I recently wrote a research paper on cognitive barriers to critical thinking (CT), discussing flaws in thinking associated with intuitive judgment, emotion, bias, and epistemological misunderstanding, as well as inadequate CT skills and dispositions (Dwyer, 2023). A colleague progressed this thinking by asking me about social barriers to CT, through a number of specific questions. After thinking about these questions for a bit, I thought it useful to answer some of them here as consideration for CT in social situations.

The simple answer is that because the individual isn’t thinking critically and they’re just telling you what they believe, it’s up to you to decide whether or not it’s worth the effort to tell them. This depends on who the person is and how open they are to changing their mind—which people are quite hesitant to do; so, this might well be a futile endeavour. I probably would avoid engaging unless it’s someone I care about, who’s about to make an important decision based on erroneous information. Context is important here.

Of course, the folly is an example of in-group bias. The individual likely believes that their "group" has thought critically about the topic in question because they believe said party is credible with respect to the information they present. Thus, the individual might fail to evaluate the claim themselves because they are using their party’s thinking as some form of "expert opinion," even when there might be no relevant expertise to cite.

But, let’s say some research has been cited. Though the individual is right to talk about the research in the sense that research represents the most credible source of evidence, it does not........

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