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UNIT III- THINKING SKILLS

(Reshma S., Arun Lawrence, Dr. Jayesh Patidar, Miles Therese Granada)

Nature
Thinking can refer to the act of producing thoughts or the process of producing

thoughts. In spite of the fact that thought is a fundamental human activity familiar to

everyone, there is no generally accepted agreement as to what thought is or how it is

created. Because thought underlies many human actions and interactions,

understanding its physical and metaphysical origins, processes, and effects has been

a longstanding goal of many academic disciplines including artificial

intelligence, biology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.

Thinking allows humans to make sense of, interpret, represent or model the world they

experience, and to make predictions about that world. It is therefore helpful to an

organism with needs, objectives, and desires as it makes plans or otherwise attempts

to accomplish those goals.

Ross:

“Thinking is a mental activity in its cognitive aspect or mental activity with regard to

psychological aspects”.

Garrett:

“Thinking is a behaviour which is often implicit and hidden and in which symbols are

ordinarily employed”.
Some limit in the definition of thinking is as follows:

1. Thinking is the activity of human reason as a process of strengthening the

relationship between stimulus and response.

2. Thinking is a reasonable working of various views with the knowledge that has

been stored in the mind long before the emergence of new knowledge.

3. Thinking can be interpreted to remember something, and questioned whether

there is a relationship between what is intended.

4. Thinking is processing information mentally or cognitively by rearranging the

information from the environment and the symbols are stored in the memory of

his past.

5. Thinking is a symbolic representation of some event train of ideas in a precise

and careful that began with the problem.

6. Thinking is a mental process mental representations newly formed through the

transformation of information by interaction, attributes such as the assessment

of mental abstraction, logic, imagination and problem-solving.

Thinking Function: Thinking function involves


Interpretation Problems: Known also by defining the problem by way of creative

thinking.

Problem Solving Strategy: Make a selection of the best problem-solving strategies

some problem-solving strategies are often used –

1. Trial and error It took a long time (Short Term Memory). Trial and error is to

try to resolve if one tried to repeat it will know where lies the fault.
2. Informational Retrieval retrieve the information for solving problems quickly

(Long Term Memory) –

3. Algorithm That is a problem-solving method that guarantees a solution if the

problem of available opportunities for someone to develop it.

4. Heuristic that helps to simplify the problem, influenced by past experience.

There are four heuristic methods are:

a. 1. Hill Climbing a heuristic strategy in which each step is concern to

move closer to its final destination.

b. Sub goals Method of solving a problem by making it smaller or in pieces,

everywhere respective aims to simplify the solution.

c. Mean and Analysis A heuristic strategy that will target to reduce

differences between the situation with the desired objectives through the

intermediary of a way.

d. Working Backward A heuristic strategy where we have to move

backwards from our goal in some circumstances

Tools of Thinking:

There are a few important elements involved in the thinking process:

1. Images:

As mental pictures consist of personal experiences of objects, persons or situations,

heard and felt. These mental pictures symbolize actual objects, experiences and

activities. In thinking, we usually manipulate the images rather than the actual objects,

experiences or activities.
2. Concepts:

A concept is a general idea that stands for a general class and represents the common

characteristics of all objects or events of this general class. Concept, as a tool,

economize the efforts in thinking, for example, when we hear the word ‘elephant’ we

are at once reminded not only about the nature and qualities of elephant as a class

but also our own experiences and understanding of them come to the surface in our

consciousness to stimulate our thinking at that time.

3. Symbols and signs:

Symbols and signs represent and stand for substitute of the actual objects,

experiences and activities. For example, traffic lights, railway signals, school bells,

badges, songs, flags and slogans all are symbolic expressions, they stimulate and

motivate resultant thinking because they tell us what to do or how to act.

4. Language:

Is the most efficient and developed vehicle used for carrying out the process of

thinking. When a person reads, writes or hears words or sentences or observes

gesture in any language one is stimulated to think. Thus reading and writing of

documents and literature also help in stimulating and promoting the thinking process.

5. Muscular activities:

Thinking in one way or the other shows the evidence of the involvement of some

incipient movements of groups of our muscles. A high positive relation has been found

to exist for the thinking and muscular activities of an individual. The more we engage

ourselves in thought, the greater is the general muscular tension and conversely as

we moved towards muscular relation, our thought processes gradually diminish.


6. Brain functions:

Whatever may be the role of the muscles, thinking is primarily a function of the brain.

Our mind is said to be the chief instrument of the thinking process. The experiences

registered by our sense organs have no meaning, and thus cannot serve as

stimulating agents, or instruments for thinking unless these impressions are received

by our brain cells and properly interpreted to derive some meaning.

The mental pictures or images can be stored, reconstructed or put to use only on being

processed by the brain. What happens in our thought process is simply the function

or product of the activities of our brain.

ELEMENT OF THOUGHT

Thought (also called thinking) – the mental process in which beings form

psychological associations and models of the world. Thinking is

manipulating information, as when we form concepts, engage in problem

solving, reason and make decisions. Thought, the act of thinking, produces thoughts.

A thought may be an idea, an image, a sound or even an emotional feeling that arises

from the brain.

Thought (or thinking) can be described as all of the following:

 An activity taking place in a:

 brain – organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate

and most invertebrate animals (only a few invertebrates such as sponges,

jellyfish, adult sea squirts and starfish do not have a brain). It is the physical

structure associated with the mind.


 mind – abstract entity with the cognitive faculties

of consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory. Having a

mind is a characteristic of living creatures.[1][2]Activities taking place in a

mind are called mental processes or cognitive functions.

 computer (see § Machine thought below) – general purpose device that can be

programmed to carry out a set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically.

Since a sequence of operations (an algorithm) can be readily changed, the

computer can solve more than one kind of problem.

 An activity of intelligence – intelligence is the intellectual prowess of which is

marked by cognition, motivation, and self-awareness.[3] Through intelligence,

living creatures possess the cognitive abilities to learn, form concepts, understand,

apply logic, and reason, including the capacities to recognize patterns,

comprehend ideas, plan, problem solve, make decisions, retaining, and use

language to communicate. Intelligence enables living creatures to experience and

think.

 A type of mental process – something that individuals can do with their minds.

Mental processes include perception, memory, thinking, volition, and emotion.

Sometimes the term cognitive function is used instead.

 Thought as a biological adaptation mechanism[4]

Thinking Process- the processes of thought are as follows:

1. Understanding the formation. Understanding, formed through the three stages

as follows: a. Analysis of the characteristics of similar objects. These objects


we look at the elements - elements one by one. For example, or set up a human

sense.

b. Comparison - compare these features to be found traits - traits which are the

same, which is not the same, which is always there and which ones do not

always exist where the essential and which are not essential.

c. Abstraction, that is set aside, dispose, traits that are not essential, capturing

the essential characteristics.

2. Opinion Formation- Formation of opinion is to put the relationship between two

terms or more. The opinions expressed in the language called the sentence,

which consists of basic sentence or the title or subject and predicate.

Furthermore, the opinion can be divided into three kinds:

a.Affirmative or positive opinion, the opinion which declares a state of

something, for example Franzel was clever, and aswell as Yyah….and so on.

b. Negative opinion, the repeal That opinion, which clearly explains the absence

of anything thing else on the nature of things: For example Mikkha is ugly and

so skinny.

c.Modalities That opinion stating opinion- the possibility of something on the

nature of things: for example it might rain today, Miles might not come. And so

on.

3. Conclusion withdrawal or Establishment Decision - The decision is the result of the

act makes sense to form a new opinion based on the opinions that already exist. There

are three kinds of conclusions, ie


a. Inductive inference the decisions taken from the opinion - opinion toward a

particular public opinion.

b. Deductive conclusions Deductive decision drawn from the general to the specific,

so in contrast to inductive decision.

c. Conclusion analogical - The decision is a decision that analogical obtained by

comparing or customize with specific opinions that already exist

TYPES of THINKING
1. Perceptual or Concrete Thinking:

This is the simplest form of thinking the basis of this type is perception, i.e.

interpretation of sensation according to one’s experience. It is also called concrete

thinking as it is carried out on the perception of actual or concrete objects and events.

2. Conceptual or Abstract Thinking:

Here one makes use of concepts, the generalized objects and languages, it is

regarded as being superior to perceptual thinking as it economizes efforts in

understanding and problem-solving.

3. Reflective Thinking:

This type of thinking aims in solving complex problems, thus it requires reorganization

of all the relevant experiences to a situation or removing obstacles instead of relating

with that experiences or ideas.

This is an insightful cognitive approach in reflective thinking as the mental activity here

does not involve the mechanical trial and error type of efforts.
In this type, thinking processes take all the relevant facts arranged in a logical order

into an account in order to arrive at a solution of the problem.

4. Creative Thinking:

This type of thinking is associated with one’s ability to create or construct something

new, novel or unusual. It looks for new relationships and associations to describe and

interpret the nature of things, events and situations. Here the individual himself usually

formulates the evidences and tools for its solution. For example; scientists, artists or

inventors.

Skinner, the famous psychologist says creative thinking means that the prediction and

inferences for the individual are new, original, ingenious and unusual. The creative

thinker is one who expresses new ideas and makes new observations, new predictions

and new inferences.

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.

5. Critical Thinking:

It is a type of thinking that helps a person in stepping aside from his own personal

beliefs, prejudices and opinions to sort out the faiths and discover the truth, even at

the expense of his basic belief system.

Here one resorts to set higher cognitive abilities and skills for the proper interpretation,

analysis, evaluation and inference, as well as explanation of the gathered or

communicated information resulting in a purposeful unbiased and self-regulatory

judgement.

An ideal thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, open-minded, flexible, fair-

minded in evaluation, free from personal bias and prejudices, honest in seeking

relevant information, skilled in the proper use of the abilities like interpretation,

analysis, synthesis, evaluation and drawing conclusion and inferences, etc.

The critical thinking is of a higher order well-disciplined thought process which involves

the use of cognitive skills like conceptualization, interpretation, analysis, synthesis and

evaluation for arriving at an unbiased, valid and reliable judgment of the gathered or

communicated information or data as a guide to one’s belief and action.

Importance of Critical Thinking


a) Critical thinking is a domain-general thinking skill. The ability to think

clearly and rationally is important whatever we choose to do. If you work in

education, research, finance, management or the legal profession, then critical

thinking is obviously important. But critical thinking skills are not restricted to a

particular subject area. Being able to think well and solve problems

systematically is an asset for any career.

b) Critical thinking is very important in the new knowledge economy. The

global knowledge economy is driven by information and technology. One has

to be able to deal with changes quickly and effectively. The new economy

places increasing demands on flexible intellectual skills, and the ability to

analyse information and integrate diverse sources of knowledge in solving

problems. Good critical thinking promotes such thinking skills, and is very

important in the fast-changing workplace.

c) Critical thinking enhances language and presentation skills. Thinking

clearly and systematically can improve the way we express our ideas. In

learning how to analyse the logical structure of texts, critical thinking also

improves comprehension abilities.

d) Critical thinking promotes creativity. To come up with a creative solution to

a problem involves not just having new ideas. It must also be the case that the

new ideas being generated are useful and relevant to the task at hand. Critical

thinking plays a crucial role in evaluating new ideas, selecting the best ones

and modifying them if necessary

e) Critical thinking is crucial for self-reflection. In order to live a meaningful life

and to structure our lives accordingly, we need to justify and reflect on our
values and decisions. Critical thinking provides the tools for this process of self-

evaluation.

f) Good critical thinking is the foundation of science and democracy.

Science requires the critical use of reason in experimentation and theory

confirmation. The proper functioning of a liberal democracy requires citizens

who can think critically about social issues to inform their judgments about

proper governance and to overcome biases and prejudice.

6. Non-directed or Associative Thinking:

There are times when we find ourselves engaged in a unique type of thinking which is

non-directed and without goal. It is reflected through dreaming and other free-flowing

uncontrolled activities. Psychologically these forms of thought are termed as

associative thinking.

Here day-dreaming, fantasy and delusions all fall in the category of withdrawal

behaviour that helps an individual to escape from the demands of the real world by

making his thinking face non-directed and floating, placing him somewhere, ordering

something unconnected with his environment.

We hear there is nothing seriously abnormal in behaviour involving daydreaming and

fantasy but behaviour involving delusions definitely points towards abnormality.

A person under the influence of such delusions may think or believe that he is a

millionaire, the ruler of the universe, a great inventor, a noted historian or even God.

In contrast, a person in the grip of delusion may be inclined to be the most incapable,
unworthy and unwanted person and may develop guilt feelings or complain that he is

the victim of some incurable physical or mental diseases.

CONCEPT FORMATION

A concept is the sum total of what we know about the object. It refers to a generalized

idea about the objects/persons/ events. It stands for a general class and not for a

particular object/person/event. It is a common name given on the basis of similarities

or commonness found in different objects/persons/events.

There are concepts of objects such as cat, tree, chair etc., and concept of persons

such as mother, Indian, Negro etc., and concepts of qualities such as honesty,

goodness, and obedience. It is a mental disposition that helps in understanding the

meaning of the objects or perceived earlier. In one sense, it is general mental image

of the objects / persons /events experienced or perceived earlier

 Concept is a process of representing a common property of objects or events

– Morgan.

 Concept is a process with represents the similarities in otherwise diverse

objects, situations or events – Munn.

 Concepts are those thoughts which mention things, incidents, qualities, etc. –

Woodworth.  Concept is the process of discrimination of the common features

and relations in the world of events, things and persons – Hammerton.

A concept is not static, it is always changing. For example first a child considers even

the walls and doors to be living things. Then it understands they are non-living,
considers cars, buses and running objects to be alive. Later, it learns that only animals

and plants are living. The concept is not common for all, different persons may have

different concept about the same object / events. Concept is a part of thought process.

Concept can be formed without the use of language. Concert formation is the

association of certain stimuli and responses. Concept is the process of discrimination

of the common features. Concepts are very useful in recognizing, naming and

identifying the objects / persons / events.

Types of Concept Formation

1. Direct Experience: It is the first type of concept formation, in which the learner

develops concept through direct experience with the particular objects / persons /

events. It is developed during from the early childhood onwards. For example, the

concept about cow.

2. Indirect Experience: Here the learner develops concept through pictures, photos

and reading descriptions, hearing from other. For example, the concept about

Kangaroo.

3. Faulty Concepts: The concepts or the general ideas we have about the objects,

persons or events, are not always adequate and accurate. Small children have so

many concepts that are quite erroneous and inadequate. For example, one’s anxiety

over the crossing of his way by a cat or one’s feeling of hatred towards the person

belonging to other caste or religion is the result of faulty concepts. Faulty concepts

should not be allowed to develop in children.

Process of Concept Formation: The process of concept formation has three

important phases.
1. Perception: Experiences or learning in any form is the starting point of the process

of concept formation. Our perceptions or imaginary experiences, formal or informal

learning, provide opportunities for getting mental images of the objects, persons or

events.

2. Abstraction: The mind analyses the perceived images and synthesizes what is

common to all, neglecting what is particular. This process of observing similarities and

commonness is named as abstraction.

3. Generalization: After making such observation in the form of abstraction for a

numbers of times the child is able to generalize or form a general idea about the

common properties of some objects or events. On account of this generalization, he

will develop a concept about these things or events.

EG- The child perceives a black cow at the first time and is told that it is a cow, he tries

to form an idea about it. In the beginning the idea is very particular in nature.  Later

on, when he perceives a white or red cow he does not at once, call it a cow. He again

makes an enquiry and comes to that these are cows. He tries to compare the particular

mental image the idea of the previously perceived cow with the images he is having,

at present, by perceiving white and red cows.  In this way he compares and contrasts

the similarities or dissimilarities of his mental images related to all perceived cows. In

spite of the differences in colour, appearance etc., they are found to possess so many

common properties or characteristics.

Reasoning
It is the cognitive process of looking for reasons for beliefs, conclusion, actions or

feelings. It is the process of drawing conclusions based on evidence. It is form of

controlled thinking in which the thought process is directed consciously towards the

solutions of a problem. Reasoning is the highest form of thinking to find out causes &

predict effects. An individual tries to solve a problem by incorporating two or more

aspects of his past experience.

Reasoning is step-wise thinking with a purpose or goal in mind.-(Garrett - 1968)

Reasoning is combining past experience in order to solve a problem which cannot be

solved by mere reproduction of earlier solutions.-(Mann - 1967)

Nature of Reasoning-

 It is a form of logical thinking.

 It is characterized by rigid control that keeps it in close contact with reality.

 It is always directed towards the achievement of a specific goal.

 Reasoning does not occur unless a question has arisen for which there is no

ready answer.

It is classified into;

I. Inductive reasoning: This is process of reasoning from parts to the whole,

from example to generalizations. It is carried out generally within the field

known as informal logic or critical thinking.

II. Deductive reasoning: This moves from the whole to part, from

generalization to underlying concepts to examples. Formal logic is

described as “the science of deduction.”


III. Abductive reasoning: It is cognitive process often involves both inductive

& deductive arguments.

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