No matter how much you may try to deny it, you do think!!! In fact, almost everybody thinks (although some not so well). Trying to describe though itself, is both thorny and problematic because describing thought is in itself thought (ouch).
So instead, lets break down categories of thoughts. We often think using concepts, which are rules in how we see everything in the world around us (basically the same thing as Piaget’s notion of schemas).
Our concept of mom is very different from our concept of dad, which is different from our concept of lobster. Very often we base our concepts on prototypes, or what we think is the best example of that concept. For example, when I think of the concept of funny, the prototype Homer Simpson may pop up in my head. If I am watching TV and some character is similar to Homer (my prototype of funny) than I may think of that character as humorous.
Another type of thought is called an image, which is a mental picture that we create in our mind of the outside world. Do you think images have to be just visual? You can probably have an image dealing with any of our senses.
Using our thinking to Solve Problems
Many researchers try to study thought by examining the results of thinking. Researchers can ask participants to solve problems and then investigate how the solutions were reached. This research indicates at least two different problem solving methods we commonly use and some traps to avoid when solving a problem.
Algorithms:
An algorithm is a rule that guarantees the right solution by using a formula or other foolproof method. Some algorithms are incredible long (by trying almost every solution) while others are shorter. Think about math class for a minute (I know it hurts but try).
You may be given a problem and told to use a formula to come up with the solution. Sometimes you know of shorter ways to solve the problem, but your teacher wants you to use the algorithm regardless. The algorithm takes longer than the shortcut, but if done correctly you are assured the right answer.
Heuristics:
A heuristic is a rule of thumb or shortcut that generally, but not always, solves the problem. Pretend there is a teacher in your school that grades papers based on heuristics. They might know the reputation of Johnny is that of a great student and give them an A on a paper without even reading it.
Boris may have a reputation of being a C student and the teacher may give Boris a C also without reading the paper. In both cases the teacher may be right using the heuristic, but it is possible that Boris worked his butt off and Johnny smoked the pipe that morning. There are two types of heuristics that the College Board LOVE putting on the AP Exam:
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Availability Heuristic: Judging a situation based on examples of similar situations that come to mind initially. In other words, you take personal experiences and overestimate their significance. For example, as a student at Harrison High School, you may judge Harrison students as being smarter than students from other schools because you are more familiar with the smart students at Harrison and do not have any information “available” about smart students from other schools.
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Representativeness Heuristic: Judging a situation based on how similar the aspects are to prototypes the person holds in his or her mind. For example, you see a tough looking bulldog walking down the street.
The dog matches your prototype of a dangerous animal. The big teeth and the stout body will probably want to make you stay away. It is possible that the dog is very friendly, but the quick representative heuristic causes you to stay away.
Now it can work the other way as well. Let’s say you are walking down the street and see a bunny.
The bunny is smiling and hopping. It closely matches your prototype of a harmless animal. You may reach out to touch it and it bites your jugular artery and you bleed to death.
In this case your representative heuristic led you astray. But in reality we need both the availability and representative heuristic to make quick judgments about the world around us (even though they are not always dead on accurate).
Other problems with our thinking
Sometimes overconfidence creates a tendency to overestimate how accurate our judgments are. How confident we are in a judgment is not a good indicator of whether or not we are right. In many studies, people who report extreme confidence in a solution are just as likely to be wrong as those who are not so sure. Two closely related concepts to overconfidence are belief bias and belief perseverance. Both of these concepts concern our tendency not to change our beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence.
Belief bias occurs when we make illogical conclusions in order to confirm our preexisting beliefs. Belief perseverance refers to our tendency to maintain a belief even after the evidence we used to form the belief is contradicted. I see this all the time in high school. Pretend you hear that Rahindi talked some smack about you. You will start thinking that Rahindi is a real schmoolie. Then you later find out that Rahindi never ever said those bad things. The feelings you have developed about Rahindi still may not change even though you discovered evidence that should make them.
Another real issue to problem solving is the concept of rigidity (or mental sets). This refers to our tendency to fall into established thought patterns. Most people will use solutions or past experience to try to solve new problems ( they think “what worked in the past is bound to work now”).
Occasionally, this this tendency prevents them from seeing a novel solution. One specific example of rigidity is functional fixedness, the inability to see a new use for an object. Just recently, I needed to change the batteries on one of my son’s toys. the problem was I could not find a regular flat headed screwdriver.
I spent hours looking for it and became pretty frustrated. My oldest son looked at me and said “Dad, why don’t you use a dime, like Mommy does”. I did not think about the possibility of using a dime because I thought of only a singular use of that object, spending it; thus an perfect example of functional fixedness.
Another obstacle to successful problem solving is confirmation bias. Many studies show that we tend to look for evidence that confirms our beliefs and ignore evidence that contradicts what we think is true. As a consequence, we may miss evidence important to finding the correct solution.
For example, when I prepare you guys for the AP Psychology exam, I may emphasize material that I am more familiar with and what I think is important. What I think is important may be very different than what the AP testy designers think and emphasize on the test. Thus my confirmation bias could hinder your success on the AP; in other words, do NOT trust me!!!
Even the way a problem is presented can get in the way of solving it. Framing refers to the way a problem is presented. Presentation can drastically change the way view a problem or an issue.
If you went to a doctor to get liposuction surgery and she said, “this surgery has a 95% success rate”, you would be likely to go through with it. But if the doctor said “if you have this surgery, there is a 5% chance you will die”, you may have second thoughts. The chances of success are the same in both cases, but the way the issue is framed can change your perspective.
Creativity
One last aspect of thinking we should discuss is creativity. There is NO concrete definition of what creativity actually is (I guess no one was creative enough to come up with a good one). We generally define something as creative if it is novel and fits the situation we are looking at.
We do know that there is little correlation (relationship) between creativity and intelligence. Some researchers investigate creativity by examining the differences between convergent and divergent thinking. Convergent thinking is thinking that is pointed towards one solution.
Divergent thinking is thinking that searches for multiple possible answers to a question. Divergent thinking is more closely associated to creativity than convergent thinking.
