Final answer:
Critical thinking is a high-level cognitive process that involves creativity, problem solving, and decision making. It requires metacognitive skills to reflect on, assess, and correct one's own thought processes and biases.
Step-by-step explanation:
From the information supplied in this chapter, critical thinking is best defined as a high-level cognitive process that includes creativity, problem solving, and decision making. This definition encompasses the understanding that critical thinking is a set of skills, habits, and attitudes focused on reflective, clear reasoning. It involves metacognition, which means thinking about thinking, and engages higher-order thinking skills that are essential in assessing our thought processes, becoming skeptical of our gut reactions and intuitions, and examining our cognitive tendencies and biases. Critical thinking is imperative for analyzing situations, making inferences, evaluating evidence, synthesizing information, and drawing conclusions based on researched information. It is a practical skill that requires effort, skepticism, and analytical reasoning to overcome cognitive biases and arrive at more accurate conclusions.