I came across a blog post recently called “10 Curses of the Analytical Thinker” which questioned whether being an analytical thinker is really a good thing. I found the whole idea interesting and would love to hear your point of view. You’ll want to read the full blog post, but here is a summary of the 10 curses of the analytical thinker according to Alan Norton:
- Information Addict
- Vacillatory
- Indecisive
- Insensitive
- Habitual
- Socially Inept
- Skeptical
- Poor Marketers
- Politically Incorrect
- Loners
I disagree with this list on so many levels, but I want to hear what you think. Do you think the items listed are solely related to analytical thinking or are more related to personality type?
Editor’s Note: Breanne Harris is the Solutions Architect for Pearson TalentLens. She works with customers to design selection and development plans that incorporate critical thinking assessments and training. She has a Master’s degree in Organizational Psychology and has experience in recruiting, training, and HR consulting. She is the chief blogger for Critical Thinkers and occasionally posts at ThinkWatson. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter for more of her thoughts.
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I’d have to go with personality type. However, it seems that personality type determines how easy it is for someone to be a critical thinker. My hubby, an INTJ, doesn’t have to develop his critical thinking skills, it’s just something that has always been a part of who he is. I’ve gotten better at being a critical thinker (INFP) and while I may exhibit some of the above traits when analyzing a problem or solution I certainly don’t exhibit all of them. I’m not even sure the above are really curses as much as they are just different. My husband definitely possesses the above traits, or has at one time or another. However, is indecisiveness a bad thing when it means you end up avoiding two bad options and remain with the status quo? My husband would be considered a loner, but he doesn’t see that as a curse, he’s just an introvert. Being politically incorrect makes my husband funny as hell. I love that he’s sometimes insensitive, it also makes for some hilarious blog posts or FB updates. I could go on. I think sometimes it can seem like a curse for other personality types to run into a critical thinker. It’s hard when they rip our ideas to shreds! But more often than not, their critical thinking skills are a blessing, not a curse.
[...] HT to Breanne Harris. [...]
I think he got much of it wrong — some of it is personality related, as Debra says (the two most analytical personality types being INTJ and INTP). Some of Norton’s mistakes relate to the correlation-does-not-imply-causation fallacy — i.e., the same underlying phenomena that causes “analyticalness” can be causing these traits he considers curses, rather than the “analyticalness” causing the curses (and like Debra, I disagree that many of these are actually curses).
I posted in more detail about this here: http://jeffreyellis.org/blog/?p=9320.