Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 119

CRITICAL THINKING

(Photo by Human Terrain System)

Human terrain team social scientist Muna Molyneux interviews a widow 21 July 2010 at Karmah-Subayhat, Anbar Province, Iraq during a
combined U.S. and Iraqi Army medical engagement. The widow's husband and sons were killed by al-Qaida operatives during the Anbar
Sunni tribal Awakening circa 2006. Molyneux was conducting a research project that included ascertaining how persons who lost their
family support network during the Awakening were able to continue sustaining themselves.

For example, the program sought to reinforce the
skill of cognitive self-regulation. The intent was to
help students improve their ability to remain open to
new information and to continuously reevaluate their
existing beliefs as new information becomes available.13
To reinforce this skill, practical exercises were designed
so that information provided initially would be ambiguous. Some information would intentionally lead the
students to form one conclusion, but subsequent information would, ideally, lead them to question and refine
it. Faculty members would then be able to coach the
students to reinforce their cognitive agility or to correct
their cognitive rigidity as appropriate. By the end of the
program, students were expected to actively seek out
such disconfirming information and fully demonstrate
the skill of thinking as hypothesis testing.
MILITARY REVIEW  November-December 2015

Changing one’s thinking about something based
on new information, what design methodology calls
“reframing,” is not easy for most people. It becomes even
more difficult when the dynamic of an authority figure
is added. Since the human terrain teams’ purpose was to
enable commanders to make more informed plans and
decisions, their training needed to be built upon realistic
scenarios and supported by realistic role players who
served as the staff and commander of a brigade combat
team. We found that exercises limited to planning and
to preparing initial reports were insufficient to develop
students’ abilities to use what Christopher Paparone calls
“the two faces of critical thinking.”14 Only in a realistic,
execution-based practicum were students required
to reevaluate their conclusions, reframe, or adapt to
unanticipated events. For human terrain team members,
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