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Critical Thinking And Stress

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Stress Critical thinking can be used to decrease stress. Stress is caused by environmental factors that place a strain on an organisms’ capacity to deal with physical and physical demands (Salleh, 2008). These factors are referred to as stressors. Critical thinking can increase confidence levels and creativity and can decrease anxiety levels (Rezaei, Saatsaz, Nia, Moulookzadeh, & Behedhti, 2015). Studies have shown that critical thinking skills can help individuals cope with difficult situations while reducing anxiety and improving mental health (Rezaei et al., 2015). Most people will experience stress at some point and it can have an impact on their performance and decision-making skills. It is estimated to cost American businesses over …show more content…

The premise is that most people engage in certain activities for the expressed desire to increase or decrease arousal levels. Optimal levels are unique to each individual. Arousal is defined as “a hypothetical construct that represents the level of central nervous system activity along a behavioral continuum ranging from sleep to alertness” (Razmjou, 1996, p. 530). Yerkes and Dobson (1908) used mice with a simple learning task to measure the performance using electric shock as an aversive stimuli. The original study noted how many attempts the mice made before behavior modifications were made based on the use of the electric shock. When the mice were shocked with high-intensity electricity, they quickly learned to go in the other direction. The findings suggest that “moderate levels of arousal will result in optimal performance whereas too little or too much arousal will degrade performance” (Staal, 2004, p. 3). Recent studies show that arousal does not always result in avoidance. Sometimes the expectation of a high-gain can actually mitigate the risks (Davies, Radford, Petterson, Yang, & Nichol, …show more content…

Those in high-stress conditions could not distinguish relevant from irrelevant information while tackling difficult problems. Some of the problems were unsolvable. High levels of stress increased anxiety and subjects focused on irrelevant tasks. This can further be complicated by low latent inhibition. People with low latent inhibition tend to be flooded with stimuli, making it difficult to screen out information that have previously been tagged as useless (Kaufman, 2013). People with reduced latent inhibition and a high IQ tend to be creative (Carson, 2011). Conditioned emotional responses are also sensitive to latent

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