You Need To Learn How To Think

Summary

Adults are stupidly resistant often to the idea that they need to learn HOW TO THINK, but they do. Thinking is a SKILL that can be learned and improved upon.

I was talking with one of my students last night about limitations in HOT (higher order thinking) due to early age stressors, adultification, and PTSD. It is well known that LOT (lower order thinking) and concrete thinking tends to be almost a preferred and more effective coping mechanism for people in constant high stress, traumatic situations. More HOT and abstract thinking actually has been known to create further PTSD responses and RNT (repetitive negative thinking) situations.

LOT takes less time, the information is more ordered, and the outcomes seem more predictable and clearer. HOT takes more time, the information is less ordered and more complicated, and the outcomes can be varied.

That is not to say that people in high stress and trauma situations don’t have HOT … they do … it’s just different especially as adults. Adults with childhood trauma (especially unresolved and without therapy) have brains that tend to primarily use LOT for decision making.

LOT examples:
1. Observing
2. Memorizing
3. Recollecting
4. (Basic) Understanding

HOT examples:
1. Comprehension
2. Application
3. Analysis
4. Synthesis

As a child in the educational system you learn in the order of LOT–>HOT. You start with basic thinking skills and move up to more abstract concepts.

Critical Thinking is a HOT skill. Higher-order thinking skills go beyond basic observation of facts and memorization and lead to evaluative, creative and innovative thought processes.

What does the process of LOT to HOT look like?

• from knowledge (information gathering) to comprehension (confirming)

• from application (making use of knowledge) to analysis (taking information apart)

• from evaluation (judging the outcome) to synthesis (putting information together) and creative generation of multiple ideas and outcomes

Basically, this is me simplifying Bloom’s Taxonomy of thinking skills … but you can get the gist.

On social media especially it’s easy to identify people who are mainly only capable of LOT by how they respond to things; word choice, limitations in expanded thinking.

I see this OFTEN … this base level, animal instinct, reactive responding and thinking that is completely incapable of any kind of analysis, true comprehension, or applicable synthesis. It’s not always just a lack of education … sometimes its actual limitations in how people have learned to think and process information.

Higher-order thinking (HOT) skills go beyond basic comprehension facts and memorization and observation.

HOT requires that we do something with the facts we glean. We must understand them, infer from them, connect them to other facts and concepts, categorize them, manipulate them, put them together in new or novel ways, and apply them as we seek new solutions to new problems.

HOT is a main component to critical thinking and you’d be surprised how many people are lacking these skills.

Adults are stupidly resistant often to the idea that they need to learn HOW TO THINK … but to be honest, it’s not something people are actually taught beyond basic education (unless you have focused study in it). I have rarely met adults capable of primarily using HOT skills.

Can you imagine how epic social media would be if everyone only primarily used HOT skills for engaging and posting? God … what a HEAVEN that would be.

I wrote a post on Results Focused People vs Performance Minded People … and I should mention that results focused people tend to be heavy LOT skill users.

Concrete thinkers tend to focus more on the procedures involved in how a task should be performed, while abstract thinkers are more focused on the reasons why a task should be performed and understanding it fully to the point of efficiency. i.e. the “Work Smarter Not Harder” types …

Here’s other kinds of thinking for you to consider learning about:

Creative thinking: This involves coming up with new ideas, or using existing ideas or objects to come up with a solution or create something new.

Convergent thinking: Often called linear thinking, this is when a person follows a logical set of steps to select the best solution from already-formulated ideas.

Critical thinking: This is a type of thinking in which a person tests solutions and analyzes any potential drawbacks.

Divergent thinking: Often called lateral thinking, this style involves using new thoughts or ideas that are outside of the norm in order to solve problems.

Abstract thinking: A type of higher-order thinking (HOT) usually about ideas and principles that are often symbolic or hypothetical.

Abstract thinkers and divergent thinkers tend to move into what is called Fluid Intelligence (1 of 12 different kinds of intelligence). It involves thinking abstractly about problems without relying solely on existing knowledge. This kind of intelligence is considered independent of learning, experience, and education.

Logical thinking is potential energy.

Critical thinking is kinetic energy.

Logical thinking is a series of:
Because of this, this happened connections.

Critical thinking is a series of:
If I do this, this will happen connections.

For logical thinking, you don’t always need to get your hands dirty.

But with critical thinking, you always need to get your hands dirty.

The special ingredient in all critical thinkers is DESIRE.

Why?

Because desire is the precursor to experimentation and experimentation is the precursor to critical thinking.