A key component of critical thought is our willingness to reconsider our views and ways of doing things.

Many folks are unwilling to change their minds for fear that it would indicate a personal failing.

But being wrong is not a character flaw or something horrible from which one can never recover.

Critical thinking includes motivational dispositions, such as inquisitiveness, open-mindedness, tolerance for ambiguity, thinking about thinking, honesty in assessing or evaluating biases, and willingness to reconsider one’s own views and ways of doing things (see Killian, 2024, 2025).

This last part is crucial to our critical thinking capacity, and is represented in a negatively worded item of the Critical Thinking Dispositions Scale (Killian, 2024): “Changing one’s mind is a sign of weakness.” This item seems to be a mantra for many folks who refuse to honestly assess or evaluate their own biases, past and present, and are unwilling to change their minds for fear it indicates a personal failing.

But being wrong is not a character flaw or something horrible from which one can never recover. It need not be a source of embarrassment. It’s........

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