Thinking About Social Issues: Three Easy Strategies Anyone Can Use

People are bombarded with ideas, claims, proposals and arguments. How they respond to some of that chatter is of little importance. But what about voting, giving to a cause (or deciding not to give), religious beliefs, and personal ethics? All of those things influence life satisfaction, health and the quality of government.

In realms where responses to ideas really matter it would be valuable to have some tools for evaluating the quality of thinking related to the issue at hand. This article presents simple tools to assist with that evaluation process.

Evaluating The Implications Of An Idea:

Edward De Bono created a simple, and seemingly simplistic, “thinking tool” called PMI – for Plus, Minus, Interesting. Begin using this tool by simply stating the idea in question. For example, we might be asked to consider the idea that private ownership of handguns should be banned in the United States. We would begin using PMI by stating something like this:”Private ownership of handguns should be banned in the United States.”

The next three steps in PMI are easy to implement. First, list any Pluses of the idea. These positive aspects can be major or minor, nearly certain or highly improbable. The size or probability of a given positive is not relevant at this point. Then list the Minuses that come to mind. Again, the scale or likelihood of any given minus is irrelevant at this point; just list anything that comes to mind. Lastly, make a list of the Interesting aspects of the idea. Anything that might happen but is tough to classify as positive or negative goes in the Interesting category.

The whole listing and review process could take as little as nine or 10 minutes. Impose a time limit of three minutes for generating ideas in each category. Reviewing the lists of Pluses, Minuses, and Interesting points might lead to a change of opinion. Even if there is no change opinion, a rigorous exploration of an idea’s implications.

Make notes on what the presidential candidates propose to do. Do so regardless of whether or not you tend to agree with a particular candidate. Do a PMI on their most important proposals. Do the ideas still seem like good ideas?

Thinking About The Issue:

Thinking accurately about the issue is partly a matter of logic, partly about facts, and partly a matter of understanding how cognitive biases can lead people astray. Knowing the common logical fallacies is the beginning of accurate thinking about issues of the day. Investigated the actual facts – as opposed to assumed facts or alleged facts – enhances understanding of an issue. Making a conscious effort to counteract psychological biases is also important.

Running through a checklist covering the logical flaws and psychological biases described in this section would improve the quality of the user’s thinking about an issue. Begin by studying this list of logical flaws and the examples provided:

Bare assertion fallacy: Simply asserting that something is true, or not true, is an error. Interstellar space travel is impossible.