered a type of collaborative learning where students could share insights that benefitted the whole class.

Mr. Featherstone of Ontario, Canada, created a blog for his high school which included instructions for a Facebook Character project. Students had to create a Facebook page for a fictional character from a novel they were studying. They would essentially role-play the character through social media by posting pictures, status updates, and wall posts as that character. A project like this gets students to think much deeper about a character’s place in a fictional story and analyze how their classmates may interpret the same character in different ways.

While obvious limitations exist for the use of social media in the classroom, such as the risk of students posting inappropriate content, a lack of technological resources at the school, or even something as simple as the 140-character limit on Twitter, social media has the potential to benefit the way students learn. With over 500 million Facebook users alone, social media is a phenomenon that cannot be ignored. Although some schools seem to think the answer is to ban it altogether, examples such as the ones above seem to suggest that embracing social media can lead to methods of teaching critical thinking to students.

As opinions continue to differ, it remains to be seen what the educational system as a whole will decide what to do about social media.

Editor’s Note: Patty Duggan has a degree in psychology and has been in practice for 11 years. She owns the site Psychology Degrees. She writes about various subjects within the psychology field.

Have you seen evidence of classroom use of social media lead to critical thinking?

Everyone has one.  One of those moments where you look back and ask yourself “What was I thinking?”

Perhaps it was the guy you dated despite the protests from your friends and family. It could be the job change you made thinking that the money would make it worth the soul-crushing work.  Or the jumbo cheesy pretzel dog you ate right before boarding a long flight.  Cashing out your 401k?  Driving drunk?  Having you kid’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese?

There are so many opportunities in life to make the wrong choice/decision, but what matters the most is how you recover from those mistakes.  Did you take time to reflect on what went wrong in the decision making process?  Where did you lose focus on logic and reason?  If the opportunity/situation presented itself again today, how would you handle it differently?

Here’s one of my biggest “What was I thinking?” moments:

When I was a senior in high school I was given the amazing opportunity to travel to Spain and Africa.  We arrived in the middle of the summer and it was 110 degrees in the shade.  It was miserable.  Our hotel’s policy was to turn on the air conditioning on a certain date as opposed to heat level (critical thinking fail?). So, my roommate and I were desperate.  The only thing that made our hotel room bearable was when a tiny breeze wafted through our room, however with only 1 window that was a rare event.

At some point we realized that when our door was open the air flowed through the room easily.  Great…problem solved- we just left our door open all night.  Yes, that’s right, two 17 year old girls who were staying in a foreign country thought it was a good idea to leave their hotel room door open all night long.  Thankfully nothing happened to us, but now I look back and say “What was I thinking?”

I could blame this poor choice on immaturity and lack of life experiences, but truthfully, I was fully aware of the risk.  Where I erred was in my ability to weigh the benefit of comfort from a breeze to the risk of being kidnapped, murdered, robbed, etc.  I made the assumption that because my entire hotel floor consisted of other students from my high school that I was safe.  I assumed no one else would walk through the hallway of my hotel floor.  I assumed the other students on the trip wouldn’t harm me if they realized my door was open while I slept.

In the end, the core to my poor decision was a belief that good people don’t do bad things.

Today, I wouldn’t make the same mistake.  While nothing bad happened to me on my trip to Spain, I still learned from my error in judgement.  I am very cautious when I travel now and often think about how lucky I was that I made it home safely.

If you take a “What was I thinking?” moment and turn it into a life lesson then you won’t make the same mistake again.  Reflection is a core component to critical thinking. The more you reflect and improve your decisions based on your life experiences, the better decisions you will make in the future.

What is your biggest “What was I thinking?” moment?

What can you do in 5 minutes?

Brush your teeth?

Beat a level of Angry Birds?

Check your email?

Check your klout score?

Flip through the channels?

Check on your Fantasy Football team?

Sure.  You could do all of those things.  But are any of those really important? Is it possible to do anything really important in just 5 minutes?

The answer is yes.

Today, in only 5 minutes, you can go online to http://wegivebooks.org/nyt and read a free online children’s book.  When you finish, click the “Give a Book” option and we will send a hardcover or paperback book to either The Mission Continues, Pat Tillman Foundation, or United Through Reading.

All it takes is 5 minutes of your time (and no money) to send a book to one of these 3 great military charities which support U.S. soldiers’ families.  It’s that simple!

AND…you can read as many free online children’s books as you want.  If you love Llama Llama Red Pajama and want to read it over and over again, you can!  We will donate one book for each time you read that book and click the “Give a Book” button at the end.

So, I’ll ask again…is it possible to do anything really important in just 5 minutes?  If you believe that supporting military families, literacy, children, and critical thinking is important….then yes, it’s possible.

Will you commit to reading at least one book at http://wegivebooks.org/nyt today?

When we are in familiar settings, the brain often becomes comfortable and can shift into mental auto-pilot.  While this energy saving technique is often helpful, we should be careful to realize that during this time we are not thinking critically.  Actually, we aren’t thinking at all.

So often we fail to improve our standard processes or explore the unknown because what is familiar is safe and doesn’t require shifting out of auto-pilot.

Have you ever said a common phrase like “I’m trying to ‘get a leg up‘ on the competition” and suddenly realized you don’t even know what that phrase actually means?  Where did the phrase ‘get a leg up on‘ originate?

Thanks to my friend Mike Kunkle (Director of Sales Effectiveness at Insphere Insurance Solutions), now I know why people say ‘get a leg up on.’ Mike sent me a link to a great website that details the origins of some very common phrases.  It amazed me, as I read through the list, how often I used phrases I couldn’t even define.  For instance, have you used any of these phrases?:

• At the drop of a hat
• Hog wash
• Armed to the teeth
• Get the gist
• Fly off the handle
• Put a sock in it
• To be beside yourself
• Son of a gun

While using any of these expressions without knowing the true origin may not be harmful, it is an example of how when something is common, it isn’t questioned.

Take some time today to STOP and THINK about what you do every day without questioning…your path to work…how much you tip…the brands you buy….the trash you throw away….the values you hold, etc.

What did you STOP and THINK about today?

Trick interview questions say more about the interviewer than it does about the candidate’s answer, but I found this Dilbert comic worth sharing!