One of the ways to improve the quality of one’s life and make an activity more effective is to pay attention to thinking. This cognitive process is quite important for a person. Therefore, you need to know what thinking is and how to develop it. Indeed, a lot of important processes in human life depend on this quality.
To begin with, it is worth noting that thinking is a process that allows you to gain knowledge about the environment, based on conclusions, judgments, conclusions. It’s also worth mentioning about categorization, that is, if a person thinks about a thing, it means that he already appreciated it, ranked it in a certain category. For example, looking at plants, the subject has, most often, ranked him as a group, thinks about it and reflects. Thus, people know the world around them. I must say that this mental process is present in almost all types of human activity (work, study, play, communication, etc.), and is also inextricably linked with speech.
Speaking about what thinking is, it should be noted that it is very closely associated with the creative transformation of reality and the solution of various problems. This mental process takes place in mental operations and mental actions. These include analysis, comparison, synthesis, generalization, etc. Often a person is not aware of them, however, if desired, they are quite easy to track. For example, when solving a problem, first you need to divide it into several parts (condition and question), that is, analyze it.
In order to better understand this cognitive process, you need to know what are the properties of thinking. So, for starters, reflectivity should be noted. That is, thinking works not only with external images, but can also be directed inward, into emotions, feelings, human experiences. To put it differently, in consciousness it represents the world for a person.
In addition, thinking has a focus. This means that it necessarily answers some (not always appropriate) question. Thus, the beginning of reflection appears. The value of the questions lies in the fact that if a person begins to ask, he actively thinks. Also, thinking can manifest itself in a positive form (what good can be found in what happened?) And negative (what is bad here?). Problematization is very important when looking for solutions to a specific problem.
Speaking about what thinking is, it is necessary to note such a property as logic. However, it may not always be objective. This cognitive process does not develop as a result of memorization, but through understanding. Thinking can be developed and undeveloped. The latter is most often found in children. So, in psychology, several stages of the ontogenesis of this cognitive process are distinguished. In children from a year to two, the psychologist Piaget singled out the stage of development of sensorimotor intelligence. At this time, the kids begin to learn to perceive the surrounding objects, to comprehend their properties, signs.
Next, we need to say what operational thinking is. Normally, in children under 7 years of age, a stage of development of this type of mental activity passes. It develops visual thinking and speech. At this stage, some features of thinking are manifested , among which an erroneous classification carried out by secondary or random signs.
Further, until the youngest adolescence, the ability to perform specific operations begins to form. At this age, children can already logically explain the reasons for their actions, substantiate their point of view. From 11-12 years old, the stage begins at which the ability to reason, perform operations in the mind is formed. With normal development in humans, in this way the external action gradually turns into the internal.