:As stated repeatedly in my book, Critical Thinking is a vital “super power.” Sadly, far too few people these days seem willing or able to demonstrate this essential ability. Instead, they approach and interpret complex, controversial and ambiguous situations from an “us vs them” or “My Team vs The Other Team” perspective. This “group identification” reduces your capacity to analyze things based on facts, evidence and logic.

One simple way to help reduce this powerful and detrimental bias is simply to reverse the “sides” of the people or other relevant factors of whatever situation or context you are considering, if possible.

For example, if a politician from Party A says something you find offensive—presuming you prefer Party B—imagine that someone from Party B said it instead. Would you react the same way?

Or, suppose something randomly bad happens to a person of a particular “racial,” ethnic, societal, cultural or religious background different from your own. If you react a certain way, try switching the relevant background features of that person to match your own. Does that change your reaction?

To be sure, there are many factors that can make this exercise not possible or not make so much sense in certain circumstances. However, you should be able to find ample opportunities to try it. If you do try it with an open and honest mind, you should be able to identify at least one or more biases. And this is a critical early step in increasing your Critical Thinking capacity.