How do emotions affect critical thinking?

“Each human emotion mobilizes the mind and body to meet one of the challenges of living and reproducing in the cognitive niche. Some challenges are posed by physical thins, and the emotions that deal with them, like disgust, fear, and appreciation of natural beauty work in straightforward ways. Others are posed by people. The problem in dealing with people is that people can deal back. The emotions that evolved in response to other people’s emotions, like anger, gratitude, shame, and romantic love, are played on a complicated chessboard, and they spawn the passion and intrigue that misleads the Romantic” (Pink 1977).

Emotions play a big role in critical thinking; emotions have a tendency to guide us in everything we do. From crossing the street, to going a particular way to work or school, you know that if you cross without looking the possibility would be to get hit by a car, or going to work or school you travel the same route every day, but lately you go a different route because you know that the road is under construction.

When you thinking of these things before you leave, you are, planning a new way to work and leaving earlier to be there on time. And when crossing the street you look both ways before you cross, this is learned at a very early age, so it becomes a natural instinct to do any time you are crossing a street.

But there are times perhaps, you are not thinking, because you are talking on your phone or with a friend and forgetting what you are doing.

I am pretty sure we have all done this at one point or another in our lives and that is you are driving down the road, a road you have traveled many times, the weather is nice and the radio is going and you are just cruising before you know it you are going over the speed limit. You look up and see blue lights in your rear view mirror, now the thinking comes in, how do you explain this one. Yes, it happened to me, was going into town and knew the cops sit on that road, but was enjoying the weather and the music playing and not paying attention to my foot on the pedal.

When the cop says, “Do you know how fast you were going?” I honestly could not answer him, I was only going about 10 miles over (but still over). He asked me why I was going so fast. My answer was honestly I was just enjoying the weather and the music and not paying attention. I was lucky because he said since I was actually honest about it; he let me off with a warning. Saved me money!

This is where emotions affected my critical thinking, because I was not thinking, I was in a happy, energetic, and general feel good mood, enjoying the weather and the music, I traveled faster then I should have, had I been paying attention to the speed limit signs I would not have been stopped. Not saying you don’t have to enjoy these things just be aware of your surroundings and what you are doing.

Pinker, Steven (1977). How the Mind Works. New York: W.W. Norton & Companyhttp://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/knowledge/emotions.html

Stacy Meyer

Re:Unit4 – Discussion Board

This is not a situation about me, but it is one that is fresh on my memory. It’s a story about that is bouncing around all over the web. The parents of a girl were awarded $80,000 in a lawsuit against a preparatory school for discrimination. A few days later, the girl posted to her 1,200 Facebook friends a post saying that her parents just won a suit against the school and that the money will pay for her trip to Europe. The post was seen by the school and they went back to court and had the settlement thrown out, as the girl violated the non-disclosure agreement.

It’s pretty obvious that the girl was not thinking when she made that post. She cost her family $80,000. When the girl posted she wasn’t thinking rationally, but emotionally. She did not think of others, only herself. Her motives were completely selfish. She did not think about the consequences of her actions.

Had the girl used critical thinking skills, the family would still have $80,000. Some of the main characteristics of critical thinking are rationality, self-awareness, honesty, open-mindedness, discipline, and judgment. (Kurland, 2000) Before she would have posted, she would have asked herself if she was thinking rationally or with emotion. She would have seen that she was indeed thinking emotionally, as she was excited about the win. She was not self-aware, as she did not take into account, anyone else’s point of view. She was motivated by her own selfish need to brag. She was not being honest with herself, or she would have recognized her own selfish motives. She wasn’t open-minded. Her post was not any sort of a compromise, as she named the school directly. She was not disciplined or she would have not made the post without thinking about it first. She didn’t think about the outcome of her post.

So, had she used critical thinking, she would have recognized that the mas making an impulse move based on emotion. She would have recognized that making a post, that named the school, would be in violation of the non-disclosure agreement. She might not have made the post at all, or she might have changed her post to say something totally vague, that in no way shape of form, implicated the school or gave any notion that she was referencing the lawsuit. She would have saved her family $80,000.