Thinking And Decision Making :: Critical Thinking Decision Making

Thinking and Decision Making Paper Introduction Thinking "is an internal mental process that uses information as input, integrates that information into previous learned material and the result may be knowledge or may be nothing". (Goodpastor et al 2007) Creative thinking, logical thinking, and persuasive thinking are three types of thinking. Each of these types of thinking affects the critical thinking process in various ways. Creative Thinking Creative thinking involves creating something new or original. It involves the skills of flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, imagery, associative thinking, attribute listing, metaphorical thinking, and forced relationships. The aim of creative thinking is to stimulate curiosity and promote divergence. When an individual learns to expand their way of thinking to incorporate metaphorical ideas, they will spark the creative thinking process. Creative thinking enables us to open our imagination to new ideas. We can all think creatively. In fact, much of our thinking is in some way connected to creativity; constantly there are variations in the processes of our unfolding thoughts. Even when we appear to be thinking in a groove or thinking in circles, if we carefully reflect on the patterns of our thought, we will probably discover that they do not repeat exactly; and even when we are intentionally repeating a pattern, such as memorized lines, the lines do not always march into memory with the regularity of a metronome; often they come haltingly, in pieces, or in tidal waves of changing patterns, even though when we go to speak our thoughts, we might enunciate them smoothly. (Kirby, 2006)