You make dozens of choices and decisions each day, often without being consciously aware of them.

You make dozens of choices and decisions each day, often without being consciously aware of them. Because critical thinking may be more rigorous than everyday thinking, it is important to recognize some factors that can influence the effectiveness of critical thinking, including reason, communication, and emotion.

After completing the Learning Activities for the week, please respond to all the questions below. Your response should be a minimum of 175 words total (approx. 50 words per question).
How do emotions positively and negatively influence critical thinking?
Describe how you balance your emotion and reason when making decisions. Include an example of when you had to use both.
Ch. 3 of THiNK: Critical Thinking and Logic Skills for Everyday Life covers the topic of language and communication, which also play a role in critical thinking. Explain the role of communication in critical thinking and provide an example of a time when and how language or communication influenced your critical thinking.
Reflect on the learning activities, concepts, ideas, and topics covered this week. What is the most interesting activity or concept you learned this week? Mention any concepts that are still a bit confusing to you or that you have questions about.

ANSWER

Week Two

Emotions positively influence critical thinking by making one resilient to situations and therefore tackling them as they come. An emotional person is likely to take time to think about a situation before getting to a conclusion. It implies that the decisions made are in most cases, appropriate. Emotions negatively influence critical thinking by reducing an individual’s abilities to a great extent (Sternberg & Halpern, 2020). When one becomes too emotional, there is a tendency of losing focus. This means that one can end up making a faulty decision because the mind was not stable or in the right state.

The best way to make an appropriate decision is by setting aside the emotions and using reason. Emotions should come after one has reasoned out the issue at hand. When I was about to take my final lap in an athletics race, I remembered that my cousin got critically ill the previous night. I almost gave up on racing but thought that I should continue and win it. Winning would provide me with the funds to cater for my cousin’s health expenses and also handle my emotions effectively.

Critical thinking is often applied when structuring messages in a manner that will have an appropriate impact. Communication is important during critical thinking because it involves clarity of thoughts and also the ability to listen to what is being said in order to make an appropriate decision (Sternberg & Halpern, 2020). Before undertaking my athletics race in school, my coach communicated that nothing physical should interfere with my sporting activity. I chose to obey the words and won the race thereafter. The most interesting concept that I learned this week was critical thinking. The concepts of language and decision making are still confusing, and I would need more clarification on the same. This is because language is used hand in hand with communication which impacts critical thinking significantly. Emotions and reason…