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Thinking

Thinking involves complex cognitive processes like perception, imagination, memory, and conception. It generally occurs when problem solving is needed or something goes wrong. Thinking uses symbols and concepts to represent the external world. It involves sequential activation of symbols to manipulate the world internally. Creative thinking involves preparation, incubation, inspiration or illumination, and sometimes verification. It results in something novel through divergent thinking rather than routine convergent thinking.

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Nupur Pharaskhanewala
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274 views

Thinking

Thinking involves complex cognitive processes like perception, imagination, memory, and conception. It generally occurs when problem solving is needed or something goes wrong. Thinking uses symbols and concepts to represent the external world. It involves sequential activation of symbols to manipulate the world internally. Creative thinking involves preparation, incubation, inspiration or illumination, and sometimes verification. It results in something novel through divergent thinking rather than routine convergent thinking.

Uploaded by

Nupur Pharaskhanewala
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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THINKING

NATURE OF THINKING

In a broad sense, thinking includes all forms of cognitions, perceptions, imagination, memory and
conception. Sometimes the term thinking is used to mean the process of problem solving.

Generally thinking occurs when we are confronted with a problem which demands solution or it occurs when
something goes wrong with or around us. When everything is smooth the chances of thinking are rare.

Whittakar defines that “thinking is a complex cognitive forms of behaviour which occurs only at relatively
advanced stage of development when simpler and more direct methods of dealing with the environment have
proved ineffective”.

(i) Thinking is a Series of Symbolic Process:


C. T. Morgan regards thinking as “a sequence of symbolic processes”. It makes use of symbols, percept,
images, and concepts. Images are either sensory or verbal. The symbols represent or stand for objects or
events in the environment. Therefore, thinking involves representative processes.
Munn also regards thinking as “a sequential arousal of symbols.” We think of one thing; that makes us think
of another; that of still another, and so on. In this way we manipulate the world internally with the help of
symbolic processes. Woodworth regards thinking as mental exploration of the data to deal with the
environment effectively.

It is ideational activity deliberately controlled by a purpose. It is different from daydreaming or undirected


thinking. Purposive thinking in mental exploration and finding a new truth. Thinking is manipulating the
world internally with the aid of symbolic processes. It makes use of memory, imagination, and reasoning of
problem-solving. Thinking is ideational activity which is deliberately controlled by a purpose. It is mental
exploration of data in order to deal with the environment effectively.

(ii) Steps in Thinking:

Woodworth mentions the following steps in thinking:


(a) Orientation towards a goal;

(b) Seeking this way and that for realizing the goal;

(c) Recall of previously observed facts;

(d) Grouping these recalled facts into new patterns;

(e) Inner speech movements and gestures.


All these activities may not be present in every act of thinking. In idle thinking there may not be any
particular goal. But in purposive thinking there is always a goal. Sometimes thinking may be carried on
without inner speech.

But generally when we think in order to solve a theoretical or practical problem, the first four elements are
present in thinking. The solution of a problem is the goal of thinking. Thinking is generally oriented towards
a goal. We think of this means or that means to solve the problem. We recall facts of past experience bearing
on the problem.

We group them together into new patterns to solve the particular problem. We may give partial expression to
our thinking by inaudible speech movements; or we may assume a particular gesture to facilitate thinking. At
last, we may succeed in reaching the solution of the problem. Memory and imagination are involved in
thinking.

(iii) Purpose of Thinking: Discovery or Invention:


Thinking has two main goals, discovery of a new truth and invention of a new device. Purposive thinking is
oriented towards a goal. It seeks to solve a theoretical or practical problem. It seeks to find out a new truth. It
tries to discover a new relationship among the data observed or recalled by grouping them together into new
patterns.

It recalls relevant facts observed at different times and places, groups them into new patterns, and discovers
something new truth in them. Thus thinking involves memory and imagination. It involves analysis and
synthesis. It involves analysis of facts observed or recalled into their component elements. It involves
synthesis of the elements selected into a new pattern to suit the occasion.

(iv) Hindsight and Foresight in Thinking:


Thinking involves hindsight and foresight in the language of Woodworth. It looks back to the past and recalls
the relevant data of past experience. This is hindsight. Thinking involves foresight also. It sees the impli-
cations of the combination of the data and draws a new conclusion.

In reasoning, the relevant data observed or recalled are combined and examined to see what new conclusion
can be drawn from the combined date. Thus thinking involves hindsight and foresight. Sometimes thinking
involves transfer. A principle, rule or maxim, acquired from past experience, or learned from wiser people, is
applied to a new problem. This is called transfer.

(v) Thinking Involves Abstraction:


It proceeds from the concrete to the abstract. It leaves out the concrete details of sense-perception and fixes
on the general features of objects. Thus it rises from the particular facts perceived to imageless concepts.
Thinking is at first tied to sense-perception.

Then it rises to the level of imaginative thinking which is carried on through the medium of concrete or verbal
images. At last, it rises to the level of imageless thinking. Thinking may be carried on without sensory images.
Imageless thinking pervades our rational life.

Types of Thinking
CREATIVE THINKING PROCESS

Creative thinking involves the following stages:


(a) Preparation for achieving the task in the first step in creative thinking. A background of general education
and special education for solving specific problems are the prerequisites of creative thinking. A medical
investigator must have general knowledge of the basic sciences and special knowledge of the medical science
in order to discover a new truth or a new cure.

The acquisition of thorough knowledge of relevant facts about the object of creative thinking is the required
preparation for it. Preparation includes the process of relating facts in various ways. It involves a trial-and-
error process.

(b) Incubation is the second step in creative thinking. The creative thinker does not think about the problem,
but turns his attention elsewhere, or thinks of something else. While his attention is turned to something else,
the problem is being solved by the unconscious mind. In this state associative activities continue to some
degree. This is the stage of incubation.

(c) Inspiration or illumination is the third step in creative thinking. Many creative thinkers claim that their
creative ideas come to them suddenly after the period of incubation. Inspiration is akin to insight in the
process of learning.

Trial-and-error activity is a part of preparation, rather than of incubation. Inspiration comes suddenly after
incubation probably from the depths of the unconscious mind. It is not a plodding process of intellection or
discursive thinking.
(d) Verification is sometimes necessary to test the creative idea that comes to the creative thinker suddenly.
Its validity may be tested by casting it in the form of a syllogism. It may have to be revised in the light of fresh
controlled observation of facts. Thus inspiration is verified, revised, or modified by further experience.
Sometimes inspiration is the last step in creative thinking.

Characteristics of Creative Thinking:

a. Creative thinking, in all its shapes and forms is absolutely an internal mental process and hence should be
considered as an important component of one’s cognitive behaviour.

b. Every one of us is capable of creative thinking and hence it is a universal phenomenon.

c. Creative thinking results in the production of something new or novel including a new form of arrangement
of old elements.

d. Creative thinking in all its dimensions involve divergent thinking instead of the routine and final types of
convergent thinking. The mind must have complete freedom to wander around to create a new idea.

e. The field of creative thinking and its out part is quite comprehensive and built wide. It covers all the
aspects of human accomplishments belonging to an individual’s life.

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