Critical Thinking and Emotions: the Theoretical and Empirical Causations
Contemporary scientific authorities and the practicing psychologies have formulated a considerably twofold and divergent opinion on the statement whether the emotions, generated by the central nervous apparatus of a human being, somehow directly or indirectly affects his ability to take the decisions and to test the situations critically.
Although a significant group of the scholars and the psychologists assert that this ability remains unaffected whatever decisions are taken by the decision-maker, scientifically it has been established that the emotions of the person is among the key factors that find the ability to make critical decisions, i.e. to take objectively motivated decisions. The first group of scientists is firmly convinced that the capasity to express criticism is a naturally innate ability of the human being. As the major substantiation of their theory is the example with the military people.
To be more exact, the army personnel is requested to take similarly substantiated, objectively justified decisions under any circumstances that generate various set of emotions (Rubenfeld & Sheffner, 2010). However, after a lot of scientific surveys have been conducted, it has been established that the decisions taken by the commanders and officers of the army during the training operations are always better and more suitable for the needs of the subordinates. Though the situations are almost similar, the emotions occurring during the real battles (i.e. the apprehension to be killed or heavily injured) considerably affect the decision-taking process (Myers, 1998).
The main assumption of the opponents of the theory is that those charged with the burden to take the decisions become preoccupied instinctively with their personal interests than with the interests of their mission. Overall, it can be presumed that although considerable efforts have been taken by the opponents of the theory, it has been proven that the emotions generated by the decision maker affect both the cognitive and the affective thinking skills.
