What does it mean to think critically? Let’s examine that question with an experiment. If I told you, “Don’t think about a purple elephant,” are you now thinking about a purple elephant. The interesting thing, though, is not that I was able to make you think about a purple elephant. The interesting thing is why you thought about it. Was it reverse psychology? Did I trick you into thinking about something you didn’t want to think about? How did you end up with an image of a purple elephant in your head? These questions reveal something about human nature that you might just find to be revealing of yourself.

The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.
– Thomas Sowell

To be clear, it wasn’t a trick. In fact, the purple elephant didn’t come from me at all. YOU created it in your own head. By choosing to not only read the sentence, but accepting the reality of it presence. The words we choose to consume, drive our thoughts toward the subject of their meaning. This really is the foundation behind why critical analysis of every thought is so important. When we allow our thoughts to run amuck without internal guidance, they will go wherever the wind blows, so to speak. That is to say, they will go wherever the world around us takes them. If we aren’t careful, that wandering may lead us down a dangerous path.

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
– William James

Let’s begin by defining reverse psychology and diving into why this purple elephant thing may or may not be exactly that. According to Cambridge English Dictionary, reverse psychology is “a method of trying to make someone do what you want by asking them to do the opposite and expecting them to disagree with you.” The pertinent question is then, “did you disagree with thinking about the purple elephant?” If not, then I could argue that this really wasn’t reverse psychology. I didn’t quite persuade you to do something with which you disagreed… or did I? It’s not often that we think about purple elephants. Of course, I don’t mean to speak for everyone, some might think about them often. Still, were you on track to think about it at this current time? How abruptly did this purple elephant change your train of thought? Did it feel abrupt?

The reality about the purple elephant is that you really didn’t disagree with thinking about it. Again, I don’t mean to speak for everyone, but the thought of a purple elephant isn’t necessarily harmful or threatening in any way. Your brain didn’t set off warnings about the thought because it posed no danger to you to entertain it. As is true with almost every thought that’s ever crossed your mind. Thoughts aren’t dangerous, at least not to our physical health. So you accepted the idea without protest and entertained the thought.

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.” 
― John Locke

Ok, then how DID you end up with an image of a purple elephant in your head? The simple answer, you thought about it. You took what you read and processed into a thought. The instruction “don’t” was deemed irrelevant and you proceeded to entertain the thought anyway. Why? Well, because you wanted to. Maybe it was an act of defiance. Maybe you were simply curious about it. It could have been simply that you felt as though the image might make you laugh, or happy, or entertained. Whatever your personal reason for doing so, you chose to do it. It may not have been a conscience decision, but your brain worked it out based on the way you’ve trained yourself to process information. This unconscious processing and decision making about what to think and how to think is generally referred to as, “personal bias.” We all have it. It’s based on prior experience and trial and error dating all the way back to when we were just babies. A lifetime of practice.

“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.” 
― Christopher Hitchens

When we encounter new information, we rely heavily on this practiced way of thought processing to evaluate many aspects about the information. Thoughts are generated; hundreds sometimes thousands of thoughts are produced just in a few minutes of content consumption. This is why the ever present question we should be pondering now, especially in the age of information, is what do we do with all those thoughts? Do we simply let our personal bias run on auto to organize and process the thoughts as our minds have always done? The advantage of auto-pilot being the least amount of effort we would need to apply. The other option, is to re-evaluate our thoughts critically; to consciously go through the the work of questioning ourselves.

Too often do we look outwardly when applying critical thought. We are critical of other’s opinions, other’s ideas, other’s content in general. We are proficient in picking apart the most minute details of other people and the information they convey, but we still let our own thinking run on auto. We get validation in ourselves from critiquing others, but the work of evaluating ourselves is often too revealing of our own faults.

“The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.” 
― Horace Walpole

Still, with an ever present desire for clicks and engagement on social media and the internet as a whole, the ability to critique one’s own thoughts about a matter is more important now than it’s ever been. People will lie, exaggerate, manipulate, and contort reality to feed people any sort of information that continues to drive engagement up, and they’ll profit off ad revenue without a second thought about what effects their actions have. Due to this, we can’t simply allow our thoughts to run on auto; the purple elephant in the room will eventually need addressing.

“If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.” 
― Harlan Ellison

Here’s the critical thing about thinking: our thoughts require more thinking. We can’t simply consume information and accept the reality of its presence as THE reality that now exists. It is certainly good to have an open mind; that is, one which isn’t completely closed. Still, your mind can become too open and too accepting of every statement proposing itself as truth. Do be taken for a fool. Do the work to think more about your own thoughts. Ask questions of yourself. Wonder, where did these thoughts come from? Why am I now thinking of this? Does the person presenting this information gain anything from me thinking this way? Are these thoughts present because of something that happened to me in the past? Criticize yourself. Put your own biases to the test.

“Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out” 
― G.K. Chesterton

I’ll leave you with this final thought: you aren’t responsible for how anyone else thinks. You neither have the ability to change how they think. You can give them something to think about. Still, they will revert back and rely on their personal biases to process that information. Your personal biases confirm within you that purple elephants don’t exist in reality. You’ve never seen one, or heard of someone seeing one. You realize people might paint an elephant purple, but that’s not the same as a naturally occurring purple elephant. These truths can only be derived by thinking further about the thoughts we had when we chose to entertain them to begin with, and THAT is what it means to think critically.