The 9 types of thinking and their characteristics

Human thinking can be classified into different categories according to how it develops.

We often summarize all mental processes related to the intellect by simply calling them thoughts. However, the reality is more complex than this abstract concept. In reality, the individual psychology of each person is made up of various types of thinking. is composed of several types of thinking.

When we make a decision, when we perform mental calculations, or when we reflect on issues related to politics, for example, we are using different mental processes, which are guided by different logics and even involve different parts of the brain.

Now, how many are the types of thinking and what characteristics are associated with them? Let's see it.

What is a thought?

The concept of thought refers to relatively abstract mental processes, voluntary or involuntary, by which the individual develops his ideas about the environment, others or himself.through which the individual develops his ideas about the environment, others or himself. In other words, thoughts are ideas, memories and beliefs in motion, relating to each other.

However, thoughts do not exist as "pure" intellectual activities, since they always go hand in handThey always go hand in hand with other mental processes that have to do with emotions and are generated and regulated by a part of the brain called the limbic system.

The latter means that thoughts are always "tinged" by emotionality, they are not alien to feelings and emotions.

The main types of thoughts

With what we have seen so far, it is already clear that thoughts are highly complex and, in many cases, so abstract that to pigeonhole them in hermetic categories is to fall into reductionism.. However, knowing an indicative classification of the types of thinking has proved very useful for a better understanding of the human mind.

Bearing in mind this, and that many of the categories we will see below overlap with each other in certain aspects, let us see what are the main types of thought proposed and what characteristics they present.

1. Deductive thinking

Deductive thinking starts from assertions based on abstract and universal ideas. based on abstract and universal ideas to apply them to particular cases. For example, if we start from the idea that a Frenchman is someone who lives in France and France is in Europe, we will conclude that René Descartes, who lived in France, was European.

2. Inductive thinking

This type of thinking does not start from general statements, but is based on particular cases, from them, generates general ideas. For example, if we observe that pigeons have feathers, ostriches have feathers and herons also have feathers, we can conclude that these three animals are part of an abstract category called "sauropsids".

3. Analytical thinking

Analytical thinking creates pieces of information from a broad informational unit and arrives at conclusions by seeing how these "fragments" interact with each other.

4. Lateral or creative thinking

Creative thinking involves creating original and unique solutions to problems by questioning rules that at first appear to be self-evident. For example, a swing chair seems "predestined" to be used in a very particular type of toy, but it is possible to transgress this idea. it is possible to transgress this idea by using it as a support for a flower pot hanging from a porch. This is one of the most common types of thinking used in arts and crafts.

5. Soft thinking

This type of thinking is characterized by using concepts with very fuzzy and unclear boundaries, often metaphorical, and the tendency not to avoid contradictions.and the tendency not to avoid contradictions. It is currently very characteristic of currents of thought linked to postmodern philosophy or psychoanalysis. For example, you can see an example of this style in the description of the concepts used by Sigmund Freud in the theory of psychosexual development.

6. Hard thinking

Hard thinking uses concepts as clear-cut as possibleand tries to avoid contradictions. It is typical of the type of reasoning linked to science, in which a slight nuance in the vocabulary used can lead to totally erroneous conclusions, and therefore it can be difficult to advance from it, given that it requires a good amount of cognitive skills working at the same time to reach an end.

7. Divergent thinking

In divergent thinking a division between two or more aspects of an ideaand explores the possibilities of maintaining this "partition". For example, if someone uses the same word making it have a different meaning each time, detecting this error is a case of divergent thinking in which the different meanings are detected. You can see examples of this by looking at the common use of the concept of "natural" as applied to food products, unusual sexual orientations or generalized behavioral trends in general.

8. Convergent thinking

Convergent thinking is a process by which we realize that there are different facts or realities that fit together. that there are different facts or realities that fit together even though at first they seemed to have nothing in common. For example, if a family of monarchs realizes that in a war they are interested in favoring one of the sides, they will have started from the analysis of the different actors in the conflict until they reach an overall conclusion about the most convenient option.

This is a type of thinking used to detect common patterns and regularities, and can lead to the abstraction of a general concept that explains specific parts of reality.

9. Magical thinking

Magical thinking confers intentions on elements that have no will and no consciousness of their own, let alone the and consciousness of their own, let alone the capacity to act according to plans. For example, a child who, because of her young age, believes that the waves on the beach are trying to soak her hair is using magical thinking.

On the other hand, magical thinking is not only typical of childhood: it also appears in adults belonging to societies and cultures unfamiliar with writing and science. The reason is that they have not developed a system to submit hypotheses to a validity test, and therefore mythical explanations about the reality that surrounds us can be sustained.

Bibliographical references:

• Cacioppo, John; Freberg, Laura (2012). Discovering Psychology: The Science of Mind. Canada: Cengage Learning.
• Morris, Charles (1997). Introduction to Psychology (Ninth edition). Prentice Hall.
• Papalia, D. and Wendkos, S. (1992). Psicología. Mexico: McGraw-Hill,
• Triglia, Adrian; Regader, Bertrand; Garcia-Allen, Jonathan (2016). Psychologically speaking. Paidós.