_Special Conditions Favorable to the Formation of Reflective judgments_
In addition to the general conditions mentioned on page 278@@@ the special conditions favorable for the formation of reflective judgments are as follows:--
1. A theoretical education. Proverbially schools teach generalizations, abstractions, and principles. The scholar and the student are compelled to practice in this most effective form of thinking. A justifiable criticism of the schools is that they are inclined to neglect the lower forms of thinking--the dealing with the concrete--in their zeal for the highest forms of thinking. However, a school education not only gives practice in handling generalizations, abstractions, and principles, but it provides the conditions necessary to stimulate the learners to amass a useful stock of concepts that at a later time will be used in reflective judgments.
2. Suggestions from others. Reflective judgments depend upon condensed experience. The condensation is not produced by compres-
sion but by selecting the common though essential element from various former experiences and by uniting these elements into a new unity. This breaking up of former experiences by analyzing out the essential factor is a difficult task and one in which no man can proceed far without assistance from others.
At a recent meeting of psychologists a speaker presented a paper on the most helpful order of presentation of topics for a course in psychology. He simply called our attention to certain facts which we had all experienced as teachers of psychology. He then combined these abstracted elements in a new unity in such a way that I was enabled to form a reflective judgment as to the order of presenting topics in psychology. Without his suggestion I probably never would have been able to make the analysis necessary for the reflective judgment.
We need all the help we can get to assist us to analyze our own experiences. To this end we employ with great profit such agencies as conferences with fellow-workmen, conventions,
visitations, trade journals, and technical discussions upon our own problem (cf. Chapter XI).
3. Verbal expression. We cannot well unite factors of previous experience into a new whole unless we have some symbol to stand for the new unity. As such a symbol, a word is the most effective. Animals never carry on reflective judgments and never can, since they do not possess a language adequate to such demands. The attempt to express one's thought in words is in reality often a means for creating the thought as well as a means for its expression. A few years ago I prepared a paper on the subject, ``Making Psychology Practical.'' In my attempt to express myself I clarified my thinking, formed new generalizations, and therefore was enabled to do with full consciousness (with reflective judgments) what previously I had done but blindly.
It is a most helpful practice to attempt to express in words just what one is trying to accomplish; what are the conditions necessary for success; what the conditions that are lower-
ing efficiency; and what are the possibilities of the work, etc. The method of analysis and expression assists wonderfully in abstracting the aspects of one's experience necessary for the generalization, abstraction, and principle used in reflective judgments.
_Special Conditions Favorable to the Formation of Expert judgments_
There are no clearly defined special conditions for increasing one's capacity to apply expert judgments. The general conditions discussed on page 278@@@ seem to cover the case. If I have provided, as an executive, for all these conditions for developing expert judgments:--
(1) if I have good vigorous health,
(2) if I am working with enthusiastic application,
(3) if I have the right attitude towards my work,
(4) and finally, if I am having frequent experience in making practical and theoretical judgments,--I am then fulfilling the conditions most favorable for the development of expert judgments.