Properties of thinking: types and characteristics

What is "good" and what is "bad"? The answer to these questions is not always obvious, everyone has their own view of this or that event. It all depends on the type of thinking of each person. Let's talk about thinking in this article.

The way a person perceives reality depends on what thoughts live in the head. In psychology, there is the following definition of thinking: it is a process as a result of which the systematic relationships of the environment are modeled.

We see only what we personally see in each specific situation. This is the merit of thinking, and everyone has their own, unique. The only thing that, perhaps, is the same for all sane people, is the properties of thinking. In psychology, there are seven main directions in which our thoughts go.

1. Purposefulness. Every thought process has an end goal. We are always trying to find an answer to any question posed. And it does not always have to be a matter of "life and death".
2. Consistency... Even women's logic, in spite of jokes and anecdotes, is always there. Of course, it is not always true, understandable to others, but it is nevertheless present in the thought process.
3. Development. Underdeveloped thinking is characteristic of babies and people with mental disabilities. People with undeveloped thinking are quite happy if their primitive natural needs - for food, sleep - are satisfied.
4. Ability to form concepts... Compare and characterize a phenomenon, thing, situation - this is an indispensable property of human thinking.
5. Thinking is incapable of being objective. The feelings and experiences of a particular person always interfere in this process. Therefore, it is not necessary to say that someone thinks correctly and someone does not. Everyone thinks in their own way.
6. Positivity / Negativity... For some, everything is exclusively in white, for others - in black, it all depends on how a person relates to what is happening around. Some are able to find positive emotions even in the most difficult and unpleasant situation. Others are purposefully looking for a catch at their own wedding.
7. Direction in time, linearity. Some only look forward, others now and then look back. If the former are thinking how to get out of a particular situation, the latter are trying to understand why it happened and what they did wrong.

Psychologists usually divide thinking into three classes of thinking:

• visual and effective;
• visual-figurative;
• verbal and logical.

Visual-effective implies that a person observes real objects, animals, people and comprehends the relationship between them in a specific situation.

Visual-figurative involves the creation of ideas about a certain situation or images. That is a person uses visual images through their figurative representations.

Verbal-logical presupposes the application of logical knowledge about a particular event, object, being. And in this way a person comprehends essential laws and unobservable interconnections of real events or objects.

Besides, thinking is divided into visual and verbal, that is, it is easier for someone to see it once, for another it is enough to hear it... It is also divided into practical and theoretical, that is, someone “the law is not written”, he is looking for all sorts of ways to solve this or that problem, for others it is important to comply with the norms and rules that they themselves develop.

The following antipodes are associated with intuitive and analytical thinking. The first proceeds quickly, is not divided into separate clear stages, and is poorly understood. The second is long in time, divided into clear stages, and is specifically represented in the head of a person.

But whatever type of thinking you are, it is important to be able to start the comparison process in your head, it helps to find similar and excellent properties of objects, situations, which in the future will certainly help to solve the problem.

Another two integral parts of the thought process are analysis and synthesis. At first glance, these are opposite concepts, the first presupposes dividing something whole into parts for a better understanding, while the second, on the contrary, allows you to move from the particular to the general. But for thinking, both processes are important - any healthy thought activity must be precisely analytic-synthesized.

Although, on the other hand, the process of thinking is purely personal, and often it depends on the character of the person. Some have vigorous thinking, others lazy. Some think reasonably, some impulsively. It is also divided into feminine and masculine, civilized and wild, flexible and straightforward. And it happens at different levels.

Some thoughts swarm in the depths of our consciousness, others on the surface, others remain somewhere in the middle, there are often those that have appeared due to the stereotypes that surround us. A variety of thoughts, but most often controlled and well-realized thoughts, burst outward. But in the farthest corner is hidden what appeared to us almost unconsciously... This is the basis on which all our subsequent thought processes then begin to be based.

And at the same time, not all thinking helps to live. Sometimes it can get in the way.Sometimes you need to act quickly, relying on your own experience, reflexes developed over the years, and the thought process slows down the simple solution of important problems. The category of "harmful" thoughts also includes unnecessary, negative, and of course, annoying... They have no place in our head at all and they should be got rid of.