Critical thinking can be impacted by emotions. Negative emotions
such as anger and fear can impede the process of critical
thinking. On the other hand, positive emotions can actually intensify
critical thinking. For example, an emotion such as empathy has
the effect of making an individual more open-minded and more
likely to consider the viewpoints of others. By combining emotions
with reasoning, we can make better decisions. In order to balance
emotion and reason, I avoid making decisions when my emotions
are running particularly high. When I make a decision, I consider
all of the pros and cons as well as the possible outcomes.
I allow my emotions to compliment my reasoning by searching
for a happy medium between the two when I make a decision.
When I was working in human resources there was a situation
in which a young woman's husband had abruptly left her and
their two small children. She was struggling mightily with everything
from the loss of her husband's income to caring for the children
as a single parent, not to mention the devastation which she
must have felt about losing her partner. My heart absolutely went
out to this young woman, and I could not help but feel
empathy for her. However, her performance at work was obviously
suffering. She almost constantly arrived to work late and when
she did finally make it to the office she was distracted and
made careless mistakes. In this situation, I had to balance my
emotions with reasoning. While I felt incredible empathy for this
employee, reasonably I could not allow her poor performance at
work to continue. The solution that I found was to invite her
into my office for a serious discussion. I was very direct and
honest with her. I did not attempt to conceal my emotions.
Rather, I told her exactly how I felt. Then, I also explained
to her that logically we had to work together to improve her
performance on the job. Her chronic lateness turned out to be
simply a problem of logistics. Getting her children ready in the
morning alone was taking longer than she had thought it would.
She was able to correct this by rising earlier and using better
time management skills. Her poor performance on the job was
mainly due to the fact that she was distracted by the lingering
feeling of sadness while she was at work. To a large degree,
just knowing that she had a friend and ally in me helped
her to be happier at work. She was better able to focus on
her work, and her performance improved.Through communication, we
learn another person's thought process and line of reasoning.
Understanding another person's thoughts and reasoning is a crucial
element in critical thinking. For an example of this, I will once
again revisit the job which I once had in a human resources
department. In my role in human resources, I could almost predict
which employees would rise quickly in the company and which
employees would struggle in their jobs by considering their
communication skills. Almost every time, employees who possessed
excellent communication skills were promoted quickly. Conversely,
employees who had substandard communication skills often ended up
quitting, being terminated, or remaining in the same position for
a very long time. I believe that the reason for this is that
good communication enhances critical thinking, so those who were
outstanding communicators were more successful in my office, which
required the employees to work in teams much of the time.
Also, whenever an employee came to me with a concern, I
was naturally better able to assist him or her if he or she
possessed good communication skills because there was less ambiguity.
It was easier for me to understand exactly what they were
asking of me and what I needed to do in order to help
them be successful.For me, the most interesting concept that I
learned this week was that emotions can enhance critical thinking.
I had never even considered this before. In our society, emotions
almost have a negative connotation, and they are considered out
of place in the professional world. I enjoyed learning that emotions
can, in fact, improve critical thinking.Emotions can cloud judgment
and leave you less than impartial. When reasoning takes a back
seat our critical thinking can becomes irrational when facts are
pushed aside. If one is too empathetic to a given situation it
can make you unwillingly bias. Anger and fear in particular can
lead stereotyping and avoidance as stated in the reading.In making
a fair assessment of a situation that may lead to a termination
I will always interpret the facts in an unbiased manner. Intent,
prior history, and if the outcome is a termination the delivery
no matter how factual is always empathetic. I take no joy, and
in all cases understand what it is to be on the other side
of the table. High emotional intelligence balances with strong critical
thinking skills can strike the perfect balance.Language is very
nuanced, which is why inflection is very important. Often times
phrases and words carry different meanings in different situations.
The words chosen, the tone, sense of urgency and body language
all play a factor on how one interprets a situation. Over time
I have understood that no conversation happens without a desired
outcome by an employee. Many times I receive what seems to
be mundane information, by an employee who ends with “I just
wanted to make you aware”. The fact that there was deliberate
effort to come see me, and mention what seems to be mundane,
usually means there is something more to be known.The area of
learning that I found most interesting this week was the reading
on the topic of faith and reasoning. Specifically the three
approaches to faith and reason – rationalism and critical rationalism.
As I interpret the definitions that seem to be purposely similar,
is that critical rationalism absorbs the argument for reason and
knowledge as to dovetail with the religious underlining needed to
have both live in harmony. Emotion can negatively influence critical
thinking, because you could be angry and that could cloud your
judgement. This can cause many issues to arise and you may
say or do things that you didn't mean. Using emotion positively
can be achieve by putting in work on a cause that you are
passionate about for example women's rights.A person can balance
emotion and reason by using the one that is relevant to the
situation at hand. Reason can also be used in an emotional
conflict to help make a sound decision. I used reasoning when
I had to choose between good pay vs. location. I had to use
emotion on the day I got engaged.Critical thinking can be used
in communication to help mus say the right things or verbally
give the right answer to a question. It can also help in a
professional setting like an interview or a public speaking.The most
interesting concept for this week was using emotion for during
critical thinking I knew that it could effect someone negatively,
but I haven't realized that could be used positively. There are
many different situations in which critical thinking can be positive
or negatively influenced. For example, positive influence can be
when you are more open to other views, ideas, and there
perspective which makes you a better critical thinker. Critical
thinking can also be negatively influenced when you are angry
it clouds your judgement so you cannot make a effective decision.
I tend to not use any emotion when I use critical thinking
in everyday life. I like to use logic and see the benefits and
costs of different situations. An example when I had to use
both was when my grandmother passed away so I had to step
up and help out and still make decisions even though it was
a emotional time. Communication is such a integral part of critical
thinking. It's how we receive and give information through one
another through signs, symbols, hand gestures, and language. Right
now we are using this discussion post to communicate. The most
interesting concept this week was the questionaire where it told
us our styles of critical thinking. Emotions can positively and
negatively influence critical thinking in different situations. In an
emotional situation like the passing of a loved one there are
lots of decisions that have to be made and when we are
upset we make decisions out of the hurt or anger we are
feeling at the moment. An example of a situation for myself
is this time last year I lost my dear sweet aunt who I
loved so very much and I was so angry and upset I was
emotional drained and when everyone started talking money and
funeral arrangements and the organ donors come to talk to me
I couldn’t for the life make decisions I couldn’t think clearly
. Emotions can positively influence your critical thinking of you
aren’t going through a hard time not upset having a great day.
How I control my emotions and reasoning when making a
decision is I never make decisions out of anger or hurt because
if you do those types of things you end up saying and doing
the wrong things. I believe that emotions can positively and
negatively influence critical thinking when dealing with certain
situations. Lets say you are involved in a situation a a decision
has to be made and you are upset and or angry, those
feelings can cloud your judgement and thinking and cause you
to not make the right decision. Emotions may have a positive
influence if you are using those personal feeling to understand a
situation without being bias. Putting yourself in the situation and
asking yourself how would I feel or what would I do, and
also using empathy can bring a positive outcome.We use
communication in critical thinking in the form of hand gestures,
symbols, signs, verbal, and non verbal. All of these forms can
be used positively or negatively. In school we communicate through
a discussion board or messaging so when responding to others
or even expressing your own idea it is important to me that
I effectively communicate my thoughts with out offending anyone
and to also achieve a good grade. I am able to use empathy
during my critical thinking process when responding my to classmates.
Emotions positively influence our critical thinking through empathy,
moral indignation or outrage, love, happiness and even guilt. These
lead to making better decisions. Critical thinking can be negatively
influenced by other emotions that are based on negative stereotypes
and anxieties stemming from unresolved past experiences, such as
anger and fear of abandonment. We can end up in trouble
when our actions are governed solely by feelings.When it comes
to balancing my emotion and reason when making decisions, I
find myself an emotional thinker. If I have anger or fear
towards a certain decision that’s being made in politics for
example, I find myself not balanced so I try to go back to
neutral ground and see both sides of the argument although I
may not disagree.The role of communication in critical thinking can
be symbols, whether spoken, written or sign language. Some
communication can be hand without symbolic elements but include
vocalizations such as babies in the state of discomfort. When I
was growing up, I was only 9 when I had to babysit my
baby brother during the summer so I had to quickly learn how
he communicated that he was content or not, and figure out
how to fix it by communication through crying.The use of
language to manipulate and deceive through emotive language, rhetorical
devices and deception was eye opening to me. You can connect
a lot of political statements, along with a lot of advertisement
to manipulative techniques used to drive a specific agenda. Emotions
can influence critical thinking positively by pre-disposing us or
motivating us to make better decisions, by being empathetic we
can be more flexible and open to others perspective making us
a better critical thinker, Emotion can influence us negatively when
there is negative stereotypes and anxieties from unresolved past
experience. The way I balance my emotions and reasoning when
making a decisions is to stop and think if my decision is
just base on how I feel and if those feeling have the ability
to change later on also is the reason just my emotions or
logic. An example was when I decided not to move to Texas
do to a relationship, I based that decision on logic and what
would be better for me and my kids in the long run. The
role of communication in critical thinking is being able to learn
how to follow another person's thought process and line of
reasoning. An example of a time when language influence my
critical thinking was when my sister after saying something I
disagree using different words and communicating her reasoning behind
her argument. Reflecting on the learning activities, concepts, ideas,
and topics covered this week, what was the most interesting
concept I learned this week was how emotions influence your
critical thinking. Emotions can positively influence critical thinking in
situations where someone is going though a situation that you or
someone close to you may have gone through and it can cause
you to have compassion which may lead to you to help or
assist someone. At the same time if your in a bad mood It
may cause you to not care about any negative effects your
decision may have. When making a decision i always try to
think of the pros and cons that may come with my decision
and how it will effect me,i also do my best not to make
important decision when im upset. Recently I had to make the
decision of rather or not to travel to Georgia to go pick up
my girls, I know my decision was based off reason and
emotions do to fearing they may have been exposed to the
coronavirus. Communication in critical thinking plays a big part in
how a person receives what reaction they may have. I enjoyed
the think tank questioner and i really enjoy the interactive videos.
Emotions can positively influence critical thinking through motivation.
When we enforce a positive emotion into something we attach a
sense of satisfaction to want to do better, whether that is in
overcoming an obstacle, being motivated by family, kids, and even
success. Because we hold these senses of values so close to
us, when it comes to making a decision or overcoming an
obstacle, we then think critically about our choices and the effect
they have on those things we cherish. On the other hand
emotions can also play a negative factor in critically thinking,
through things like revenge, or personal biases. We tend to steer
through the same mistakes out of comfort and habit and through
that bias we use critical thinking to our negative affects. Balancing
my emotions and reason when making a decision is very stressful
because the outcome may cause big changes. I once worked for
a horrible boss, forming part of a marketing media group. Though
the experience was great, we were given great opportunities and
a platform to be creative, I did not agree with many of the
values he had. At my breaking point I had to choose between
having a good job, or standing by what I believed in. I
thought about it so much the pros and cons etc, but eventually
between my emotions and reasoning my morals and what I stood
for were much bigger than this job.The role of communication
in critical thinking is about how we deliver the message we
are trying to convey. Communication holds thing like forms of
attitude, non verbal gestures, cultural roles, and emotive languages
to name a few. The way we express our point relies on the
outcome, if we do not express ourselves with a proper manner
viewed by others we may come across as aggressive and thus
creating conflict. Where getting your point across calmly and in
respects to the other person may open up their mind to
accepting your message. I think certain emotions affect certain
decisions and outcomes. Its not like we can get away from
them because its something we experience everyday. We can have
our own personal feelings about certain topics and discussions but
its how we regulate them to determine the kind of outcome
we have in the end. For example; if you are more cool,
calm and collected you're more than likely going to listen and
make a calmer choice. If you are angry, disgusted, sad these
may negatively affect your outcome because you're not thinking
clearly. I think i balance my emotions and reason for making
decisions based off whats right and whats wrong. I try not to
let my personal feelings interfere with work and education. But,
if its more personal, I will express myself and say how I
feel. I also feel as if this helps for a healthy debate about
certain things. I think communication differs from person to person.
We aren't all the same or think the same so, communication
differs. I think its more the way you represent yourself and
our thoughts on certain things. I know for me personally, people
have told me they have felt a certain type of way because
i use both verbal and body language for my communication. I
just feel like it helps get my point and views across. I think
certain emotions can effects how we make decisions. For example,
if your calm and collected you have a better chance at making
a smart choice. That's the positive, but as for negative i feel
like the most common emotions are anger and fear. because when
we feel those emotions we tend to react quickly and make bad
decisions because we are too upset or too scared to think
clearly. But being calm can really help with reasoning and
breaking down what you are thinking. That's why when you are
in a situation that involves police or any emergency service the
first thing they tell you is to stay calm. Because some people
may act abruptly and make a bad decision that can harm
themselves or others.Lately I've been working on my emotions when
it comes to making decisions. Mostly anger and excitement, When
i get excited about something i don't stop to think realistically.
I tend to just believe whatever is happening is a great idea
and that it will %100 work out. And on the other hand if
i get angry i lose control of my mind and i do things
without intentionally trying to do it. So when i get upset i
use the walk away tactic. Its really been helping, if i lose
my cool i just walk away from the situation regain my thoughts
and return to make things right. I think that's just part of
growing up and becoming an adult. We all have to learn at
some point. I have used the walk away method plenty of times.
Recently at work, My boss was being very difficult with me
and he was making me very upset. And as the conversation
went on my anger got worse. Because he was asking me to
something that was nearly impossible for me to do. And he
wasn't being reasonable. So i stood up and told him i needed
a minute to clear my head. He was annoyed at first, but
later that day he it was very smart for me to leave the
room because things would have escalated badly if i had stayed.
I think communication differs from person to person when it
comes to critical thinking. I know for me i communicate with
my body language more than verbal communication. I'm not sure
if that is a good thing or a bad thing but I just find it
easier to sit back and listen/observe. I get a feel of what
i'm dealing with and then figure out how to address it. That's
helps me a lot, I'm not great with groups. I am not a
group type of person. I am very to myself and i get shy
when i'm around more than like 2 people at a time. I just
tend to clam up and say less. But with that I've learned how
to observe and listen very well. So when someone asks me a
question i'm not completely clueless. Or i use my body language
to avoid certain conversations.I enjoyed watching the videos this
week. I think they really had a lot of good information in
them. I never realized how much i use my emotions and
communication to make decisions. I think its interesting to see
how others react and respond with their emotions. When a
decision is based solely on emotion, it can lead to a poor
outcome. This is why it's important to use critical thinking as
well. Some emotions can create a need to act quickly on.
Anger is one of these. When we're upset we have a desire
to quickly respond, which is exactly the opposite of what we
should do. On the other hand, empathy doesn't require this as
much, because it demonstrates compassion. Before I make emotion
based decisions, I like to flip the script first. This has helped
me greatly when having difficult conversations & addressing concerns.
It has also helped with how I handle and respond to others.
It's also important to recognize their emotional state as well &
respond in the most effective way. Communication is what brings
your thoughts to the table to share with others. If someone is
lacking in communication, their ideas and views can't be shared
effectively and the message gets lost. I really enjoyed Tony
Robbins video on Emotional Involvement in Decision Making. He
shared some great insight on what influences our decisions and
why. Positive emotions during decision making can inspire and have
great impact on people that influence them to ‘act’ for a cause.
Negative emotions offer the same outcome, but I believe if
someone is forced, coerced or manipulated, the call to act is
temporary.
Some of the strategies I use to balance my emotions and
reasons are meditation, prayer and exercise. I utilize all 3 while
at work most of the time. Years ago, I worked in an office
with 2 other women. We all had different jobs but sometimes
are duties crossed paths. The stench of competition was strong.
It seems we all had the same goal to impress the supervisor
in order to get a promotion. Since the mood and moral was
low, we decided to get snippy with one another until one day
I stood up and said, ‘let’s just stop’. We then spoke to our
supervisor about taking a course that explained the source of our
strength - respect. Surprisingly, we all agreed and after we
completed the training things got better.
The role of communication in critical thinking changes constantly.
Our society of thinkers is vast and diverse. Educating one-self
with the basic communicative styles assertive, aggressive, passive, and
passive-aggressive helps us to understand how to effectively convey
or receive a message. My grandmother passed away in 1995. She
was confined to a hospice care facility in Arizona. At the time
of her passing, I lived in California. However, she managed to
give the care givers my number to deliver a message. The
nurse told me that my grandmother said she was proud of me
and not to be scared. I totally mis understood and thought not
being scared meant ‘be firm or stern and say no. Man was
I wrong. Lol
The results from the questionnaire about communication style stung
and stunned me. It made me realized that I’ve mis-managed my
feelings. While it isn’t the best news, I’m not sure if I want
to be ‘made over’ as the textbook suggests. So, while the
questionnaire is partially right, I still enjoy being a square peg.
Emotions are subjective to how individuals feel about certain
characteristics. Personal and professional emphasis on evaluating judgment,
are formed on certain opinions of a person. Emotions are also
feelings from outside influences which forms a bias continuity of
beliefs or opinions. How an individual chooses to express of
what applies to a specific clause, whether good or bad can
influence critical thinking. Emotions compels an individual to act
and decisions are made based off feeling. How to balance my
emotion in whatever mood I’m in I always analyze the situation
first. I often ask questions to get a better understanding of
what’s going on. I then make a final explanation of how I
feel or what I think its best suitable for that specific situation.
A certain male coworker of mine is a womanizer. He proceeds
to converse with me about his beliefs of what a woman should
do for him and how women should act. I have a low
tolerance for men who low rate women and are dishonest. He
continues to talk about how women should give him money and
that women should pay for good quality in a man. Of course,
I was upset, but I didn’t let what was said get the best
of me. I asked him questions about why he felt that way
and I simply gave him advice afterward. What I find most
interesting to reflect on is learning how to respond effectively on
the topic rather than speaking based on what you feel. You
can always build communication based on your beliefs and
experiences, but always speak directly from the topic and factual
sources. I think positive and negative emotions influence critical
thinking depending on the situation and circumstances a person is
dealing with at the time. Negative emotions could be barriers,
which will hinder a person from making wise decisions. Positive
thinking ties into having an open mind and can assist with
making good decisions and using great critical thinking skills. An
example of how I balance emotion and reasoning is while I'm
at work I have to not let my feeling get the best of me
while dealing with my mentally ill patients. Some cases are really
sad and disturbing and I have to make decisions based on the
well being of the patient not on my emotions. I think effective
communication goes hand in hand with emotion and reasoning. In
this weeks activities, I liked learning about the different barriers
of critical thinking. I learned a lot. I also enjoyed the video
with the instructor giving examples of critical thinking. I liked
the questions that we had to answer. There were a few times
that I had to reread the choices before I answered them
correctly. Overall, I like the interactive videos. I really found out
a lot about myself as well. Emotions can have a major impact
in our critical thinking, whether they are positive or negative
emotions they can drive us to take action and ultimately lead
us to accomplishments. Emotions can create a positive impact on
critical thinking by making an impact to make better decisions
and strive for more. Emotions are not just one sided, they can
also have a negative impact on critical thinking that can create
barriers that may prevent you from thinking logically. I have
personally experienced the negative and positive influences emotions
have on critical thinking, I was my father's caretaker for a
while and I had to make many tough decisions where my
emotions became overwhelming and stress and fear became a major
factor and created a barrier for me to be able to think
logically and figure out what was best for my dad. Despite
the fear I had to make choices for his medication, therapies,chemos,
and surgeries that would truly benefit him in the long run and
not allow my emotions to get the best of me because I was
scared. Communication also plays a major role in critical thinking
as it impacts your decisions by gathering information to make an
informative and logical choice. When I was seeking a job with
a specific company, I was under the impression that the company
ran a certain way and that the position fit my criteria exactly.
Due to misinformation from a recruiter and the lack of gathering
information and facts on my end, the job turned out to be
something I did not want for myself at that time. In this
week’s activities, I found the “Think Tank Self-Evaluation
Questionnaire” the most interesting. I found out more about myself
by taking the quiz and discovered that I am an assertive
communicator, this quiz helped me take a step back and analyze
myself and I a was happily surprised with the results. Emotions
can have a positive and negative influence on critical thinking as
they both can either cause you to make a wise decision or
a very poor one. The positive influence allows you to show
empathy, so for example you are able to reason with someone
else's views. The negative influence, when solely depended on, this
can cause you to not make a wise decision when you allow
your feelings to get in the way of thinking rationally.
To balance both you have to view both positive and negative
and come up with a solution. For example, when I was 20
years old, I was an assistant manager at a clothing store called
"Rainbow". Being that I was so young a lot of older employees
under me did not feel they had to respect my authority. One
particular employee I had to let go due to her constant attitude
and aggression towards me and the other leaders. When making
this decision, I had to think of how she explained previously
she wanted to move up because she was in a financial hardship
at the time. However, I was angry and upset with this employee
as I knew she did not respect anyone that was young and
above her. All of the managers unfortunately came up with the
decision to let her go. Communication role in critical thinking is
language which is to expressing an issue. A personal example I
have is when my son was a baby and could not talk, I
had to look at his body language to determine what was wrong
and why he would cry all night. This was definitely putting
my critical thinking skills to work.The most interesting assignment
was taking the quiz and finding out that my communication style
is passive communication. Emotions are key in critical thinking and
communication. But, like anything else, too much could be a bad
thing. I believe emotion should be used in making decisions but
not to the point where emotion takes over and you possibly
make the wrong decision or come to the wrong conclusion.
Balancing emotion and reason are very important. In my line of
work I can come across these situations often and it’s important
to make the right decision. We may be working a case that
say involves children and you must sometimes take emotion out
of your thinking in order to do what is best for the children
involved. This proves that both are key to making decisions but
the right amount of each are very important. Communication can
be difficult sometimes this day in age. With so much done
over the internet or social media it make it difficult to have
effective communication. When you talk about communication in
critical thinking it is important for everyone to be on the same
page and make sure the communication is clear and concise. This
way everybody has the chance to put in their opinion and the
right decision can be made for everyone involved. I really liked
that this week showed and talked about the important factor of
emotion in critical thinking. Emotion is a good thing overall.
But, it can also detour you from the best and most logical
way to make a decision and therefore possibly hurt people in
the process. Keeping emotion in critical thinking is important. More
so, learning how to imply the right amount of emotion could
be even more. Emotions can influence your critical thinking thoughts
by getting in the way or pushing you to conclusion that may
have been hard to get to without emotions. If you have
unresolved issues from your past you may react according to
that. It is best to analyze the way you are ACTUALLY feeling
and be able to heal and then make sound decisions. Your
thoughts and feelings can push you to react in certain ways
and those are all connected to your emotions.As I have talked
about in week 1 I have recently transitioned roles within my
company and I have had to do a lot of critical thinking to
make these decisions. Along with that there has been a lot of
emotion tied to my decision making and I have had to step
back and make sure I am not making rash, vulnerable or quick
decisions because I am mad, upset, betrayed or feel like I am
being overlooked. The reason I made the decision in the end
was because I am going to better and advance my career.Language
and communication can influence your critical thinking in an
interesting way that I have never looked at before. If you
speak directive or expressive, emotive or ceremonial. It can all
affect how your decision turns out. You can also be speaking
without using actual words and how you are being portrayed to
other people.I think the most interesting thing that I had not
thought about was that that emotions can influence your critical
thinking decision. I thought you took emotion out completely when
you were critically thinking. But after the reading it was made
clear that even if you are trying to take emotion out that it
is still going to have emotion that is positive or negative as
apart of your decision. Emotions are part of everyday life, and
can play a huge role in making rash decisions. This determines
how we control our emotions, and can determine if we can be
successful or not. We need to ensure that we balance our when
thinking critically. When we allow our emotions to run crazy
then our critically thinking does not go right. We have to make
sure that we recognize our emotions and thinking so that we
can have balanced behavior. We have to use critical thinking in
our lives every day, especially since we are on lock down to
keep this virus away. We have to think before we just want
to run out and go shopping since we are bored. I stay in
a lot more any ways since I have a low immune system.
My husband like to go out and I just have to think about
this and explain it in ways that will make him understand so
I have to use critical thinking in every situation. With this
week’s learning I have learned more about communication and
critical thinking can be difficult but you just have to use your
emotions the right way. There are positive and negative emotions
when it comes to critical thinking. Emotion can positively influence
critical thinking by having empathy for others. it can negatively
influence critical thinking by our capabilities become lessen. I
balance my emotions and reason by always doing what need to
be done. Sometimes I may be stress out but I still have to
go to work and keep a clean house. Communication and critical
thinking are linked. The activity I enjoyed this week was the
questionnaire in communication styles. It was interesting to find out
what type of communicator I was. Emotions are very prevalent
in most people’s lives because we are human and humans are
typically emotional beings. As we discussed last week, critical
thinking is also something people use all of the time in their
lives; add those two together, and emotion is definitely going to
have some effect on critical thinking. According to Ch. 3 of
THiNK: Critical Thinking and Logic Skills for Everyday Life, emotion
can have either hinder decision making or assist in making a
strong decision for the best outcome. Emotions can positively
influence by giving you a way of seeing things from all angles
and having sympathy for others, emotions can negatively influence
if you have intensely strong feelings one way or the other
which clouds your judgment from seeing the full picture.I am,
by nature, a very emotional person. I have been deemed the
empath within my family and friends. I am constantly ensuring
the needs of everyone are taken care of well before mine, I
feel what my people go through and I literally feel like I
go through much of it with them. Because of these emotions
I constantly feel, emotion is a large part of the decisions I
make on an everyday basis. For example, a decision I have
made with emotion; it was a weekend and I had a lot on
my plate in my personal life to take care of (a doctor
appointment, a grocery store trip, a workout planned, organizing me
week) but my mother asked me to come home for the weekend
because she missed me. Did I go? Absolutely I did, because I
knew she had been missing me and feeling bad. Did I think
things through reasonably? Probably not, because I set myself behind
for the upcoming week by not taking care of things I needed
to take care of, but at least my mom was happy. On the
other hand, a decision that I did make reasonably; my fiancé
and I were redoing our home and spending what felt like 100%
of our money and attention on the house and these projects. I
wanted so desperately to take a day off and go do something
else, go to the cities for a nice dinner, maybe shop a little
bit. I had to use my reasoning skills in order to make the
appropriate decision to continue to work on the house while I
had the motivation, which helped in the long run because it
got it done faster and now we have all the time in the
world to do other things.Chapter three of the textbook brings up
interesting points that I had not really broken down before. There
are many different styles of communication; assertive, aggressive,
passive, and passive aggressive. It is interesting because each of
us are very different in the way we communicate and which
forms of communication we best understand. I am definitely passive
aggressive when I communicate; I am very low key when I
communicate my own feelings and quiet but I tend to show
my emotions on my face. I have learned to use communication
in my critical thinking processes while working a job directly
with people. I have to read people and work with individuals
that have a variety of learning and intellectual disabilities who
have incredibly unique forms of communication. A lot of the
time when I am at work I need to think about the specific
individual I am working with and what their signs and non-
verbal communication is pointing to, and make a decision based
on that.After the learning activities this week and reading through
the textbook chapters, the most interesting to me was actually
the definitions section. It was interesting to me because I have
never really thought very in-depth at all about definitions of
words; lexical (dictionary definition, defined), stipulative (definition given
to a new term of a word), connotative and denotative meanings,
etc. It is also interesting to know that the English language is
such a huge language with a quarter of a million words, many
of them having different meanings. Positive and negative emotions
both play important roles in everyday life. These emotions serve
an adaptive role in our lives by motivating us to act quickly
and take actions that will maximize our chances of survival and
success. Sometimes I feel like I don't balance my emotions well.
Unfortunately because of certain events in life I have had a
tough time balancing emotions, however getting older I have
somewhat learned to balance as much as I think I can. My
dad and twin sister died 6 years part and for a long time
I blamed myself for not being able to do more. I would
become overwhelmed with emotions and cry all the time. But as
time as been going I have learned how to balance my emotions
and even more my thoughts. I learned to step back , breath,
and release. Effective communication requires clarity of thought, ability
to listen intentionally and deliver messages in the optimal way.
Communication has not been my best skill. However, once I
signed up for school I have had to step out of my comfort
zone and learn how to communicate with my peers and professors.
I'm still very uncomfortable but it's a learning process. All the
activities for the week where informative and I enjoyed doing
the activity after the short videos. Emotions effect any decision
we make. If the situation is a distressing one your critical
thinking can be skewed to be negative, because your emotions
are negative at that time. For example, you were just in an
argument with a friend and an employer calls to ask about
your friend’s character, but your negative emotions are blocking
you from thinking critically. Positive emotions help you to rationalize
a situation in an understanding way and come to a decision,
allowing you to think critically and not in a bias way.Balancing
reason and emotion can be difficult depending on the situation.
Reason is making a decision based on facts and knowledge,
whereas emotions involve how you feel whether its fear, happiness,
or anger. When a situation occurs in my life I try to see
it from both sides, look for a reason for the problem and
try to keep my emptions neutral, though that can be hard at
times depending on who, what, when, and why. For example,
during this Covid-19 I have a choice either to reschedule my
wedding plans or keep them as planned for August. Emotionally
I want my wedding to happen in August, I put in so much
work and I am ready to just have everything done, but I
stop and reason with myself, the safety of my family and
friends matter first and rescheduling is the right thing to
do.Communication provides us with the necessary tool to effectively
think critically. In critical thinking communication allows you to
make decisions, research, analyze, and problem solve when needed.
In the field I work in I have to use directive language daily.
I have to be able to evaluate performance and give the
appropriate solutions without conflict. At times it can be difficult,
because an older person taking direct commands from me who
is much younger, can be a bit off putting and I have
experienced backlash because of that. The older person feels as
if they should not take orders from me. I have to make the
decision to either reprimand or let it go. I use critical thinking
to figure out how I can communicate with this person, so they
understand this is a job and we all have a part to play. I
believe I have good communication skills, which help me make
necessary decisions.I would say learning the different functions of
language was interesting to me, because I pride myself on having
good communication skills and learning the different languages adds
to knowledge to understand certain situations. I think we all go
through a mix of emotions in our everyday critical thinking. In
my experience I have found that positive emotions when making
a decision allow us to make more rationale decisions. This is
because if we have positive emotions when making decisions we
tend to put more thought into our decisions, the end result of
this is more wiser decisions. In contrast negative emotions may
discourage us into thinking through our decision, and we end up
making poor decisions . An example would be trying to make
a rational decision when we are angry . When we are angry
I think people tend to shut out critical thinking all together ,
and are quick make decisions without all the facts.Emotion can
greatly impact our decision making because I feel if we put
to much emotion in our decision making we end up making
decisions based more upon our feelings towards the topic instead
of using the facts that lead to a wiser decision. I feel our
decisions need to be firm , and built with confidence. So I
try to balance my emotion and reason in my decision making
by thinking of what the desired outcome is in my decision
making. For me I have a hard time letting emotion take over
some of my decisions with my 3 year old toddler. I think
this is a form of emootive language use to manipulate my
decision. For example , if I am asking her to pick up her
toys. She will pout , fuss and make cute little sad faces at
me . She melts my heart then I start to feel guilty , and
want to give in and just pick them up for her, but I have
to stop myself and think , ok if let my emotion take over
we will not reach the ultimate goal of teaching her she has
to clean up her mess when she is done playing. This then
makes me stronger and a wiser decision is made.The role of
communication in critical thinking , both verbal and non verbal
, are very important in making the most informative and logical
decision. Communication conveys the message or facts that should
be used to make a decision. For this reason it is very
important we are provided all the information needed to make
the decision, and as the receiver, listening is an important part
of communication so that we collect the correct information. An
example for me would be when I was speaking to my wifi
company to decide if I wanted to upgrade my wifi speed.
There was a language barrier , the representative had a very
deep accent so I could not understand the information he was
trying to give me as far as pricing. Pricing is a crucial piece
of information that I needed to make that decision. Due to this
gap in communication I was unable to make the decision that
day. I decided to call back another time and speak to someone
else. Emotions also played a role in this because I became
very frustrated.In this weeks topic the topic I found most
interesting is on verbal communication . Because body language
can say so much , and convey messages even without words
, but at the same time they can be a form of manipulation
because you can smile at someone which sends one message, but
the real emotion can be the complete opposite. I think at times
we all put on what is called a " fake smile" , for this
reason this form of communication is not always clear. Emotions
are a part of everyday life the positive critical thinking mindset
help me think deeply about my justification and evidence for and
against a given choices that I must make. Negative critical
thinking is a thought-out process where I think to find the
worst in my decisions. Negative thinking is also no begin critical
or criticizing.Emotions can affect not just nature of decisions but
the speed in which I make my decisions. When I am angry
it can lead to me impatience, and very rash decision-making.
Like when I’m feeling afraid my decisions are clouded and I
just got with my first mindset. When I’m thinking positive my
decisions are not make so rapidly and I think though my
decisions .Critical thinking help us when it comes to responding
the correct way in given context before reacting. When it comes
to communication listening plays a very important role. Like when
I call to pay my bills the reps on the phone I couldn't
understand her because of her language I got upset as asked
to speak to someone different. I would say is nonverbal language
because with me most of people always try to figure me out
by my body language or tone of voice, when interpreting
someone’s communication. Critical thinking is a trait not everyone
has, but should posses. Emotions are something everyone has, but
doesn't always want. There are many reasons as to how emotions
can influence someones critical thinking skills positively or negatively.
If you have to make a decision on something your emotions
do not agree with, some may not make the decision at all,
and some may make the wrong one due to their emotional
involvement.In a situation where my emotions and my reason do
not align, i try to look at both aspects of the decision i
make, with emotion or without. Some instances you have to be
biased, and exclude your emotions to make the best choice for
every party involved. As a hostess, you have to make a decision
about where to seat a big party. If the next server in rotation
only has seating for a party of two and a party of eight
comes in you have to work around that person. Even when
you know they need to money, and the table, you have to
put your emotions aside to seat the incoming guests in the
correct place.
