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Learning Theory & Critical Thinking
By Brian J. McAulay, D.C., Ph.D.

Integrated cognition: thinking, then blinking.

With the deluge of information hurling at us in our interconnected 24/7 world, there’s little time to digest one piece of data before the next barrels in. The amount of information a medieval knight took a lifetime to absorb arrives every day in a regular edition of The New York Times, and is supposed to be digested in about the time it takes to eat a bagel. The result is information overload and thinking deprivation.

We may be preoccupied with numerous “thoughts” racing through our heads at any moment, but does, “Which tie would impress the boss?” or “How is my neighbor paying for that car?” really count as thinking? We all indulge in mental meandering, but, if we mistake such idle reflection for true thinking when faced with important decisions, we’re selling ourselves short and risking bad results.

An interesting (and maybe a little frightening) study published in Psychology Today explored exactly what is going through people’s minds. They engaged subjects in simple activities and then sounded a buzzer at varied times and asked them to immediately stop and quickly write down what was going through their minds. The number one answer? Money. Actually, men were most often thinking about sex, but when added together with women’s answers, the top choice for the entire group was money.

The study helped to elucidate how busy, wandering and active our minds might be, but also a certain lack of disciplined, focus thought. Maybe that’s because thinking, actual critical thought, is hard work. The philosopher Bertrand Russell said, “Most men would rather die than think.”

But thinking—real discernment—is at the heart of human advancement and influence. It enables us to learn from the past and predict how our behaviors might impact the future. Critical thinking is an active, purposeful, organized process we use to clarify and improve our understanding of our world, make decisions and reach goals.

Critical Thinking is one of Life University’s Eight Core Proficiencies interwoven throughout its curricula specifically because it’s necessary to every component of successful professional and personal life. Life engages students in critical thinking by teaching them how to gather meaningful data, synthesize new information with existing knowledge, think independently and search for practical application of their knowledge in professional practice and daily life.

How you view the world is one of the first steps to understanding how you think and how you interpret what you observe. One view of reality, called Subjectivism or Solipsism, says that everyone creates his own reality. In essence, perception is reality. From this framework, every view can be seen as just as valid as any other since there is no one, true reality, but rather the myriad realities created by each individual in time.

An objectivist views reality much differently. He maintains that the world and its happenings are observable fact and human beings have the potential to see the world as it really is. They say there is one knowable truth, independent of what individuals think and that empirical science provides humankind’s best understanding of reality. Objectivists consider the human brain to be a potentially accurate movie camera or data processor.

I assert that both camps are wrong—and both right—and offer the interpretism/social constructionism model. This model asks, “Do you see what I see?” It accepts that the world is an objective reality but that our perception of it is individualized and imperfect. Consider, for example, the electro-magnetic spectrum. There is a very narrow band of frequencies and wavelengths a human being can actually perceive. Ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays, infrared and radio waves cannot be perceived by human beings with their raw senses. Yet, we know and accept that they exist.

I see the Interpretism model as an effective aid to rigorous thinking because it helps us understand that there are absolutes in the universe, but that we may not know what they are because of our own perceptual deficiencies. This model considers physical barriers to perception (such as not hearing sound waves at certain frequencies) as well as the trickier psychological barriers that stand in the way of accurate perception, such as bias and prejudice.

In his popular bestseller “Blink,” Malcolm Gladwell asserts that much of our thinking, and decision making, is done on a subconscious “gut” level without cognitive awareness. He calls it rapid cognition and describes it as those conclusions you make in two seconds without even knowing you’re thinking. He says we often make wise choices that are almost instantaneous and not characterized by the careful gathering of information and weighing of options we usually associate with good decision making. But, he cautions, rapid cognition can also create bad decisions, especially in more complex situations that require review of a greater range of inputs. In addition, split-second decisions can be impacted by forces working at a subconscious level you aren’t even aware of.

For example, he found in calling hundreds of Fortune 500 companies that almost every one was headed by a CEO of above average height. Even though there is no correlation between height and intellect or height and leadership abilities, he explains something is happening in that first two seconds of meeting someone that leads to conclusions that taller people make better leaders. He cautions that we need to distinguish between good and bad rapid cognition. What to do when confronted with a speeding car or what to have for lunch are likely well served with gut decisions. Choosing a CEO is not.

Consider the Implicit Association Test (IAT) developed by other university researchers to measure attitude and beliefs people are unwilling or unable to report and used by Gladwell in his book. The computer-based test had participants rapidly sort certain images and attributes and black and white faces into categories as prescribed at the top of the screen. Typically, the test takers (even African Americans) perform the test more slowly when the positive attributes are to be placed in the same column as pictures of African Americans. They perform the task more quickly when the positive attributes are supposed to be placed in same column with white faces. This occurs even despite conscious desires to the contrary.

Interestingly, though, if a test taker first reads passages about successful African Americans such as Martin Luther King Jr., Colin Powell or Oprah Winfrey, their scores change and they can more quickly sort positive attributes into the African American column.

In another test, participants were asked to repeatedly take five words scrambled into meaningless order and quickly omit one so they could reorganize the remaining four into a sentence. When the words to be omitted included “worried, Florida, old, lonely, gray, forgetful, Bingo and wrinkly” the test takers exited the room more slowly than they had entered.

In a similar test, when words included in the exercise portrayed aggressiveness and rude behavior, the test takers were far more likely to interrupt a department secretary to turn in their completed test. The subjects whose tests included words related to courtesy and respect almost never interrupted the secretary no matter how long she talked with a colleague.

Gladwell concludes that unconscious processes can generate behaviors even when conscious links aren’t established, and that behaviors can actually be altered with subtle, unconscious clues.

Another experiment required participants to spend five minutes writing down thoughts on what it means to be a professor. Another group wrote about soccer hooligans. They were then presented with challenging Trivial Pursuit questions. The group that spent time thinking about professors answered 56 percent of the questions correctly. The hooligan group scored 43 percent correct answers. What’s the point? Subconsciously, “pre-loading” impacted their performance without any awareness of the impact by the participants.

Gladwell agrees with many psychologists and sociologists in asserting that decisions are often influenced by unseen forces, that unconscious “drivers” can be misinterpreted as really thinking, and that social pressures can override rational thought processes. Gladwell says his results, “suggest that what we think of as free will is largely an illusion; much of the time, we are simply operating on automatic pilot, and the way we think and act—and how we think and act on the spur of the moment—are a lot more susceptible to outside influences than we realize.”

That might not be so scary if you’re ordering pizza because your subconscious noticed a guy with a slice when you walked into the restaurant, but what if you’re making crucial life decisions on autopilot? Recognizing how easily swayed we are by outside, unconscious and irrational influences, can help us develop a more disciplined approach to thinking when it really matters.

Gladwell accuses us of being careless with our powers of rapid cognition and says that too often we resign ourselves to the thinking that happens in the blink of an eye. When the outcome of the decision is far more important and impactful than whether to get pizza or lasagna, it’s time to sharpen your critical thinking skills and really use your head. I believe our highest quality thinking combines rational, conscious thought with the best of our gut in what I call integrative thinking.

To practice integrative thinking, first actively choose your prejudices and paradigms with care. You’ll have them anyway because we’re hard-wired to think this way, so choose productive assumptions. Early in his career, motivational speaker Tony Robbins said he decided to believe that “youth is power.” He didn’t know whether it was true or not, but it was empowering to him (in his twenties and self-conscious about coaching people older than he) to believe it.

Next, use conscious thinking to frame or encourage positive decision making and discourage dysfunctional decision making. Like the test participants, you are free to think of yourself as a soccer hooligan or a professor. In making the positive choice, you upgrade your cognitive and decision-making abilities.

Finally, do the preparation. Educate yourself and be open to new information so when your “instincts” take over they are armed with rational thought, solid data and the strength of experience.

Fifteenth century astronomer Nickolaus Copernicus is the poster child of integrative thinking. In the early 1500s scientists were certain the sun revolved around the Earth. They were so convinced their system must be right that they kept inventing more and more complex systems to explain the motion of the moon, sun and planets that didn’t fit with the facts.

Copernicus had a whole different way of looking at things. He believed the Earth must revolve around the sun, just like any other planet. He knew in his gut that this approach made much more sense and continually searched for the data to explain it.

Thomas Kuhn said such out-of-the-box thinking has the power to create a revolution in which one conceptual world view actually replaces another. More typical thinking, even scientific discovery, typically sets out to prove what is already known to be true. But, as Kuhn said, “Novelty emerges only with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation.”

In a slow paced, predictable and stable environment, simple information and gut reaction is often enough to carry the day. But in the complex and constantly changing environments we live in today, mastery of critical and integrative thinking is required to enable us to unravel conflicting data and to adapt and change in useful ways—using both our educated mind and our gut to find our way. When focused preparation meets innate awareness, we can expect a masterpiece.