Thinking
By
Johny Joseph

• It is one of the most
important aspects of
one’s cognitive
behaviour.
• It involves number of
psychological activities
such as recollection,
imagination, perception
etc.
• It is not a simple
process.

The definition of thinking:
•Thinking is mental activity in its cognitive
aspect or mental activity with regard to
psychological objects. (Ross)
• thinking is a problem solving process in
which we use ideas or symbols in place of
overt activity. (Gilmer)

Nature of Thinking
• It is essentially a cognitive activity.
• It is always goal directed.
• It is a problem solving behaviour.
• It is related to inner cognitive behaviour.
• There is mental exploration instead of motor
exploration.
• Thinking is symbolic; it cannot be observed
but results can be seen.

Types of Thinking
• Perceptual or Concrete thinking.
• Conceptual or Abstract thinking.
• Convergent thinking.
• Divergent thinking.
• Reflective thinking.
• Creative thinking.
• Critical Thinking.
• Non directed/ associated thinking.

Perceptual or Concrete Thinking
• It is the simplest form of thinking.
• The basis of this thinking is a perception.
• This type of thinking is also called as concrete
thinking as it is carried out over the perception
of actual or concrete objects and events.

Conceptual or Abstract thinking
• It does not require the perception of actual
objects or events.
• It is a type of thinking where we make use of
concepts and ideas.
• This type of thinking is regarded as superior to
perceptual thinking as it leads to discovery and
inventions.
• Abstract: existing in thought or as an idea
but not having a physical or concrete
existence.

Convergent Thinking
• It is a closed single point thinking.
• This follows the principle of convergence
where the sun rays can be made to converge to
a single point using a lens.
• This type of thinking is involved in
situations which require the production of
only one correct solution or answer for a
problem. Eg. Answering MCQs.

Divergent Thinking
• It is a open point thinking.
• It promotes making multiple solutions for a
problem.
• It is a broad scanning operation enabling the
individual to make multiple possible solutions.
• This is used for creativity and inventions.

Reflective Thinking
• It is higher for of thinking.
• It aims at solving complex problems rather
than simple ones.
• It requires re organisation of all the relevant
experiences and finding new ways of reacting
to a situation or removing an obstacle.
• There is an insightful cognitive approach in
reflective thinking.
• It considers logic into account where relevant
facts are arranged in logical manner before
reaching to conclusion.
• It requires time but results are better.

Creative Thinking
• This is aimed to create something new.
• It is in search of new relationship and
associations to describe and interpret the
nature of the things, events, and situations.
• It helps in creativity and discovery/invention.
• A creative thinker is always influenced by
Versatile idea, originality, flexibility, divergent
thinking, self confidence and persistence, vision
and build relationship.

Critical Thinking
• A type of thing that helps a person to step aside
from his own personal belief, prejudices, and
opinions to sort out the facts and discover the
truth, even at the cost of his basic belief system.
• Higher cognitive process which requires
proper interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and
inference and explanation.
• It helps in meeting challenging problem of life
and profession.

Levels of Thinking

Gathering knowledge (Level I)
• It consists of acquiring basic pieces of
information. Asking children to identify and
describe objects encourages thinking on this
level.
• At this level thinking is found to operate at a
very concrete level of knowledge.
• Knowing about something, being able to recall
from memory specific facts and figures.

Comprehending and confirming (Level II)
• It involves looking at the meaning of the
knowledge that has been gathered and drawing
conclusions from it.
• Understand the literal meaning of that
something which falls in the boundary wall of
knowing.
• We conform the ideas by comparing or
contrasting in own methodologies.

Applying (Level III)
• It entails using what has been learned in new
situations.
• Asking children to consider a newly learned fact
as they make something can foster this level of
thinking.
• It includes demonstration of a knowledge.
• Making attempt to try and understand the learned
knowledge in different similar situations.

Analyzing (Level IV)
• It involves thinking about a whole in terms of its various
parts. Breaking something into parts, using logics, cause
and effect relationship, comparing and contrasting,
recognizing pattern.
• As a result classification, categorization, and
discrimination occurs.
• You can encourage this level of thinking by asking
children what materials could be used for a particular
classroom project.

SynthesizingSynthesizing (Level V)(Level V)
• It consists of putting parts together to form a whole.
• We often observe ideas put together to shape
something new, propose plans, suggesting solutions,
and create new information.
• It includes the formation of theories and tests them.
• Asking children how to use an array of materials to
create something, for example, invites thinking on
this level.

EvaluatingEvaluating (Level VI)(Level VI)
• Highest level of thinking.
• It entails making comparisons and judgments.
• It is the ability of evaluation and judgements about a
particular idea, its application and suitability.
• A person at this level defend his work effectively.
• You can encourage this level of thinking by asking
children which of the materials they used worked the
best.

Development of Thinking
Piaget's theory of cognitive development
•It is a comprehensive theory about the nature and
development of human intelligence and thinking.
•It was first created by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget.
•The theory deals with the nature of knowledge itself and how
humans gradually come to acquire, construct, and use it.
•To Piaget, cognitive development is a progressive
reorganization of mental processes resulting from biological
maturation and environmental experience.
•He believed that children construct an understanding of the
world around them, experience discrepancies between what
they already know and what they discover in their
environment, then adjust their ideas accordingly.

Development of Thinking
Through a series of stages, Piaget proposed four stages of
cognitive development:
•Sensory-motor (from birth to two years)
•Preoperational (about 2 to 7 years)
•Concrete operational (about 7 to 11 years)
•formal operational period (about 11 to 15 years).

Sensory-motor (from birth to two years)
• In this stage, infants progressively construct knowledge
and understanding of the world by coordinating
experiences (such as vision and hearing) with physical
interactions with objects (such as grasping, sucking,
and stepping).
• Infants gain knowledge of the world from the physical
actions they perform within it.
• They progress from reflexive, instinctual action at birth
to the beginning of symbolic thought toward the end of
the stage.
• They can think about aspects of the environment, even
though these may be outside the reach of the child's
senses.

Sensory-motor (from birth to two years)
• In this stage, according to Piaget, the development of object
permanence is one of the most important accomplishments.
• Object permanence is a child's understanding that objects
continue to exist even though he or she cannot see or hear
them. Hide and seek is a good test for that. By the end of
the sensory motor period, children develop a permanent
sense of self and object.

Pre Operational Stage
• Piaget's second stage, the pre-operational stage, starts
when the child begins to learn to speak at age two and
lasts up until the age of seven.
• Children's increase in playing and pretending takes
place in this stage. However, the child still has trouble
seeing things from different points of view.
• The children's play is mainly categorized by symbolic
play and manipulating symbols. Such play is
demonstrated by the idea of checkers being snacks,
pieces of paper being plates, and a box being a table.
• The child, however, is still not able to perform
operations, which are tasks that the child can do
mentally, rather than physically.

Pre Operational Stage
• Thinking in this stage is still egocentric, meaning the
child has difficulty seeing the viewpoint of others. The
Pre-operational Stage is split into two sub stages:
• The Pre conceptual stage: identify objects by different
name and classify them as mummy, pappa, Chichu etc.
It may not be exact figures. They consider all big
animal as one category as they are big. They are unable
to distinguish between living and non living objects.
• The intuitive Phase: The intuitive thought sub stage is
when children tend to propose the questions of "why?"
and "how come?" This stage is when children want the
knowledge of knowing everything.

The following developmental stages according to Piaget:

Concrete Operational Stage
• It is characterized by the appropriate use of logic.
• They start solving problems in a more logical fashion.
• Abstract, hypothetical thinking is not yet developed in
the child, and children can only solve problems that
apply to concrete events or objects.
• At this stage, the children undergo a transition where
the child learns rules such as conservation.
• Piaget determined that children are able to incorporate
Inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning involves
drawing inferences from observations in order to make
a generalization. In contrast, children struggle with
deductive reasoning, which involves using a
generalized principle in order to try to predict the
outcome of an event.

Concrete Operational Stage
• Children in this stage commonly experience difficulties
with figuring out logic in their heads. For example, a
child will understand that "A is more than B" and "B is
more than C". However, when asked "is A more than
C?", the child might not be able to logically figure the
question out in his or her head.
• Loss of Egocentrism. Egocentrism is the inability to
consider or understand a perspective other than one's
own. It is the phase where the thought and morality of
the child is completely self focused.
• During this stage, the child acquires the ability to view
things from another individual's perspective, even if
they think that perspective is incorrect.

(2)
The following developmental stages according to Piaget:

Formal Operational Stage
• The final stage is known as the formal operational
stage (adolescence and into adulthood, roughly ages 11
to approximately 15-20):
• Intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of
symbols related to abstract concepts. This form of
thought includes "assumptions that have no necessary
relation to reality."
• At this point, the person is capable of hypothetical and
deductive reasoning. During this time, people develop
the ability to think about abstract concepts.
• Piaget stated that "hypothetico-deductive reasoning"
becomes important during the formal operational stage.
It is often required in science and mathematics.

Formal Operational Stage
• Abstract thought emerges during the formal operational
stage. Children tend to think very concretely and
specifically in earlier stages, and begin to consider
possible outcomes and consequences of actions.
• Metacognition, the capacity for "thinking about
thinking" that allows adolescents and adults to reason
about their thought processes and monitor them.
• Problem-solving is demonstrated when children use
trial-and-error to solve problems. The ability to
systematically solve a problem in a logical and
methodical way emerges.

(5) http://criticalthinking.org/University/helps.html
The following developmental stages according to Piaget:

Communication & Language: In Thinking.
• Thinking is the main thing that distinguishes between
humans and animals.
• Humans may think because human whereas animals do
not have the language.
• Animal language is an instinct that does not need to be
studied and taught, while human language is the result
of culture that must be learned and taught.
• With language, humans can give names to everything,
whether visible or invisible. All objects, jobs, and
others abstract, is named.
• That way, everything that has ever observed and
experienced can be saved, be responses and
experiences, then processed (think) into insights.

Communication & Language: In Thinking.
• Communication provides a network for mutual
exchange or sharing of ideas, beliefs and thoughts.
• It may be verbal (words and language) or nonverbal
(facial expression, eye movements, tone of voice, body
language) or any other form of communication.
• The thinking can be processed and expressed only with
the help of language and communication.
• Language paves proper social interaction.
• Language helps in comprehension.
• Reading makes a full man and writing makes an exact
man: Proverb.

Alteration in Thinking.
• The direction of ones thinking in a proper and desirable
way is many times altered on account of one or other
factors affecting the thought process.
• The alterations may be classified as
a. Irrational thinking: Having no rational, reason or
cause underlying such thinking.
b. Illogical thinking: having no logics.
c. Improper thinking: No fruitful result and no desirable
communication output.
d. Non directed/aimless thinking: thinking without aim
such as day dreaming, fantasy, delusions, free
associations.

• Day dreaming, fantasy, delusions, free associations all
fall in the category of withdrawal behaviour that helps
an individual to escape from the demands of the real
world.
• the first three are not much harmful though there is
positive and negative consequences but delusions are
abnormality.
• Delusion are persistent false thoughts which is
irrational to the physical, social and psychological
aspects of the person.

Reasons for Alteration in Thinking.
• One may flow in the current of the emotions like, fear,
anger, distress, love, affection, etc which could not be
fulfilled.
• Thinking also may be paralyzed through suggestions
and advice from elders, peers (high expectation.)
• Superstitions (Hanging lemon and 7 green chilies, If a
black cat crosses your path, it's a bad omen, Breaking
mirror brings bad luck, Twitching of the eye is
inauspicious, Removing evil eye (Nazar Utaarna),
Adding one rupee to a gift sum)and irrational cultural
norms/traditions.
• Increased self centeredness.
• Improper defense mechanisms.

Reasons for Alteration in Thinking.
• Defence mechanisms are helpful and healthy if used in
a proper manner.
• However, if misused or overused, the same defence
mechanisms may also be unhealthy.
• Maladaptive use of defence mechanisms can occur in a
variety of cases, for example when they become
automatic and prevent individuals from realizing their
true feelings and thoughts.