Critical Thinking Strategies for Success (Collection)

Book description

3 great books help you think more clearly about any problem – and transform better thinking into better results – in business, and in life!

Three remarkable books help you think more clearly, flexibly, effectively — and transform better thinking into better personal and business performance! Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life offers practical tools for becoming a better thinker in every aspect of your life: in your career, and as a consumer, citizen, friend, parent, and lover. Richard W. Paul and Linda Elder reveal the core skills of effective thinking, helping you analyze your own thought processes, identify weaknesses, and overcome them. The Truth About Making Smart Decisions brings together 50 powerful “truths” about making better decisions: real solutions for the tough challenges faced by every decision-maker, in business and in life. You'll discover how to systematically prepare to make better decisions...how to get the right information, without getting buried in useless data...how to minimize your risks, and then act decisively...how to make better group decisions...profit from mistakes...and a whole lot more. Finally, Now You're Thinking!: Change Your Thinking...Transform Your Life draws on an incredible story of survival in wartime to introduce a model of critical thinking that will help you recognize how your emotions are shaping your actions, evaluate arguments more effectively, and draw conclusions that lead you directly to better life decisions.

From world-renowned leaders in the promotion of effective thinking, includingDr. Richard Paul, Dr. Linda Elder, Robert E. Gunther,Judy Chartrand, Stewart Emery, Russ Hall, Heather Ishikawa, and John Maketa

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Contents
  3. Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life
    1. Financial Times Prentice Hall Books
    2. Contents
    3. Acknowledgment
    4. Preface
    5. Chapter 1. Thinking in a World of Accelerating Change and Intensifying Danger
      1. The Nature of the Post-Industrial World Order
      2. A Complex World of Accelerating Change
      3. A Threatening World
      4. Change, Danger, and Complexity: Interwoven
      5. The Challenge of Becoming Critical Thinkers
      6. Recommended Reading
    6. Chapter 2. Becoming a Critic of Your Thinking
      1. How Skilled is Your Thinking (Right Now)?
      2. Good Thinking Is as Easy as Bad Thinking (But It Requires Hard Work to Develop It)
      3. The Hard Cruel World
      4. Become a Critic of Your Own Thinking
      5. Conclusion
    7. Chapter 3. Becoming a Fair-Minded Thinker
      1. Weak versus Strong Critical Thinking
      2. What Does Fair-Mindedness Require?
      3. Intellectual Humility: Having Knowledge of Ignorance
      4. Intellectual Courage: Being Willing to Challenge Beliefs
      5. Intellectual Empathy: Entertaining Opposing Views
      6. Intellectual Integrity: Holding Ourselves to the Same Standards to Which We Hold Others
      7. Intellectual Perseverance: Working Through Complexity and Frustration
      8. Confidence in Reason: Recognizing that Good Reasoning Has Proven Its Worth
      9. Intellectual Autonomy: Being an Independent Thinker
      10. Recognizing the Interdependence of Intellectual Virtues
      11. Conclusion
    8. Chapter 4. Self-Understanding
      1. Monitoring the Egocentrism in Your Thought and Life
      2. Making a Commitment to Fair-Mindedness
      3. Recognizing the Mind's Three Distinctive Functions
      4. Understanding That You Have a Special Relationship to Your Mind
    9. Chapter 5. The First Four Stages of Development: What Level Thinker Are You?
      1. Stage One: The Unreflective Thinker—Are You an Unreflective Thinker?
      2. Stage Two: The Challenged Thinker—Are You Ready to Accept the Challenge?
      3. Stage Three: The Beginning Thinker—Are You Willing to Begin?
      4. Stage Four: The Practicing Thinker—Good Thinking Can Be Practiced Like Basketball, Tennis, or Ballet
      5. A "Game Plan" for Improvement
      6. A Game Plan for Devising a Game Plan
    10. Chapter 6. The Parts of Thinking
      1. Reasoning Is Everywhere in Human Life
      2. Does Reasoning Have Parts?
      3. Beginning to Think About Your Own Reasoning
      4. The Elements of Thought: A First Look
      5. An Everyday Example: Jack and Jill
      6. Analysis of the Example
      7. The Elements of Thought in Relationship
      8. The Relationship Between the Elements
      9. Thinking to Some Purpose
      10. Thinking with Concepts
      11. Thinking with Information
      12. Distinguishing Between Inert Information, Activated Ignorance, and Activated Knowledge
      13. Some Key Questions to Ask When Pursuing Information
      14. Distinguishing Between Inferences and Assumptions
      15. Understanding Implications
      16. Thinking Within and Across Points of View
      17. Using Critical Thinking to Take Charge of How We See Things
      18. The Point of View of the Critical Thinker
      19. Conclusion
    11. Chapter 7. The Standards for Thinking
      1. Taking a Deeper Look at Universal Intellectual Standards
      2. Bringing Together the Elements of Reasoning and the Intellectual Standards
      3. Using Intellectual Standards to Assess Your Thinking: Brief Guidelines
    12. Chapter 8. Design Your Life
      1. Fate or Freedom: Which Do You Choose?
      2. Recognizing the Dual Logic of Experience
      3. Facing Contradictions and Inconsistencies
      4. Social Forces, the Mass Media, and Our Experience
      5. Reading Backwards
      6. Implications for the Design of Your Life
    13. Chapter 9. The Art of Making Intelligent Decisions
      1. Thinking Globally About Your Life
      2. Evaluating Patterns in Decision-Making
      3. "Big" Decisions
      4. The Logic of Decision-Making
      5. Recognizing the Need for an Important Decision
      6. Accurately Recognizing the Alternatives
      7. Putting More Time into Your Decision-Making
      8. Being Systematic
      9. Dealing with One Major Decision at a Time
      10. Developing Knowledge of Your Ignorance
      11. Dimensions of Decision-Making
      12. Regularly Re-Articulate and Reevaluate Your Goals, Purposes, and Needs
      13. The Early Decisions
      14. Adolescent Decisions
      15. Early Adult Decisions
      16. Conclusion
    14. Chapter 10. Taking Charge of Your Irrational Tendencies
      1. Egocentric Thinking
      2. Understanding Egocentric Thinking
      3. Understanding Egocentrism as a Mind Within the Mind
      4. "Successful" Egocentrism
      5. "Unsuccessful" Egocentrism
      6. Rational Thinking
      7. Two Egocentric Functions
      8. Dominating Egocentrism
      9. Submissive Egocentrism
      10. Pathological Tendencies of the Human Mind
      11. Challenging the Pathological Tendencies of the Mind
      12. The Challenge of Rationality
    15. Chapter 11. Monitoring Your Sociocentric Tendencies
      1. The Nature of Sociocentrism
      2. Sociocentric Thinking as Pathology
      3. Social Stratification
      4. Sociocentric Thinking Is Unconscious and Potentially Dangerous
      5. Sociocentric Use of Language in Groups
      6. Disclosing Sociocentric Thinking Through Conceptual Analysis
      7. Revealing Ideology at Work Through Conceptual Analysis
      8. The Mass Media Foster Sociocentric Thinking
      9. The Mass Media Play Down Information That Puts the Nation in a Negative Light
      10. Freedom from Sociocentric Thought: The Beginnings of Genuine Conscience
      11. The Capacity to Recognize Unethical Acts
      12. Conclusion
    16. Chapter 12. Developing as an Ethical Reasoner
      1. Why People are Confused About Ethics
      2. The Fundamentals of Ethical Reasoning
      3. Ethical Concepts and Principles
      4. The Universal Nature of Ethical Principles
      5. Distinguishing Ethics from Other Domains of Thinking
      6. Ethics and Religion
      7. Religious Beliefs Are Socially or Culturally Relative
      8. Ethics and Social Conventions
      9. Practices That Are Socially or Culturally Relative
      10. Ethics and the Law
      11. Ethics and Sexual Taboos
      12. Understanding Our Native Selfishness
    17. Chapter 13. Analyzing and Evaluating Thinking in Corporate and Organizational Life
      1. Introduction
      2. Critical Thinking and Incremental Improvement
      3. An Obstacle to Critical Thinking Within Organizations: The Covert Struggle for Power
      4. Another Obstacle: Group Definitions of Reality
      5. A Third Obstacle: The Problem of Bureaucracy
      6. The Problem of Misleading Success
      7. Competition, Sound Thinking, and Success
      8. Stagnating Organizations and Industries
      9. Questioning Organizational Realities
      10. Assessing Irrational Thinking in Organizational Life
      11. The Power of Sound Thinking
      12. Some Personal Implications
      13. Conclusion
    18. Chapter 14. The Power and Limits of Professional Knowledge (And of the Disciplines that Underlie Them)
      1. Professional Fallibility and the Glut of Information
      2. The Ideal of Professional Knowledge
      3. Who Should We Believe?
      4. True and False Loyalty to a Profession
      5. The Gap Between Fact and Ideal
      6. Assessing A Profession or a Professional Conclusion: Matters of Fact, Matters of Opinion, Matters of Judgment
      7. The Ideal Compared to the Real
      8. Professions Based on the Ideal of Mathematics and Abstract Quantification
      9. The Pain and Suffering of Those Who Fail
      10. Loss of Self-Esteem and Opportunity to Receive Higher Education
      11. Low Level of Math Competency of Those Who Pass School Examinations
      12. The Ideal of Science: Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Geology, and Biology
      13. The Ideal of Social Science: History, Sociology, Anthropology, Economics, and Psychology
      14. History as an Ideal
      15. Sociology as an Ideal
      16. Anthropology as an Ideal
      17. Economics as an Ideal
      18. The Social Sciences as Taught and Practiced
      19. The Ideal of the Arts and Humanities: Music, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Dance, Literature, and Philosophy
      20. The Promise of the Fine Arts and Literature
      21. The Reality of Instruction in the Fine Arts and Literature
      22. The Promise of Philosophy
      23. The Reality of Philosophy
      24. Conclusion
    19. Chapter 15. Strategic Thinking Part One
      1. Understanding and Using Strategic Thinking
      2. Components of Strategic Thinking
      3. The Beginnings of Strategic Thinking
      4. Key Idea #1: Thoughts, Feelings, and Desires are Interdependent
      5. Key Idea #2: There is a Logic to This, and You Can Figure It Out
      6. Key Idea #3: For Thinking to Be of High Quality, We Must Routinely Assess it
    20. Chapter 16. Strategic Thinking Part Two
      1. Key Idea #4: Our Native Egocentrism Is a Default Mechanism
      2. Key Idea #5: We Must Become Sensitive to the Egocentrism of Those Around Us
      3. Key Idea #6: The Mind Tends to Generalize Beyond the Original Experience
      4. Key Idea #7: Egocentric Thinking Appears to the Mind as Rational
      5. Key Idea #8: The Egocentric Mind Is Automatic in Nature
      6. Key Idea #9: We Often Pursue Power Through Dominating or Submissive Behavior
      7. Key Idea #10: Humans Are Naturally Sociocentric Animals
      8. Key Idea #11: Developing Rationality Requires Work
      9. Conclusion
    21. Glossary: A Guide to Critical Thinking Terms and Concepts
    22. References
    23. Index
  4. The Truth About: Making Smart Decisions
    1. Contents
    2. Praise for The Truth About Making Smart Decisions
    3. Preface
    4. Introduction
    5. Part I: The Truth About Preparing for Decisions
      1. Truth 1. Before a major decision, get some Z's
      2. Truth 2. Act from a state of clarity
      3. Truth 3. If you can't get distance, get perspective
      4. Truth 4. Keep it real
      5. Truth 5. Use a systematic process
      6. Truth 6. Know your decision-making style
    6. Part II: The Truth About Why Bad Decisions Are Good
      1. Truth 7. To make better decisions, make more mistakes
      2. Truth 8. Be prepared to profit from your mistakes
      3. Truth 9. Learn from your close calls
      4. Truth 10. Learn from the decisions of others
      5. Truth 11. Don't judge your decisions based on their outcome
      6. Truth 12. Leave yourself room to get back from the pole
    7. Part III: The Truth About the Limits of Your Mind
      1. Truth 13. Understand common "decision traps"
      2. Truth 14. Giving up something? Get over it!
      3. Truth 15. It's possible to miss an entire gorilla
      4. Truth 16. You may see only what you're looking for
      5. Truth 17. You're not as clever as you think you are
      6. Truth 18. Your view of the world depends on what planet you're from
      7. Truth 19. Beware of seeing patterns that aren't there
      8. Truth 20. Different is not always better
    8. Part IV: The Truth About Complex Decisions
      1. Truth 21. Boil knowledge down to its essence—and then act on it
      2. Truth 22. Decisions are not snapshots but movies
      3. Truth 23. No decision is an island
      4. Truth 24. Build the city around your decision
    9. Part V: The Truth About Data
      1. Truth 25. Listen for the dog that doesn't bark
      2. Truth 26. Sorry, Joe Friday. The facts are never "just the facts."
      3. Truth 27. Recognize the power of intuition
    10. Part VI: The Truth About Acting Decisively
      1. Truth 28. The wrong decision is better than none at all
      2. Truth 29. Get 80 percent (or less) of what you need, and then act on it
      3. Truth 30. Every decision carries risk. Get used to it
      4. Truth 31. Not making a decision is a decision
    11. Part VII: The Truth About Decisions in Groups
      1. Truth 32. Two heads can be worse than one
      2. Truth 33. Use constructive conflict
      3. Truth 34. Surround yourself with people smarter than yourself
      4. Truth 35. Make decision roles clear
      5. Truth 36. Break free from the prisoner's dilemma
    12. Part VIII: The Truth About Emotions
      1. Truth 37. A little adrenaline can be a good thing
      2. Truth 38. Understand the impact of emotions
      3. Truth 39. Beware of the attractive new shortcut
    13. Part IX: The Truth About Ethical Decision Making
      1. Truth 40. Don't do anything you wouldn't want seen on YouTube
      2. Truth 41. There are no quiet corners safe from scrutiny
      3. Truth 42. To know where you're going, know where you stand
      4. Truth 43. Don't let power or ego sway you from your course
    14. Part X: The Truth About Big Decisions
      1. Truth 44. Lower the costs of failure
      2. Truth 45. Break down big decisions into smaller ones
      3. Truth 46. Don't forget the screwdrivers
    15. Part XI: The Truth About Moving On
      1. Truth 47. Keep your eye on the long term
      2. Truth 48. Belief in your decision can make it come true
      3. Truth 49. Keep a sense of humor
      4. Truth 50. Don't look back
    16. Additional Resources
    17. References
      1. Introduction
      2. Truth 2
      3. Truth 9
      4. Truth 14
      5. Truth 15
      6. Truth 16
      7. Truth 18
      8. Truth 20
      9. Truth 21
      10. Truth 23
      11. Truth 25
      12. Truth 26
      13. Truth 31
      14. Truth 32
      15. Truth 33
      16. Truth 35
      17. Truth 37
      18. Truth 38
      19. Truth 43
      20. Truth 45
      21. Truth 46
      22. Truth 49
      23. Truth 50
    18. About the Author
  5. Now You’re Thinking: Change Your Thinking... Revolutionize Your Career... Transform Your Life
    1. Contents
    2. Foreword
    3. Acknowledgments
    4. About the Authors
    5. Introduction
    6. Amenah’s Story
      1. What Is a Miracle?
    7. Chapter 1. How Your Mind Works—Some Assembly Required
      1. Dreams
      2. Feelings
      3. Thinking
      4. Summary
      5. Endnotes and References
    8. Chapter 2. A New Way of Thinking
      1. Five Steps to New Thinking
      2. Summary
      3. Endnotes
    9. Chapter 3. Take Stock of Your Style
      1. Understanding Your Thinking Styles
      2. Making the Best Use of Thinking Styles
      3. Summary
    10. Chapter 4. Change Your Thinking... Revolutionize Your Career... Transform Your Life
      1. Getting Started
      2. My Thinking Styles
      3. Use This Checklist to Improve Your Thinking
      4. Tips for the Five Steps to Develop Your Thinking Skills NOW
      5. Let Yourself Experience Success
      6. Summary
    11. Appendix A. Characters
    12. Appendix B. Cognitive Biases: Common Mental Mind Traps
      1. Grabbing Glory and Pushing Blame (Step 2: Recognize Assumptions)
      2. Asking the Wrong Questions (Step 3: Evaluate Information)
      3. Curious Conclusions (Step 4: Draw Conclusions)
      4. Endnote
    13. Appendix C. Resources
      1. Online Resources and Social Media
      2. Books for Professional Development
      3. Resources for Students
      4. Training
    14. Index
  6. Making Sense of People: Decoding the Mysteries of Personality
    1. Contents
    2. Introduction. When Intuition Isn’t Enough
    3. Part I: Describing Personality Differences
      1. One. Personality Traits
        1. Words from the Dictionary
        2. Beyond Synonyms and Antonyms
        3. Bundling Traits
        4. Using the Big Five
        5. Big Five 2.0
        6. Rethinking Bill Clinton
      2. Two. Troublesome Patterns
        1. Very Low E: Two Eccentric Loners
        2. Very High E: The Disquietude of Histrionics
        3. Low A Patterns: Paranoids, Narcissists, and Antisocials
        4. Very High C: Compulsives
        5. High N Patterns: Avoidants, Dependents, and Borderlines
        6. Opinions of Self and Others
        7. Traits, Patterns, and People
    4. Part II: Explaining Personality Differences
      1. Three. How Genes Make Us Different
        1. A New Foundation for Psychology
        2. Experiments of Nature
        3. How Much of Our Personality Differences Is Heritable?
        4. How Many Gene Variants Shape a Personality Trait?
        5. Genetic Thinking vs. Genetic Testing
        6. The Deep Roots of Our Diversity
        7. The Grandeur in This View of Personality Differences
      2. Four. Building a Personal Brain
        1. The Brain Builds Itself
        2. Critical Periods in Brain Development
        3. What Will My Child Be Like?
        4. Gene–Environment Dialogues
        5. Enduring Effects on Gene Expression
        6. Adolescent Remodeling
        7. Closing Some Windows in the Brain and the Environment
    5. Part III: Whole Persons, Whole Lives
      1. Five. What’s a Good Character?
        1. Separating Character and Personality
        2. Moral Instincts and Moral Emotions
        3. Different Cultures, Common Values
        4. The Power of Culture-Based Values
        5. The Character of Benjamin Franklin
        6. Why Character Matters
      2. Six. Identity: Creating a Personal Story
        1. Oprah Winfrey Shapes Her Identity
        2. Identity As a Story
        3. Steve Jobs Tells Three Stories
      3. Seven. Putting It All Together
        1. A Methodical Appraisal
        2. Understanding and Change
    6. Endnotes
      1. Introduction
      2. Chapter 1
      3. Chapter 2
      4. Chapter 3
      5. Chapter 4
      6. Chapter 5
      7. Chapter 6
      8. Chapter 7
    7. References
    8. Acknowledgments
    9. About the Author
    10. Index

Product information

  • Title: Critical Thinking Strategies for Success (Collection)
  • Author(s): Richard Paul, Linda Elder, Robert E. Gunther, Judy Chartrand, Stewart Emery, Russ Hall, Heather Ishikawa, John Maketa
  • Release date: December 2011
  • Publisher(s): Pearson
  • ISBN: 9780132938570