Psychologists use the scientific approach to study  human behavior, attitudes and emotions. there is this preconceived idea  that "women in general are bad drivers". as a student of psychology, how would you apply critical thinking to examine this conception.

In psychology, critical thinking is a study of evaluating a claim using evidence and reason. So, the preconceived idea- “Women in general are bad drivers” is a claim which needed to be evaluated with evidences.

Explanation:

Critical thinking plays a role in many everyday decisions and evolves a process to come to a conclusion that the claim is true.

Purpose- First, when you state a claim, you need to understand the purpose that what the person is trying to accomplish and in a negative or a positive way keeping the situation in view. Question- The question is this claim is that, “Are all women really bad drivers?” First question yourself, and then you will understand the scenario of the statement. Point of view- Critical thinking varies one to another. So always consider the person’s point of view that raised the claim. Then think about your point of view and compare. We always tend to accept the evidence to the claim which we agree and do not accept others. Assumptions and Data- Your assumptions and data will help you to evaluate and measure the claim. Conclusion- After above four steps, you will now able to get to a conclusion whether the evidence is enough to prove the claim to be true. Implications- In other words after effects. This means how your conclusion is having an effect on others.

The answer to the question are,
 high-income people tend to be Liberal on social issues and conservative on economic issues.

liberal because they are open to new things like ideas or opinion.
Conservative because they are cautious and they hold on to traditional values
I hope my answer helped you