4. Thinking

• Thinking


  The mental activity that involves rational reflection, contemplation, and the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. It is a conscious process that includes reasoning and judgment.
• Thinking


  Mental processes such as perception, attention, memory, language, problem-solving, and decision-making. It encompasses the cognitive activities that lead to understanding, solving problems, and making sense of experiences.
• Thinking


  A mental activity in its cognitive aspect or mental activity with regard to psychological aspects. It is a behavior which is often implicit and hidden and in which symbols are ordinarily employed. It is a problem-solving process in which we use ideas or symbols in place of overt activity. It is an implicit problem-solving behavior.
• Thinking


  An active and purposeful cognitive process that involves analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information. It is a key element in problem-solving and learning.
• Thinking


  The manipulation and processing of mental representations, involving the brain's cognitive functions, to generate solutions, make decisions, and understand the world.
• Creative Thinking


  • Coming up with new, different, or helpful ideas. It's connected to being smart, but also influenced by imagination, environment, and personality.
• Creative Thinking


  • Linked to the capacity to generate or build something innovative, fresh, or uncommon. It seeks out new connections and associations to explain and understand the essence of things, events, and situations. Creative thinkers devise the evidence and tools needed for solutions.
• Creative Thinking


  • Involves the individual coming up with predictions and inferences that are new, original, ingenious, and unusual. A creative thinker introduces new ideas, makes fresh observations, and develops new predictions and inferences.
• Creative Thinking


  • An internal mental process that should be recognized as a crucial aspect of one's cognitive behavior. Every person has the capability for creative thinking, making it a universal phenomenon. The outcome is the production of something new or novel, which may involve rearranging old elements in a new way. It encourages divergent thinking instead of convergent thinking. The scope is extensive and broad, encompassing all aspects of human achievements.
• Divergent Thinking


  When there are lots of different ways to solve a problem, using divergent thinking to come up with many possible solutions.
• Symbolic Thinking


  Making mental pictures of things like objects, places, events, or people. Kids do this a lot when they play make-believe, turning toys and playhouses into symbols of real things.
• Perceptual or Concrete Thinking


  The most basic form of thinking, relying on perception and understanding sensations based on personal experiences. It focuses on perceiving real and tangible objects and events.
• Conceptual or Abstract Thinking


  Involves using concepts, which are general ideas and language. It is more advanced than perceptual thinking because it deals with generalized concepts rather than specific, tangible objects, making it more efficient for understanding and problem-solving.
• Reflective Thinking


  A type of thinking focused on solving complex problems. It involves rearranging all relevant experiences related to a situation or overcoming obstacles, considering all the important facts, organizing them logically, and arriving at a solution.
• Critical Thinking


  • A type of thinking that involves setting aside personal beliefs, biases, and opinions to examine facts and uncover the truth, even if it challenges one's core belief system. It uses advanced cognitive abilities and skills to interpret, analyze, evaluate, and draw inferences from gathered or communicated information. The goal is to make purposeful, unbiased, and self-regulatory judgments.
• Critical Thinking


  • A disciplined thought process of a higher order, involving cognitive skills such as conceptualization, interpretation, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation to arrive at an unbiased, valid, and reliable judgment about information or data gathered, serving as a guide for beliefs and actions.
• Development of Thinking


  • Requires adequate knowledge and experience, motivation and definiteness of aims, freedom and flexibility, incubation, intelligence and wisdom, proper development of concepts and language, and adequacy of the reasoning process. Biological maturation also plays a crucial role.
• n process


  Helpful in problem-solving
• Factors contributing to the development of thinking


  • Intelligence and Wisdom
  • Proper Development of Concepts and Language
  • Adequacy of Reasoning Process
  • Biological Maturation
  • Sensory and Motor Experiences (Sensorimotor Stage)
  • Social Interaction and Cultural Context
  • Educational Experiences
  • Cognitive Stages (Piaget's Theory)
  • Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky)
  • Information Processing Skills
  • Metacognition
  • Critical Thinking Skills
• Intelligence


  The ability to think properly, crucial for effective thinking
• Concepts


  Generalized ideas representing entire classes of objects, ideas, or events
• Language


  A system of symbols, vital for thinking
• Reasoning process


  Influences thinking, illogical reasoning often leads to incorrect thinking
• Biological factors


  Including brain development, play a crucial role in thinking
• Sensorimotor activities


  Exploring the world through senses and motor actions, contribute to the development of basic cognitive structures
• Social interactions and cultural influences


  Shape thinking, cognitive development is a collaborative process
• Formal education


  Plays a significant role in the development of thinking skills
• Cognitive stages (Piaget's theory)


  Individuals progress through stages, each characterized by distinct cognitive abilities
• Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky)


  The range of tasks a learner can perform with the help of a more knowledgeable person, scaffolding fosters cognitive development
• Information processing skills


  Improvements in attention, memory, and problem-solving lead to more advanced thinking abilities
• Metacognition


  The ability to think about one's own thinking processes, becomes more sophisticated with development
• Critical thinking skills


  The ability to analyze information, evaluate arguments, and make reasoned decisions
• Theories of thinking


  • Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development
  • Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory
  • Information Processing Theory
  • Dual-Process Theories
  • Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (Sternberg)
  • Neuroscientific Perspectives
  • Connectionist or Neural Network Models
  • Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura)
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Schema Theory
• Errors in thinking


  • Confirmation Bias
  • Availability Heuristic
  • Anchoring Bias
  • Overconfidence Bias
  • Hindsight Bias
  • Sunk Cost Fallacy
  • Groupthink
  • Neglect of Probability
  • Cognitive Dissonance
  • Attribution Error
• Confirmation Bias: Giving preference to information that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or values
• Availability Heuristic: Relying on readily available information, often from recent or vivid events, rather than seeking more comprehensive data
• Anchoring Bias: Giving disproportionate weight to the first piece of information encountered (the "anchor") when making decisions
• Overconfidence Bias: Overestimating one's own abilities, knowledge, or the accuracy of one's beliefs
• Hindsight Bias: Perceiving events as having been predictable after they have already occurred
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: Continuing a course of action because of investments (time, money, effort) already made, despite the lack of future prospects