Blocks to Critical Thinking Term Paper

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Cultural Conditioning Block

Cultural conditioning refers to how society's standards and values are passed on to all members of society. Cultural conditioning is a block to critical thinking when people accept society's standards blindly, with this impacting how a person thinks by creating bias and selective perception.

Example: When Nolan tells Keating he does not approve of his unorthodox teaching methods, he is basing his judgment on the fact that Keating's methods and expectations of the students are different to the accepted standards of the school. This is an example of the cultural conditioning block because Nolan does not actually judge Keating's views but shows bias against them because they go against the school's standards and values.

Reliance on Authority Block

Definition: Reliance on authority is a block to critical thinking when people accept the views of the majority in place of thinking for themselves and forming their own opinions or when people accept the views of the authority figures in place of forming their own views.

Example: Cameron shows a block to critical thinking where he describes how he told the teachers about the club because the honor code of the school includes that you tell the truth when asked a question by a teacher.

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This is a reliance on authority because Cameron is not making his own decision about what to do, but is instead acting based on what the authority figures of the school say he must do.

Hasty Moral Judgment Block

Definition: A hasty moral judgment is a quick judgment made on the basis of what is initially seen. Hasty moral judgments are a block to critical thinking because they are not based on reason and so limit insight and understanding.

Example: Neil's father is an example of a hasty moral judgment because of the way he hastily assumes that Keating is the reason for Neil disobeying him. This is a hasty generalization because he is judging Keating based on initial perceptions of his actions, without actually knowing or understanding Keating.

Black and White Thinking Block

Definition: Black and white thinking refers to how people place things in either/or categories. For example, a person might think that someone is either their friend or their enemy, or think that another person is either completely right or completely wrong. This is a block to critical thinking because it ignores the complexity of issues.

Example: When Neil kills himself, he is thinking based on a black….....

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