LOGIC test: Of guts and intuition

It’s 2022. A new year, that at first blush, seemed old. Many of us were hopeful that we would be done worrying about all things pandemic by now. And for many others it feels like a punch in the gut! But intuitively we all knew that a mere change in the calendar won't change things overnight. We have learned a lot in the last two years, and as we enter 2022, we are better equipped for this phase as we slowly transition out of the pandemic - even if a sense of uncertainty is back with variants.

What did change many things, virtually overnight in many cases, is the pandemic. It served to bring into focus that we all can have different realities we operate from, and different frameworks of thinking can lead to different conclusions. The major divides on several fronts were magnified as the logic behind our decisions and the fears driving our actions were unmasked. It also showed the importance of historical and contemporary context that may influence people’s views. And in the coming days our collective survival and ability to thrive depends upon our ability to come together and be willing to learn from the pandemic lessons and bridge the divides. Given what we have all experienced, it’s only logical that it’s a new call to action!

Critical answers?

In looking back over the last two years, almost every decision had to be a measured one, weighing pros and cons before moving forward with a sense of unease regardless of the decision. Do I really want to go to the store? Should I avoid it? Is meeting a friend in the park okay? Should we just do a virtual gathering? In the height of the pandemic, thoughts like these played over and over again in our heads. Balancing knowledge and uncertainty had become a very distinct feature of life. The intense deliberation required for making seemingly simple decisions to mundane questions certainly took major adjustment.

Soon enough, we all got better at reviewing the information at hand, getting a sense of calibration from others, and oftentimes postponing decisions that could wait until more data was available. However, the sheer number of decisions that needed to be made each day added to the mental fatigue, especially decision making in a deliberate fashion about things which in the past were no-brainers. It was a tough time of transition as it relates to decision making…I can say that decisively. Sometimes it brought out our worst fears – we have all seen the news about hoarding toilet paper… and sometimes, despite the risks, we decided to show up in solidarity at crowded social justice marches. We all developed what has been referred to as our own “pandemic logic .”

This logic had not just emotions but a whole lot more wrapped into it. It was also evolving and often impacted by the latest conversation or text exchange we may have had. Wondering, were others paranoid, were they ill, were they grieving, were they depressed, were they overly optimistic? We weighed the decision of how others’ conclusions should impact our own pandemic logic. It laid bare our mental processes of synthesizing and digesting, arguing and rationalizing, negotiating and accepting when in crisis-mode. It also honed our critical thinking skills. And as bigger decisions needed to be made, perhaps in many ways, we became more critical and less thinking as data and information and personal interpretations flooded our mind-space to fill in the blanks while scientists, policy makers, medical professionals, corporations, and government worked together to determine collective course of action. Some days the most logical and easiest decision was to virtually tune out. It was a matter of survival.

Thinking, critically

The pandemic has also been dubbed as the infodemic because misinformation and disinformation were rampant. Misinformation being information that is simply wrong, while disinformation is often categorized as information crafted or curated with an intent to mislead. At a time when virtually all of us had a sense of being ill-informed - whether the situation unfolded with spread of infection, prediction models, public health measures, and medical therapies - the barrage of fake-news and half-truths added to chaos and confusion. It impacted how well the pandemic could be contained, managed, and cured. The spread of incorrect information also impacted lives and livelihood as evidenced by irrational fears, episodes of racial prejudice, and rejection of simple public health guidelines. By all means, the nascent realities of the infodemic also wreaked havoc on our evolving logic during the full-blown pandemic.

For many, the lack of reliable information, and resulting lack of clarity, heightened a sense of fear and anxiety severely impacting decision-making systems. And deep misinformation contributed to unlikely scenarios, rife with convoluted logic, that were often shared widely further impairing decision-making for many. With a vacuum of a consistent narrative, which was difficult to assemble given the ever-changing situation, pandemic logic relied heavily on gut feel and what made intuitive sense to each individual. As a result, it often made us all arrive at different conclusions, causing a divide. Virtually everyone lacked the knowledge and expertise and yet everyone had to make the best decision possible with limited data, often unvalidated and interpretations laden with bias. It highlighted the importance of critical thinking skills – vital skills that among other things require a conscious effort to gather all relevant information, minimize error, and overcome bias.

Critical calls

Critical thinking is often defined as purposeful, reasonable, and reflective thinking when faced with complex issues and conflicting situations. Exercising critical thinking allows one to make a well thought out, logical decision, on what to believe or to decide what to do. It typically involves at least two key aspects. The first aspect, inquiry, represents the finding of relevant information, critically examining it, questioning validity of assumptions, and essentially synthesizing the information. The second aspect is argumentation, which signifies reasoning by the goal to support one argument in light of the evidence, weakening of the other position in support of an idea, theory, or action.

Scientific thinking, under the umbrella of critical thinking but not to be confused with it, is the thinking that makes meaning of information in scientific domains using scientific methodology supported by sufficient evidence. Scientific thinking allows us to generate knowledge to understand the world around us, while critical thinking involves examining multiple points of view, comparing them, and making a judgement on which perspective prevails, given the evidence. Critical thinking calls for making a call. Scientific thinking seeks evidence to establish objective reality. Interestingly, during the pandemic, a lot of the opinions that ran counter to established recommendations, or showed hesitancy in following them, were also attributed to self-proclaimed “critical thinking” and sometimes even supported by pseudo-science.

Though scientific discovery and associated innovations yielded policies, protocols, and ultimately, the vaccines, science does not make decisions at the end of the day. Decisions are made by people, and people have their own logic for making the decisions they do make. For science to provide the desired outcome, it became clear that there is a critical role for critical thinking, among other things, to actively debunk lies and conspiracy theories within the ever-evolving human context.

Critical juncture

This time of great change has taught us not just about how we make decisions, but how to make better decisions. In crisis-mode, our minds implored us to develop our own decision-making framework by taking external information and trusting our own gut, believing our intuitions to help us cope and allow us to survive - this at a time when we were stretched, stressed, and spent. Our logic may have seemed illogical through the lens of others, but now, as we move forward, there is substantial evidence, there are validated data sets, and expert advice exists. So, how do we build better logic that can be viewed through a wider collective lens? It is important to have a view of the mindset and frameworks others operate in, not just our own way of thinking and acting based on our own way of being. It is time to update our logic - we can use scientific thinking to develop a robust framework, given the observations, hypothesis, and data from how things played out during the pandemic. It is a critical juncture that we are at – and there is a need to give grace and bring people together on many fronts. Critical thinking will be required at every step along the way. ?

Changing of minds is not easy. There was validation of the fact that humans typically don’t “do” until they can “think” and “feel” . During the pandemic, given the urgency, there was perhaps a rush to move, to “do”, without ample opportunity to process through, to “think” and “feel.” And given the gravity of this situation, shaming can be a counter-productive tactic. Pushing to convince with facts and data, to prove others wrong with logical arguments, does not work either. Humility is key, and it takes more of a collaborative process with active listening and sharing of one’s own reasoning to be convincing. Situations like these warrant careful consideration of conflicting viewpoints, and open-mindedness to ideas, options, and opinions. Empathetic listening allows understanding of barriers, beliefs, and biases that drive choices. It can give information regarding reasoning for mistrust, doubts, or skepticism. It also allows deeper insights into the emotions and motivations behind the behaviors, the feeling in the gut that guides logic and feeds intuitions.

Critical skills

Building relationships, partnerships, and friendships are key to building bridges. Changing minds is typically not a simple logical appeal armed with scientific data and evidence because it involves not just cognitive but emotional change. And the stories we store in our brain, not numbers and facts, often guide our logic. Context is key, and storytelling with compelling positive narratives of hope can be powerful means of changing hearts and minds. It is time to come together and learn from each other, from our guts, our intuition and the importance of our LOGIC:

Listening to learn

Outreach with open-mindedness

Grace and gravity

Insight from information

Context in communications

Times of transition are a great opportunity to look back at lessons learned. The pandemic has taught us some important lessons regarding the public perception of science, the importance of science communication, and how the scientific method and critical thinking can interact with human reasoning.

It has also taught us how our logic evolves as humans to ensure our individual survival, and now it is perhaps time for our logic to evolve so we can collectively thrive... and make it a happy new year and beyond.