what are two of the largest barriers to critical thinking

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Identifying and overcoming critical thinking barriers

Critical thinking is a vital skill in our complex, fast-paced world. It empowers us to make informed decisions, solve problems, and navigate the sea of information that surrounds us.

Yet, it’s not always easy to think critically. Various barriers can hinder our ability to analyze information objectively and make rational judgments.

In this article, we delve into the question: what are the six barriers to critical thinking? We’ll explore each barrier in detail, providing real-world examples and practical strategies for overcoming them.

From egocentrism to emotional influences, these barriers can subtly influence our thinking processes. They can skew our perceptions, limit our perspectives, and lead us to flawed conclusions.

But by recognizing these barriers, we can start to dismantle them. We can learn to question our assumptions, broaden our viewpoints, and think more critically.

We’ll also share case studies that illustrate these barriers in action. These real-life scenarios will help you understand the impact of these barriers and how to navigate them effectively.

Join us as we journey through the landscape of critical thinking, identifying obstacles and charting a path towards clearer, more effective thinking.

The Importance of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is more than just a buzzword. It’s a fundamental skill that underpins our ability to function effectively in society. It’s about analyzing information, questioning assumptions, and making reasoned decisions.

In our information-saturated world, the ability to think critically is invaluable. We’re constantly bombarded with data, news, and opinions. Without critical thinking, we risk being swayed by misinformation, biased viewpoints, or flawed logic.

Moreover, critical thinking is key to personal and professional success. It enhances problem-solving abilities, boosts creativity, and fosters informed decision-making. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or simply a curious individual, honing your critical thinking skills can open up new perspectives and opportunities.

What is Critical Thinking?

So, what exactly is critical thinking? It’s a cognitive process that involves careful analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of information. It’s about questioning assumptions, seeking evidence, and making reasoned judgments.

Critical thinking is not about accepting information at face value. It’s about digging deeper, challenging the status quo, and seeking truth. It’s a mindset that values curiosity, skepticism, and open-mindedness.

In essence, critical thinking is a tool for discerning truth from falsehood, making sense of complex issues, and making informed decisions. It’s a skill that empowers us to navigate the complexities of the modern world with clarity and confidence.

The Six Barriers to Critical Thinking

Despite its importance, critical thinking is not always easy. There are several barriers that can hinder our ability to think critically. These barriers often stem from cognitive biases, social pressures, and emotional influences.

Understanding these barriers is the first step towards overcoming them. Let’s delve into the six key barriers to critical thinking: Egocentrism, Groupthink, Resistance to Change, Selective Perception, Confirmation Bias, and Emotional Influences.

1. Egocentrism: The Self-Centered Barrier

Egocentrism is the tendency to view the world from our own perspective, often to the exclusion of others. It’s a barrier that can limit our understanding and lead to biased judgments.

To overcome egocentrism, we need to actively seek out different perspectives. This involves listening to others, considering alternative viewpoints, and challenging our own assumptions.

It’s about stepping outside of our own experiences and trying to see the world through the eyes of others. It’s a process that requires empathy, open-mindedness, and humility.

2. Groupthink: The Peer Pressure Barrier

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon where the desire for harmony in a group leads to irrational or dysfunctional decision-making. It’s a barrier that can stifle independent thinking and lead to poor decisions.

Overcoming groupthink involves promoting diversity of thought within a group. It’s about encouraging individuals to voice their opinions, even if they differ from the majority.

It also involves creating a safe space where dissenting views are not only tolerated but welcomed. It’s a process that requires courage, respect, and a commitment to truth over consensus.

3. Resistance to Change: The Comfort Zone Barrier

Resistance to change is a natural human tendency. We often prefer the familiar to the unknown, even when the familiar is not serving us well. This resistance can be a significant barrier to critical thinking.

To overcome this barrier, we need to embrace adaptability. This involves being open to new ideas, willing to change our minds, and ready to step out of our comfort zones.

It’s about recognizing that change is a part of life and that growth often comes from discomfort. It’s a process that requires flexibility, courage, and a willingness to learn.

4. Selective Perception: The Filter Barrier

Selective perception is the tendency to filter information based on our existing beliefs and expectations. It’s a barrier that can limit our understanding and lead to biased judgments.

Overcoming selective perception involves broadening our perspectives. This means actively seeking out diverse sources of information, challenging our assumptions, and being open to new ideas.

It’s about recognizing that our perception is not always reality and that there’s often more to the story than meets the eye. It’s a process that requires curiosity, skepticism, and a commitment to truth.

5. Confirmation Bias: The Agreement Barrier

Confirmation bias is the tendency to favor information that confirms our existing beliefs and to disregard information that contradicts them. It’s a barrier that can distort our understanding and lead to biased decisions.

Overcoming confirmation bias involves challenging our assumptions. This means actively seeking out evidence that contradicts our beliefs, being open to changing our minds, and valuing truth over comfort.

It’s about recognizing that our beliefs are not always accurate and that it’s okay to be wrong. It’s a process that requires humility, courage, and a commitment to learning.

6. Emotional Influences: The Feeling Barrier

Emotions can significantly influence our thinking. While emotions are a vital part of our human experience, they can cloud our judgment and lead to irrational decisions when unchecked.

Overcoming emotional influences involves maintaining objectivity. This means recognizing our emotions, understanding their impact on our thinking, and making decisions based on reason rather than feelings.

It’s about finding a balance between our emotional and rational selves. It’s a process that requires self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and a commitment to rational decision-making.

Case Studies: Barriers in Action

Understanding the barriers to critical thinking is one thing. Seeing them in action is another. Real-life case studies can provide valuable insights into how these barriers manifest and how they can be overcome.

Let’s explore two case studies that illustrate the impact of groupthink and confirmation bias in a corporate and educational setting, respectively.

Case Study 1: Overcoming Groupthink in a Corporate Setting

In a multinational corporation, a team was tasked with developing a new marketing strategy. The team leader had a strong personality and often dominated discussions. As a result, groupthink set in, and team members were hesitant to voice dissenting opinions.

To overcome this, the company introduced a policy of anonymous feedback. This allowed team members to express their views without fear of reprisal. The result was a more diverse range of ideas and a more robust marketing strategy.

This case study illustrates the importance of creating a safe space for diverse opinions in overcoming groupthink.

Case Study 2: Challenging Confirmation Bias in Education

In a high school science class, a teacher noticed that students often clung to their initial hypotheses during experiments, even when the data contradicted them. This was a clear example of confirmation bias in action.

To address this, the teacher introduced a new approach. Students were encouraged to make multiple hypotheses and to actively seek out data that challenged their initial assumptions. This helped students to understand the importance of evidence-based reasoning and to overcome their confirmation bias.

This case study highlights the role of education in challenging confirmation bias and fostering critical thinking.

Strategies for Overcoming Critical Thinking Barriers

Identifying the barriers to critical thinking is the first step. The next is to develop strategies to overcome these barriers. This involves fostering a mindset that values critical thinking and creating an environment that supports it.

Let’s explore some strategies that can help in overcoming the barriers to critical thinking.

Developing Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is key to overcoming many of the barriers to critical thinking. It involves recognizing our own biases and understanding how they can influence our thinking.

By developing self-awareness, we can challenge our own assumptions and open our minds to new ideas and perspectives. This can help us overcome barriers such as egocentrism, confirmation bias, and emotional influences.

Encouraging Open Dialogue and Debate

Open dialogue and debate can help challenge groupthink and promote independent thinking. By encouraging diverse viewpoints and constructive criticism, we can broaden our perspectives and enhance our critical thinking skills.

Creating a safe space for open dialogue and debate can help overcome the fear of dissent and foster a culture of critical thinking.

Embracing Continuous Learning

Continuous learning is another important strategy for enhancing critical thinking. By constantly seeking new knowledge and challenging our existing beliefs, we can overcome resistance to change and selective perception.

Continuous learning also involves developing a curiosity for understanding different viewpoints and a willingness to revise our beliefs in the light of new evidence.

Fostering a Culture of Critical Thinking

Creating an environment that values and encourages critical thinking is crucial. This involves promoting open dialogue, encouraging diverse viewpoints, and fostering a culture of continuous learning.

By creating such an environment, we can help individuals overcome their personal barriers to critical thinking and foster a collective culture of critical thinking.

Conclusion: The Path to Enhanced Critical Thinking

Overcoming the barriers to critical thinking is not a one-time task. It’s a continuous journey of self-awareness, open dialogue, continuous learning, and fostering a culture that values critical thinking. By recognizing and addressing these barriers, we can enhance our ability to think critically and make better decisions.

In a world filled with information and complexity, critical thinking is more important than ever. It’s a skill that can help us navigate the complexities of the modern world, make informed decisions, and ultimately lead a more fulfilling and successful life.

• Overcoming mental blocks to critical thinking
• Understanding the six key thinking barriers
• Breaking down the barriers to critical thinking
• Common obstacles hindering critical thinking skills
• Identifying and breaking down cognitive barriers

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5 Barriers to Critical Thinking

What holds us back from thinking critically in day-to-day situations.

Posted January 18, 2019 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

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Quite often, discussions of Critical Thinking (CT) revolve around tips for what you or your students should be doing to enhance CT ability. However, it seems that there’s substantially less discussion of what you shouldn’t be doing—that is, barriers to CT.

About a year ago, I posted "5 Tips for Critical Thinking" to this blog, and after thinking about it in terms of what not to do , along with more modern conceptualizations of CT (see Dwyer, 2017), I’ve compiled a list of five major barriers to CT. Of course, these are not the only barriers to CT; rather, they are five that may have the most impact on how one applies CT.

1. Trusting Your Gut

Trust your gut is a piece of advice often thrown around in the context of being in doubt. The concept of using intuitive judgment is actually the last thing you want to be doing if critical thinking is your goal. In the past, intuitive judgment has been described as "the absence of analysis" (Hamm, 1988); and automatic cognitive processing—which generally lacks effort, intention, awareness, or voluntary control—is usually experienced as perceptions or feelings (Kahneman, 2011; Lieberman, 2003).

Given that intuitive judgment operates automatically and cannot be voluntarily "turned off," associated errors and unsupported biases are difficult to prevent, largely because reflective judgment has not been consulted. Even when errors appear obvious in hindsight, they can only be prevented through the careful, self-regulated monitoring and control afforded by reflective judgment. Such errors and flawed reasoning include cognitive biases and logical fallacies .

Going with your gut—experienced as perceptions or feelings—generally leads the thinker to favor perspectives consistent with their own personal biases and experiences or those of their group.

2. Lack of Knowledge

CT skills are key components of what CT is, and in order to conduct it, one must know how to use these skills. Not knowing the skills of CT—analysis, evaluation, and inference (i.e., what they are or how to use them)—is, of course, a major barrier to its application. However, consideration of a lack of knowledge does not end with the knowledge of CT skills.

Let’s say you know what analysis, evaluation, and inference are, as well as how to apply them. The question then becomes: Are you knowledgeable in the topic area you have been asked to apply the CT? If not, intellectual honesty and reflective judgment should be engaged to allow you to consider the nature, limits, and certainty of what knowledge you do have, so that you can evaluate what is required of you to gain the knowledge necessary to make a critically thought-out judgment.

However, the barrier here may not necessarily be a lack of topic knowledge, but perhaps rather believing that you have the requisite knowledge to make a critically thought-out judgment when this is not the case or lacking the willingness to gain additional, relevant topic knowledge.

3. Lack of Willingness

In addition to skills, disposition towards thinking is also key to CT. Disposition towards thinking refers to the extent to which an individual is willing or inclined to perform a given thinking skill, and is essential for understanding how we think and how we can make our thinking better, in both academic settings and everyday circumstances (Norris, 1992; Siegel, 1999; Valenzuela, Nieto, & Saiz, 2011; Dwyer, Hogan & Stewart, 2014).

Dispositions can’t be taught, per se, but they do play a large role in determining whether or not CT will be performed. Simply, it doesn’t matter how skilled one is at analysis, evaluation, and inference—if they’re not willing to think critically, CT is not likely to occur.

4. Misunderstanding of Truth

Truth-seeking is one such disposition towards thinking, which refers to a desire for knowledge; to seek and offer both reasons and objections in an effort to inform and to be well-informed; a willingness to challenge popular beliefs and social norms by asking questions (of oneself and others); to be honest and objective about pursuing the truth, even if the findings do not support one’s self-interest or pre-conceived beliefs or opinions; and to change one’s mind about an idea as a result of the desire for truth (Dwyer, 2017).

Though this is something for which many of us strive or even just assume we do, the truth is that we all succumb to unwarranted assumptions from time to time: that is, beliefs presumed to be true without adequate justification. For example, we might make a judgment based on an unsubstantiated stereotype or a commonsense/belief statement that has no empirical evidence to justify it. When using CT, it’s important to distinguish facts from beliefs and, also, to dig a little deeper by evaluating "facts" with respect to how much empirical support they have to validate them as fact (see " The Dirtiest Word in Critical Thinking: 'Proof' and its Burden ").

Furthermore, sometimes the truth doesn’t suit people, and so, they might choose to ignore it or try and manipulate knowledge or understanding to accommodate their bias . For example, some people may engage in wishful thinking , in which they believe something is true because they wish it to be; some might engage in relativistic thinking , in which, for them, the truth is subjective or just a matter of opinion.

5. Closed-mindedness

In one of my previous posts, I lay out " 5 Tips for Critical Thinking "—one of which is to play Devil’s Advocate , which refers to the "consideration of alternatives." There’s always more than one way to do or think about something—why not engage such consideration?

The willingness to play Devil’s Advocate implies a sensibility consistent with open-mindedness (i.e., an inclination to be cognitively flexible and avoid rigidity in thinking; to tolerate divergent or conflicting views and treat all viewpoints alike, prior to subsequent analysis and evaluation; to detach from one’s own beliefs and consider, seriously, points of view other than one’s own without bias or self-interest; to be open to feedback by accepting positive feedback, and to not reject criticism or constructive feedback without thoughtful consideration; to amend existing knowledge in light of new ideas and experiences; and to explore such new, alternative, or "unusual" ideas).

At the opposite end of the spectrum, closed-mindedness is a significant barrier to CT. By this stage, you have probably identified the inherent nature of bias in our thinking. The first step of CT is always going to be to evaluate this bias. However, one’s bias may be so strong that it leads them to become closed-minded and renders them unwilling to consider any other perspectives.

Another way in which someone might be closed-minded is through having properly researched and critically thought about a topic and then deciding that this perspective will never change, as if their knowledge will never need to adapt. However, critical thinkers know that knowledge can change and adapt. An example I’ve used in the past is quite relevant here—growing up, I was taught that there were nine planets in our solar system; however, based on further research, our knowledge of planets has been amended to now only consider eight of those as planets.

Being open-minded is a valuable disposition, but so is skepticism (i.e., the inclination to challenge ideas; to withhold judgment before engaging all the evidence or when the evidence and reasons are insufficient; to take a position and be able to change position when the evidence and reasons are sufficient; and to look at findings from various perspectives).

However, one can be both open-minded and skeptical. It is closed-mindedness that is the barrier to CT, so please note that closed-mindedness and skepticism are distinct dispositions.

Dwyer, C.P. (2017). Critical thinking: Conceptual perspectives and practical guidelines. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Dwyer, C.P., Hogan, M.J. & Stewart, I. (2014). An integrated critical thinking framework for the 21st century. Thinking Skills & Creativity, 12, 43-52.

Hamm, R. M. (1988). Clinical intuition and clinical analysis: expertise and the cognitive continuum. In J. Dowie & A. Elstein (Eds.), Professional judgment: A reader in clinical decision making, 78–105. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking fast and slow. Penguin: Great Britain.

Lieberman, M. D. (2003). Reflexive and reflective judgment processes: A social cognitive neuroscience approach. Social Judgments: Implicit and Explicit Processes, 5, 44–67.

Norris, S. P. (Ed.). (1992). The generalizability of critical thinking: Multiple perspectives on an educational ideal. New York: Teachers College Press.

Siegel, H. (1999). What (good) are thinking dispositions? Educational Theory, 49, 2, 207–221.

Valenzuela, J., Nieto, A. M., & Saiz, C. (2011). Critical thinking motivational scale: A contribution to the study of relationship between critical thinking and motivation. Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, 9, 2, 823–848.

Christopher Dwyer, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Technological University of the Shannon in Athlone, Ireland.

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