Aaron Rodgers Dropped the Ball on Critical Thinking
It was hard to miss the news about Green Bay Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers testing positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 3, 2021. Like the vast majority of people who were catching—and dying from—the coronavirus, he was unvaccinated.
A few days after his diagnosis, Rodgers took to the airwaves to offer a smorgasbord of pandemic misinformation and conspiracy theories in defense of his decision to skip the COVID-19 vaccine. Having listened to many an interview with Rodgers, I found it totally predictable that he began his comments by asserting, “I’m not, you know, some sort of anti-vax, flat-earther.” But as someone who does research on how people think and decide, it’s what Rodgers said next that caused me to lean in: “I am somebody who’s a critical thinker.”
Critical thinker? Research by my students and I on the link between critical thinking ability and behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that Rodgers is the opposite.
Critical thinking as a precursor to sound judgments and decisions involves three related elements that are accessible to almost anyone. First, critical thinking means being able to recognize that there are situations where you must balance your instinctive reactions to what’s going on around you, based on emotions like fear and desire, with the need for a heavier psychological lift. Second, critical thinking means following some basic principles when you search for and use information. You must be open to and consider more than one solution to a problem, without ignoring or dismissing evidence that goes against your initial beliefs. And you must be willing to change your mind and your behavior in response to new information or insights. And third, critical thinking means recognizing when you are out of your depth and then looking to legitimate experts for help. In other words, critical thinkers understand when it’s time to outsource critical thinking to others.
Read my entire article about Aaron Rodgers’ claim that he’s a critical thinker here.
And read the studies upon which the article was based here and here.
