Thinking about Thinking
While I’ve had this suspicion for years, it became apparent to me several months ago during a conflict with some long time friends that people think about things differently. I’m not talking about just having different opinions and beliefs, but that their act of thinking is significantly different. I’ve always thought that I was pretty good at putting myself in other’s shoes to see where they’re coming from, but this time it just did not work. This really disturbed, confused, and scared me a bit due to the voracity of their argument.
Since then, I’ve been reading books on how people think and how the mind works. These include A Whole New Mind,Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion, and most recently, The Art of Thinking.
While I haven’t finished it yet, The Art of Thinking verified what I had suspected. They outline five different styles of thinking in the book and have a quiz that allows you to figure out what type of thinker you are. After taking the quiz, I found out that my thought process is quite rare. I am primarily a synthesist which only 11% of people are. I am also proficient in the pragmatist and realist ways of thinking. However, being proficient in those ways of thinking means that I am probably terrible in the last two ways of thinking, idealist and analyst, which account for the way that 70% of the population thinks. This would explain why I have trouble getting people to “see what I see.”
I hope the second half of this book is as good as the first and can help me find ways to communicate with those who don’t think like me. I’ll keep you posted.
