Class 11 Psychology Chapter 7 Thinking Solutions

Concept used. NCERT describes thinking as the base of human cognition. It is an internal mental activity that uses acquired or stored information to create meaning and reach a goal.

Thinking is a higher mental process. It manipulates and analyses information through images, concepts, reasoning, imagining, problem solving, judging and decision-making.

1. Thinking is a complex mental process through which a person works on information.
2. The information may come from the present environment or from earlier knowledge.
3. Thinking is not a simple copy of what the senses receive.
4. A person selects, compares, analyses, imagines and connects information.
5. It is usually organised and directed toward a goal.
6. Examples include solving a problem, judging a fact, choosing between options and planning a task.
7. Thinking is internal, so it cannot be directly seen by another person.
8. It is inferred from behaviour, such as a chess move, an answer, a plan or a decision.
9. Thinking uses mental representations.
10. These representations may be mental images or concepts.
11. A mental image represents a sensory experience in the mind.
12. A concept represents a class of objects, ideas or events with common properties.

Thinking is an internal, organised and goal-directed mental process that manipulates information through images, concepts, reasoning, problem solving, judgment and decision-making.

Concept used. A concept helps the mind classify experience. Instead of treating every new object as fully new, we match its features with known categories.

A concept is a mental representation of a category. It groups objects, ideas or events that share common properties, so thinking becomes quicker and more organised.

1. A concept is a mental representation of a category.
2. It refers to a class of objects, ideas or events that share common properties.
3. For example, fruit is a concept because apples, mangoes and bananas share certain features.
4. Furniture is a concept because tables, chairs and cupboards are grouped together.
5. When we meet a familiar or unfamiliar object, we look at its features.
6. We compare those features with a known category.
7. If the match is close, we identify the object as belonging to that category.
8. Concepts reduce mental effort because we do not need to learn every object from the beginning.
9. They organise knowledge like labelled sections in a library.
10. They also help us remember, reason, make judgments and solve problems quickly.
11. Without concepts, thinking would be slow and scattered.

A concept is a mental category. It organises knowledge, saves time and makes thinking efficient by grouping similar objects, events and ideas.

Concept used. Problem solving is thinking directed toward a goal. Obstacles block the movement from the initial problem state to the goal state.

The main obstacles are mental set, functional fixedness and lack of motivation. These make a person repeat old methods, miss new uses or give up too early.

1. The first obstacle is mental set.
2. Mental set is the tendency to solve problems by using already tried steps.
3. Past success may help when a similar problem appears.
4. The same past success may also create rigidity when a new method is needed.
5. For example, a student may keep using one mathematical method even when a shorter method fits better.
6. The second obstacle is functional fixedness.
7. Functional fixedness means being fixed on the usual function of an object.
8. A person may fail to use a book as a support or a box as a stand because the usual use blocks a new use.
9. The third obstacle is lack of motivation.
10. A person may have the skill to solve a problem but may not persist after the first failure.
11. Low effort, quick giving up and poor interest can stop the search for a solution.
12. Persistence is therefore needed along with knowledge.

Problem solving may be blocked by mental set, functional fixedness and lack of motivation. These obstacles reduce flexibility, new use and persistence.

Concept used. Reasoning is a goal-directed process. It uses given information, observations and assumptions to decide what conclusion can be drawn.

Reasoning helps by gathering and analysing information to reach a conclusion. It uses deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning and analogies to guide problem solving.

1. Reasoning helps a person move from available information to a conclusion.
2. This makes it a form of problem solving.
3. The goal is to decide what follows from the given facts or observations.
4. Deductive reasoning begins with a general assumption and reaches a particular conclusion.
5. For example, if one assumes that people run on a platform only to catch a train, one may conclude that a running person is late for the train.
6. The conclusion is valid only when the general assumption is true.
7. Inductive reasoning begins with particular observations and reaches a general conclusion.
8. For example, if a person enters a train and returns with a bag, we may infer that the person had left the bag inside.
9. Inductive reasoning is useful in science because many observations are used to build a rule.
10. Analogical reasoning compares relations.
11. For example, water is to fish as air is to human.
12. Analogy helps us notice similarities and apply known relations to a new problem.

Reasoning supports problem solving by analysing information, drawing conclusions and using deduction, induction or analogy to choose a sensible path.

Concept used. Judgment and decision-making are related cognitive processes. Judgment evaluates objects, events or people, and decision-making uses such evaluations to choose.

Yes. Judgment forms conclusions and evaluations, while decision-making chooses one option among alternatives. Decisions usually depend on judgments about cost, benefit, value and likely outcome.

1. Judgment means drawing conclusions, forming opinions or evaluating objects and events.
2. A person may judge a teacher as strict, friendly or helpful on the basis of classroom experience.
3. Judgment may be quick and automatic in familiar situations.
4. It may also require careful thought when the situation is new or complex.
5. Decision-making means choosing one option from several alternatives.
6. A decision is usually made after judging the available options.
7. For example, a student choosing between Psychology and Economics judges interest, future plans, books, teachers and difficulty level.
8. The final choice depends on these judgments.
9. Judgments are influenced by beliefs, attitudes, past knowledge and new information.
10. Decisions differ across people because their priorities differ.
11. Therefore, judgment and decision-making are interrelated.

Judgment and decision-making are interrelated because decisions are based on evaluations, opinions and conclusions about the available alternatives.

Concept used. Creative thinking involves original and appropriate ideas. Divergent thinking opens the search space so that many possible ideas can be generated before the best one is selected.

Divergent thinking is important because it produces many, varied and unusual ideas. It supports fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration, which are central to creative thinking.

1. Creative thinking produces ideas or solutions that are novel, original and appropriate.
2. Such ideas rarely appear when a person searches for only one fixed answer.
3. Divergent thinking is open-ended thinking.
4. It allows the person to give many answers to a question or problem.
5. It increases fluency, which means producing many ideas.
6. It increases flexibility, which means producing different types of ideas.
7. It supports originality, which means producing rare or unusual ideas.
8. It also supports elaboration, which means adding details and working out implications.
9. For example, many uses of a paper cup show fluency.
10. Different categories of use show flexibility.
11. A rare but useful use shows originality.
12. A developed plan for that use shows elaboration.
13. Divergent thinking therefore gives creative thinking the raw material from which useful ideas can be chosen.

Divergent thinking is important because it generates many, varied, original and detailed ideas, which are needed before creative selection can occur.

Concept used. Creative thinking can be improved through attitudes and skills. The learner must notice gaps, ask questions, produce alternatives and evaluate ideas after generation.

Creative thinking can be enhanced by becoming more sensitive to problems, generating many ideas, increasing flexibility, using brainstorming and postponing judgment while ideas are produced.

1. Creative thinking can be enhanced by becoming more aware and sensitive.
2. A person should notice feelings, sights, sounds, textures, contradictions and missing information.
3. Wider reading and exposure to varied information increase the material for new ideas.
4. The learner should ask questions and think about why a situation is incomplete or unusual.
5. A second strategy is to generate many ideas.
6. The person should deliberately look for multiple angles of a task.
7. This improves fluency and flexibility.
8. Examples include arranging a room in different ways or finding several ways to help an angry friend.
9. A third strategy is brainstorming.
10. In brainstorming, idea production is kept separate from evaluation.
11. Judgment is postponed until ideas are exhausted.
12. This gives imagination priority and increases alternatives.
13. Checklists and questions such as what else and in how many ways can add a new twist to thinking.

Creative thinking is enhanced by problem sensitivity, wide exposure, questioning, fluency practice, flexible viewing, brainstorming and delayed evaluation of ideas.

Concept used. NCERT presents three views: language may influence thought, thought may precede language and language and thought may have separate origins before they merge.

Yes, some thinking can take place without language. Thought may use images, actions or movement-related representations, but language also supports verbal thought and rational speech.

1. Thinking can take place without language in some situations.
2. People can think through mental images, actions and movement-related representations.
3. For example, a child may observe an action and imitate it without using words.
4. Piaget believed that thought precedes language.
5. According to him, children form internal representations of the world through action and thinking.
6. Language becomes one vehicle of thinking, but it is not the only vehicle.
7. Whorf gave a different view called linguistic relativity.
8. He argued that language influences the content of thought.
9. For example, kinship terms or colour terms may make some distinctions easier in one language than another.
10. Vygotsky offered a third view.
11. He believed that thought and language develop separately before about two years of age.
12. Around two years, they merge and become interdependent through inner speech and verbal thought.
13. Thus, thought can occur without language, but language greatly enriches and organises many forms of thinking.

Thinking can occur without language through images and actions, but language influences, expresses and organises thought when verbal thought develops.

Concept used. Language acquisition is the development of a symbolic, rule-governed and communicative system. NCERT explains both stages and theories.

Language is acquired through both nature and nurture. Children move from crying and cooing to babbling, one-word speech, two-word telegraphic speech and rule-based language.

1. Language consists of symbols arranged by rules for communication.
2. Human language is complex, creative and spontaneous.
3. Newborn babies first produce crying sounds.
4. At first, crying is similar across situations.
5. Gradually, pitch and intensity differ for hunger, pain or sleepiness.
6. Crying then becomes more meaningful cooing sounds that often express happiness.
7. At around six months, children enter the babbling stage.
8. Babbling includes repeated consonant and vowel sounds.
9. By about nine months, babbling may become repeated sound strings called echolalia.
10. Around the first birthday, many children enter the one-word stage.
11. Single words may stand for larger meanings and are called holophrases.
12. At about eighteen to twenty months, children enter the two-word stage.
13. This stage shows telegraphic speech, mostly with nouns and verbs.
14. Close to the third birthday, children focus more on rules of the language they hear.
15. Skinner explained language through association, imitation, reinforcement and shaping.
16. Chomsky argued for an inborn readiness and universal grammar.
17. Most psychologists accept that both nature and nurture are important.

Human language is acquired through predictable stages and through both learning from the environment and an inborn readiness for grammar.