Sorta Random Sunday: What Type of Thinker Am I?

Mindset is critical in our success. Professionally. Personally. In life in general. So it makes a lot of sense that we work on understanding how we think. And how we can think better. This is the huge premise in the book, Think Again by Adam Grant. To this end, he also provides an interesting peek into the type of thinker that you actually are right now.

He does that via an online quiz that’s only 10 questions long and gives some great insight into what type of thinker you are.

So, what type of thinker am I?

What types of thinkers are there?

Grant categorizes them into 4 options: preachers, prosecutors, politicians, and scientists.

And here’s how he describes them:

Psychologists find that we enter preacher mode when we’re defending a sacred value, prosecutor mode when we’re trying to win an argument, politician mode when we’re campaigning for the approval of an audience, and scientist mode when we’re searching for the truth. These mental modes affect our will to question our own opinions and our skill to open other people’s minds.

And here are my scores…

Here are your scores:

Preacher: 20%
Prosecutor: 10%
Politician: 0%
Scientist: 70%
Other: 0%

And Grant’s analysis of my thinking style:

Preaching and prosecuting can be effective approaches to opening minds when people don’t hold strong opinions and don’t care deeply about an issue. However, they run the risk of alienating people with deep-seated convictions on topics that matter to them. These modes can also leave us so determined to prove ourselves right and others wrong that we fail to do much rethinking ourselves.

When we’re in politician mode, we’re more focused on building support and more willing to revise our beliefs. The danger is that we come across as hypocrites and change our minds at the wrong times for the wrong reasons.

It’s in scientist mode that we gain mental flexibility. We search for reasons why we might be wrong (not just reasons why we must be right) and revise our opinions based on what we learn. That puts us in a better position to help others learn too.

My thoughts about my thinking

I’ve read his book, so I was familiar with the concepts of the different types of thinkers. So, in taking the quiz, there has to be some element of bias.

However, it’s been at least 6-8 months since reading the book so details are pretty foggy. And I went into the quiz with the goal of answering honestly, even if it didn’t seem like the “best” choice.

In any case, I do try to use my scientist thinking as much as possible in life. It’s hard. Because we all want to be right. Even in medicine, maybe especially in medicine, it’s hard for doctors to admit we are not perfect. But this is something that I am practicing.

Of course I’d like to think that I don’t have much preacher or prosecutor, but I guess we all do to a certain degree. And they can probably even be effective as Grant mentions when used in moderation.

And I’m not surprised that my politician contribution to the type of thinker I am is negligent. I absolutely abhor politics and generally create my mindset and thoughts regardless of the outright support it will generate.

You can even go back to the first comment I ever received on this blog to see that support was not always there for my endeavor with this blog!

What type of thinker are you?

This is a really fun exercise and I encourage all of you to take the quiz as well. Don’t worry about proving that your thinking is where you want it to be. None of us are perfect. None of us with be 100% scientist. It’s just not how nature works.

The important thing is just understanding how our thinking works so we can cut through the bias to understand the world and love our best lives!