Thinking

Activity . Problem Anagrams : Rearrange the letters to form a word. (You can also construct some similar words) NAGMARA BOLMPER SLEVO STGNIH TOLUSONI Problem Joining dots : Without lifting your pencil from the paper, connect all nine dots by drawing four straight lines. Problem Try out the ‘water in three bottles’ activity with your friend.

There are three bottles, A, B, and C. Bottle A can hold ml., B can hold ml., and C can hold ml. The task for your friend is to get ml of water with the help of these three bottles. There are six more problems like this.

These seven problems are given below. Problems The required The capacity of the quantity bottles in ml. A B C . .

. (Answers are given at the end of the chapter) conclude that the person had left his bag in the train. One mistake you would probably make here is jumping to a conclusion without knowing all possible facts. From the above discussion we can conclude that reasoning is the process of gathering and analysing information to arrive at conclusions.

In this sense, reasoning is also a form of problem solving. The goal is to determine what conclusion can be drawn from certain given information. Most cases of scientific reasoning are inductive in nature. Scientists and even lay persons consider a number of instances and try to determine what general rule covers them all.

Think of yourself using your knowledge of problem solving steps discussed earlier in planning for a play, or conducting a project. Your inductive reasoning is being applied here. Analogy is another form of reasoning which involves four parts, A is to B as C is to D with the relation between the first two parts being the same as the relation between the last two. For example, water is to fish as air is to human; white is to snow as black is to coal.

Analogies can be helpful in solving problems. They help us in identifying and visualising the salient attributes of an object or event, which would otherwise go unnoticed. D ECISION - MAKING Inductive and deductive reasonings allow us to make judgments. In judgment we draw conclusions, form opinions, evaluate events, objects, based on knowledge and available evidences.

Consider this example, the man is very talkative, likes to mix with people, can convince others with ease — he would be most suitable for a salesperson’s job. Our judgment of this person is based on the specific characteristics of an expert salesperson. Here we will discuss how we make decisions and judgments. Sometimes judgments are automatic and require no conscious effort by the person and occur as a matter of habit, for example, Thus deductive reasoning begins with making a general assumption that you know or believe to be true and then drawing specific conclusion based on this assumption.

In other words, it is reasoning from general to particular. Your general assumption is that people run on the railway platform only when they are getting late for the train. The man is running on the platform. Therefore, he is getting late for the train.

One mistake that you are making (and generally people do commit such mistakes in deductive reasoning) is that you (they) assume but do not always know if the basic statement or assumption is true. If the base information is not true, i.e. people also run on the platform for other reasons then your conclusion would be invalid or wrong. Look at the mouse in Fig.

. . Another way to figure out why the man is running on the platform is to use inductive reasoning. Sometimes you would analyse other possible reasons and observe what the man is actually doing and then draw a conclusion about his behaviour.

Reasoning, that is based on specific facts and observation, is called inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is drawing a general conclusion based on particular observation. In the earlier example, you observed the other person’s subsequent action or actions such as: entering into the train compartment and returning with a bag. Based on your observation you would Fig.

. : Is the mouse making a True and Valid Conclusion? All cats have four legs, I have four legs, therefore I am a cat applying brakes on seeing the red light. However, evaluating a novel or a literary text requires reference to your past knowledge and experience.

Judging the beauty of a painting would involve your personal preferences. Thus our judgments are not independent of our beliefs and attitudes. We also make changes in our judgments based on newly acquired information. Consider this example.

A new teacher joins the school, students make on- the-spot judgment of the teacher as being very strict. However, in subsequent classes, they closely interact with the teacher and make changes in their evaluation. Now they judge the teacher to be extremely student- friendly. Many of the problems you solve each day require you to make decisions.

What to wear for the party? What to eat for dinner? What to say to your friend? The answer to all these lies in picking or choosing one of several choices.

In decision-making, we sometimes choose among options based on choices of personal significance. Judgment and decision- making are interrelated processes. In decision- making the problem before us is to choose among alternatives by evaluating the cost and benefit associated with each alternative. For example, when you have the option to choose between psychology and economics as subjects in Class XI, your decision would be based upon your interest, future prospects, availability of books, efficiency of teachers, etc.

You could evaluate them by talking to seniors and faculty members and attending a few classes, etc. Decision-making differs from other types of problem solving. In decision- making we already know the various solutions or choices and one has to be selected. Suppose your friend is a very good player of badminton.

S/he is getting an opportunity to play at the state level. At the same time the final examination is approaching and s/he needs to study hard for it. S/he will have to choose between two options, practising for badminton or studying for the final examination. In this situation her/his decision will be based upon evaluation of all possible outcomes.

You would observe that people differ in their priorities and therefore their decisions will differ. In real life situations we take quick decisions and therefore, it is not possible always to evaluate every situation thoroughly and exhaustively. N ATURE AND P ROCESS OF C REATIVE T HINKING You might have wondered at times how some one for the first time, thought of acts like planting a seed, or devising a wheel, or decorating the walls of caves with drawings, etc. Perhaps not satisfied with the old ways of carrying out day-to-day activities, such persons thought of something original.

There are countless others whose creativity has led to the present day scientific and technological progress that we now enjoy. Music, painting, poetry, and other forms of art that give us pleasure and joy, are all products of creative thinking. You might have heard about A.D. Karve, a botanist from our country, who got the UK’s top energy award for devising a smokeless ‘Chullah’.

He converted dry, useless sugarcane leaves into clean fuel. You might have also heard of Class XI student Ashish Panwar, who won a bronze medal for assembling a five feet tall robot at the First International Robotics Olympiad held at Glasgow. These are only a few examples of creativity. Try to think of some other examples of creativity in different fields.

It is important to remember that creative thinking is not always expressed in extraordinary work. One does not have to be a scientist or an artist to be a creative thinker. Everyone has the potential to be creative. Creative thinking can be applied in almost any area of human activity at different levels.

It could be reflected in activities like writing, teaching, cooking, enacting roles, story telling, conversation, dialogues, asking questions, playing games, trying to solve day-to-day problems, organising activities, helping others resolve conflicts, and so on. This concept of ‘Everyday Creativity’, which is reflected in one’s way of perceiving thinking and problem solving, is different from the ‘special talent creativity’ seen in outstanding creative achievements. Nature of Creative Thinking Creative thinking is distinguished from other types of thinking by the fact that it involves the production of novel and original ideas or solutions to problems. Sometimes, creative thinking is understood just as a new way of thinking or thinking differently.

However, it is important to know that, besides novelty, originality is also an important characteristic of creative thinking. Every year new models of household appliances, tape-recorders, cars, scooters, and television sets produced may not be original unless unique features are added to these products. Creative thinking thus refers to originality and uniqueness of ideas or solutions that did not previously exist. Creative thinking is also generally characterised by what Bruner calls “effective surprise”.

If the product or idea is unusual, the response of most who experience it is one of instant surprise or of being startled. Another important criterion that characterises creative thinking is its appropriateness in a particular context. Simply thinking of being different without any purpose, doing things in one’s own ways, being non-conformist, indulging in fantasy without any purpose or coming out with a bizarre idea, is at times mistaken for creative thinking. Researchers tend to agree that thinking is said to be creative when it is reality-oriented, appropriate, constructive, and socially desirable .

J.P. Guilford, a pioneer in creativity research, proposed two types of thinking: convergent and divergent . Convergent thinking refers to thinking that is required to solve problems which have only one correct answer. The mind converges to the correct solution.

To illustrate, look at the question given below. It is based on a number series, where you have to find the next number. Only one right answer is expected. Q.

, , ….. what will come next? Ans. .

Now you try to think of certain questions for which there is no one right answer but many answers. A few such questions are given below: What are the various uses of cloth? What improvements will you suggest in a chair so that it becomes more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing? What will happen if examinations are abolished in schools?

Answers to the above questions require divergent thinking which is an open-ended thinking where the individual can think of different answers to the questions or problems in terms of her/his experiences. Such kind of thinking helps in producing novel and original ideas. Divergent thinking abilities generally include fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. Fluency is the ability to produce many ideas for a given task or a problem.

The more ideas a person produces, the higher his fluency ability. For example, more the number of uses of a paper cup, more would be the fluency. Flexibility indicates variety in thinking. It may be thinking of different uses of an object, or different interpretation of a picture, story or different ways of solving a problem.

In case of uses of a paper cup, for example, one may give an idea to use it as a container or to draw a circle, etc. Fig. . : Thinking Divergently Originality is the ability to produce ideas that are rare or unusual by seeing new relationships, combining old ideas with new ones, looking at things from different perspectives etc.

Research has shown that fluency and flexibility are the necessary conditions for originality. The more and varied ideas one produces, the greater the likelihood of original ideas. Elaboration is the ability that enables a person to go into details and workout implications of new ideas. Divergent thinking abilities facilitate generation of a variety of ideas which may not seem to be related.

For example, what are the common ideas for enhancing food production? The likely answers would be related to quality of seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, and so on. If someone thinks of cultivation in a desert for extracting protein from weeds, it would be a remote idea. The association here is between ‘food production’ and ‘desert’ or ‘weeds’.

Ordinarily, we do not associate these together. But, if we let our mind free to seek new and remote associations, a number of combination of ideas may arise out of which one or two may turn out to be original. You must remember that both convergent and divergent thinking are important for creative thinking. Divergent thinking is essential in generating a wide range of ideas.

Convergent thinking is important to identify the most useful or appropriate idea. Edward de Bono has used the term ‘lateral thinking’ to what Guilford termed as divergent thinking. He makes a distinction between vertical thinking and lateral thinking. Vertical thinking involves mental operations that move in a straight line back and forth between lower and higher level concepts whereas lateral thinking involves looking for alternative ways of defining and interpreting problems.

He states “vertical (logical) thinking digs the same hole deeper, i.e. thinking deeper in the same direction; lateral thinking is concerned with digging a hole in another place”. De Bono suggests that lateral thinking can help make mental leaps and is likely to create a number of ways of thinking. De Bono developed .