Definition 1

Thinking is an indirect and generalized reflection of the real world, a type of mental processes. Its essence lies in the comprehension and understanding of things and various phenomena, as well as their interconnections and relationships.

Thinking includes the following features:

Indirect character

When creating connections and relationships with things, a person can rely not so much on his immediate feelings and sensations, but on the information of previous experience stored in his memory. This conditioning of thinking from past experience is clearly visible when a collision occurs with consequences, thanks to which a person determines the cause of the phenomena.

For example, if there is snow on the street early in the morning, then a person can understand the reason for this, which is the snowfall at night. The memory of previously experienced events helps a person to determine this relationship. So, if these memories were absent, it would be difficult for a person to find the cause of the event.

Thinking also has an indirect character when openly observing the interrelations of an event. For example, when a person sees how wet asphalt on the street is drying under the sun's rays, then he understands the reason for this event because during observation, a memory of a similar situation that happened before surfaced in his memory.

Thinking is based on the laws of phenomena

Thinking is based on information that a person has about the basic laws of phenomena. When thinking, a person uses already established knowledge of the main provisions, which reflect the general relationships and patterns of our reality. In the above example, it is clearly observed that water can evaporate when exposed to hot rays. In this case, a judgment about causes and consequences can appear in an indirect way, by generalizing various phenomena located in memory, in which the relationships between specific facts can be traced.

Thinking is born from observation

Thinking is formed through contemplation, but is not identified with this process. Observing the relationships between phenomena, a person perceives them in a detached and generalized form. These relationships can be observed in a specific phenomenon, because they are characteristic of these things and are manifested by the law of reality common to everyone. In order to show the connection between processes, it is important to abstract from the features of these processes. The phenomenon of detachment itself is based on the knowledge acquired during life of the relationships and patterns of phenomena. Without them, it would be difficult to determine the essential from the unimportant, the joint from the individual processes.

Thinking manifests itself in verbal form

Thinking always reflects the relationships and relationships between various objects in verbal form. Human thinking and speech complement each other. Thinking is expressed in words, which facilitates the process of detachment and generalization. This happens due to the fact that the word is essentially a special irritant, signaling reality in a generalized form. “Every word (speech) serves to generalize.”

Thinking is based on life experience

A person's thinking is directly related to a person's life experiences. It is based on human social practice. This is not just observation of the outside world, but the perception of its reflection, which can respond to specific tasks that have arisen in the process of life and aimed at changing the surrounding reality.

Thinking can arise when difficult life situations arise. If you can react automatically, then thinking is not used.

The first feature of thinking is its indirect nature. What a person cannot know directly, directly, he knows indirectly, indirectly: some properties through others, the unknown - through the known. Thinking is always based on the data of sensory experience - sensations, perceptions, ideas - and on previously acquired theoretical knowledge. Indirect knowledge is mediated knowledge. The second feature of thinking is its generality. Generalization as knowledge of the general and essential in the objects of reality is possible because all the properties of these objects are connected with each other. The general exists and manifests itself only in the individual, in the concrete.

People express generalizations through speech and language. A verbal designation refers not only to a single object, but also to a whole group of similar objects. Generalization is also inherent in images (ideas and even perceptions). But there it is always limited by clarity. The word allows one to generalize limitlessly. Philosophical concepts of matter, motion, law, essence, phenomenon, quality, quantity, etc. - the broadest generalizations expressed in words.

Thinking is the highest level of human knowledge of reality. The sensory basis of thinking is sensations, perceptions and ideas. Through the senses - these are the only channels of communication between the body and the outside world - information enters the brain. The content of information is processed by the brain. The most complex form of information processing is the activity of thinking. Solving the mental problems that life poses to a person, he reflects, draws conclusions and thereby learns the essence of things and phenomena, discovers the laws of their connection, and then transforms the world on this basis.

Thinking is associated with sensations and perceptions, it is formed on the basis of them. The transition from sensation to thought is a complex process, which consists in isolating and isolating an object or its sign, in abstracting from the concrete, individual and establishing the essential, common to many objects. Thinking acts mainly as a solution to tasks, questions, problems that are constantly put forward to people by life. The real process of thought is always a process not only cognitive, but also emotional-volitional.

The objective material form of thinking is language. A thought becomes a thought both for oneself and for others only through the word - oral and written. Thanks to language, people's thoughts are not lost, but are passed on as a system of knowledge from generation to generation. Means of transmitting thinking: light and sound signals, electrical impulses, gestures, etc. Taking on a verbal form, a thought is at the same time formed and realized in the process of speech. The movement of thought, its clarification, the connection of thoughts with each other, and so on, occur only through speech activity. Thinking and speech (language) are one.

Thinking is inextricably linked with speech mechanisms, with speech-auditory and speech-motor mechanisms, with the practical activities of people. Practical activity is the main condition for the emergence and development of thinking, as well as a criterion for the truth of thinking.

Thinking is a function of the brain, the result of its analytical and synthetic activity. It is ensured by the operation of both signaling systems with the leading role of the second signaling system. When solving mental problems, a process of transformation of systems of temporary nerve connections occurs in the cerebral cortex. Finding a new thought physiologically means closing neural connections in a new combination.

Consciousness is the highest form of reflection of the real world, characteristic only of people and the function of the brain associated with speech, which consists in a generalized and purposeful reflection of reality, in the preliminary mental construction of actions and anticipation of their results, in the reasonable regulation and self-control of human behavior.

The core of consciousness, the way of its existence, is knowledge. Consciousness belongs to the subject, the person, and not to the surrounding world. Consciousness is a subjective image of the objective world, the subjective side of the psyche, awareness of the nearest sensory-perceptible environment and awareness of a limited connection with other persons and things located outside a person beginning to become conscious of himself, and at the same time awareness of nature.

Consciousness is characterized by such aspects as self-awareness, introspection, and self-control. Their formation occurs when a person separates himself from the environment. Self-awareness is the most important difference between the human psyche and the psyche of the most developed animals.

Consciousness is always connected with processes occurring in the brain and does not exist apart from them.

Consciousness is the highest form of reflection of the world and is associated with articulate speech,

logical generalizations, abstract concepts that are inherent only to humans.

The core of consciousness, the way of its existence, is knowledge.

Work develops consciousness.

Speech (language) shapes consciousness.

Consciousness is a function of the brain.

Consciousness is multicomponent, but constitutes a single whole.

Consciousness is active and has the ability to influence the surrounding reality.

Consequently, for the characteristics of the highest form of life, consciousness, we must thank the socio-historical experience of generations, labor, language and knowledge.

1. The concept of thinking, its essence, features

1.1 Concept of thinking

1.2 Psychological essence of thinking and its features

1.3 Typology and qualities of thinking

1.4 Types of thinking

1.5 Individual psychological characteristics of thinking

2. The concept of creativity

3. The concept of creative thinking

4. The importance of creative thinking, problems of developing creative personality traits and some recommendations for their solution

5. Features of creative personalities

Conclusion

List of used literature

INTRODUCTION

The problem of creative thinking has become so relevant these days that it is rightfully considered the “problem of the century.” Creative thinking is not a new subject of research. It has always interested thinkers of all eras and aroused the desire to create a “theory of creativity.”

Currently, the absolute value of personality-oriented education is the person. And a person of culture is considered as a global goal: a free, humane, spiritual, creative personality. The main thing in a person is a focus on the future, towards the free realization of one’s potential, especially creative ones, towards strengthening self-confidence and the possibility of achieving an ideal “I”.

In the new sociocultural situation, the humanistic paradigm is the main idea of ​​psychological and pedagogical thinking. For her, personality is a unique value system, which represents an open possibility of self-actualization, inherent only to man. Recognition of human creative freedom is the main wealth of society. And the personality is the bearer of the objectively not predetermined, which, with its will, imagination, creativity and stubbornness, supports the subtle mechanisms of self-organization of existence and, on their basis, the emergence of order from chaos.

The main value of humanistic personality-oriented equipment is creativity as a way of human development in culture. The creative orientation of training and education allows for the implementation of personality-oriented education as a process of development and satisfaction of the needs of a person as a subject of life, culture and history.

Currently, there is an urgent social need for creativity and creative individuals. The desire to realize oneself, to demonstrate one’s capabilities is the guiding principle that manifests itself in all forms of human life - the desire for development, expansion, improvement, maturity, the tendency to express and manifest all the abilities of the body and the “I”.

Research by foreign psychologists and educators: R. Sternberg, J. Guilford, M. Wollach, E.P. Torrance, L. Theremin, as well as domestic ones: Danilova V.L., Shadrikova V.D., Mednik S., Galperin P.Ya., Kalmykova Z.I., Khozratova N.V., Bogoyavlensky D.B. , Ponomareva Y.A., Alieva E.G., Pushkina V.N., Tyutyunnik V.I., Gnatko N.M., Druzhinina V.N., in the field of creative thinking are theoretically justified, but work is being done to improve this property continue to develop. Much attention is paid to identifying the mechanisms of creative activity and the nature of creative thinking.

The study of creative thinking is a rather complex problem that involves solving the most important methodological issues of the nature of creativity, sources of development of creative thinking, the relationship in this process of biological and social, objective and subjective, individual and social, etc. The complexity of the problem lies in the fact that the internal essence of the phenomenon is inaccessible to direct research. Therefore, despite the centuries-old history of study, creative thinking remains insufficiently studied.

1. THE CONCEPT OF THINKING, ITS ESSENCE, TYPES, FEATURES

1.1 Concept of thinking In the process of sensation and perception, a person learns about the world around him as a result of its direct, sensory reflection. However, internal patterns, the essence of things, cannot be reflected directly in our consciousness. Not a single pattern can be perceived directly by the senses. Cognition is based on identifying connections and relationships between things. Thinking is an indirect and generalized reflection of the essential, natural relationships of reality. This is a generalized orientation in specific situations of reality. 1.2 Psychological essence of thinking and its features Thinking as a phenomenon that provides a generic feature of a person, in the structure of the human psyche refers to mental cognitive processes that provide people with primary reflection and awareness of the influences of the surrounding reality. Traditional definitions of thinking in psychological science usually fix its two essential features: generalization and indirectness, i.e. . thinking is the process of a generalized and indirect reflection of reality in its essential connections and relationships. Thinking is a process of cognitive activity in which the subject operates with various types of generalizations, including images, concepts and categories. The essence of thinking is to perform some cognitive operations with images in the internal picture of the world. These operations make it possible to build and complete a changing model of the world. 1.3 Typology and qualities of thinking In psychological science, there are such logical forms of thinking as: concepts, judgments, conclusions. A concept is a reflection in the human mind of the general and essential properties of an object or phenomenon. A concept is a form of thinking that reflects the individual and the particular, which is at the same time universal. The concept acts both as a form of thinking and as a special mental action. Behind each concept there is a special objective action hidden. Concepts can be: general and individual, concrete and abstract, empirical and theoretical. A general concept is a thought that reflects the general, essential and distinctive (specific) characteristics of objects and phenomena of reality. A single concept is a thought that reflects the characteristics inherent only to a separate object and phenomenon. Depending on the type of abstraction and generalizations underlying it, concepts can be empirical or theoretical. Empirical concepts capture similar items in each distinct class of items based on comparison. The specific content of the theoretical concept is the objective connection between the universal and the individual (whole and different). Concepts are formed in socio-historical experience. A person acquires a system of concepts in the process of life and activity. The content of concepts is revealed in judgments, which are always expressed in verbal form - oral or written, out loud or silently. Judgment is the main form of thinking, during which connections between objects and phenomena of reality are affirmed or denied. Judgment is a reflection of the connections between objects and phenomena of reality or between their properties and characteristics. Judgments are formed in two main ways: directly, when they express what is perceived; indirectly - through inferences or reasoning. Judgments can be: true, false, general, particular, individual. True judgments are objectively true judgments. False judgments are judgments that do not correspond to objective reality. Judgments can be general, particular and individual. In general judgments, something is affirmed (or denied) regarding all objects of a given group, a given class. In private judgments, affirmation or negation no longer applies to all, but only to some objects. In single judgments - to only one. Inference is the derivation of a new judgment from one or more judgments. The initial judgments from which another judgment is derived are called premises of the inference. The simplest and typical form of inference based on particular and general premises is a syllogism. Inferences are distinguished: inductive, deductive, by analogy. Inductive inference is such an inference in which reasoning proceeds from individual facts to a general conclusion. A deductive conclusion is one in which reasoning is carried out in the reverse order of induction, i.e. from general facts to a single conclusion. An analogy is an inference in which a conclusion is drawn on the basis of partial similarities between phenomena, without sufficient examination of all conditions. 1.4 Types of thinking In psychology, the following somewhat conventional classification of types of thinking is accepted and widespread on such various grounds as: the genesis of development, the nature of the problems being solved, the degree of development, the degree of novelty and originality, means of thinking, functions of thinking, etc. According to the genesis of development, thinking is distinguished: visual- effective, visual-figurative, verbal-logical, abstract-logical. Visual-effective thinking is a type of thinking that is based on the direct perception of objects in the process of acting with them. This thinking is the most elementary type of thinking that arises in practical activity and is the basis for the formation of more complex types of thinking. Visual-figurative thinking is a type of thinking characterized by reliance on ideas and images. With visual-figurative thinking, the situation is transformed in terms of image or representation. Verbal-logical thinking is a type of thinking carried out using logical operations with concepts. With verbal-logical thinking, using logical concepts, the subject can cognize significant patterns and unobservable relationships of the reality under study. Abstract-logical (abstract) thinking is a type of thinking based on identifying the essential properties and connections of an object and abstracting from other, unimportant ones. Visual-effective, visual-figurative, verbal-logical and abstract-logical thinking are successive stages in the development of thinking in phylogenesis and ontogenesis. According to the nature of the problems being solved, thinking is distinguished: theoretical, practical. Theoretical thinking is thinking based on theoretical reasoning and inferences. Practical thinking is thinking based on judgments and inferences based on solving practical problems. Theoretical thinking is the knowledge of laws and rules. The main task of practical thinking is to develop means of practical transformation of reality: setting a goal, creating a plan, project, scheme. Based on the degree of development, thinking is distinguished: discursive, intuitive. Discursive (analytical) thinking is thinking mediated by the logic of reasoning rather than perception. Analytical thinking unfolds in time, has clearly defined stages, and is represented in the consciousness of the thinking person himself. Intuitive thinking is thinking based on direct sensory perceptions and direct reflection of the influences of objects and phenomena of the objective world. Intuitive thinking is characterized by rapidity, the absence of clearly defined stages, and is minimally conscious. According to the degree of novelty and originality, thinking is distinguished: reproductive; productive (creative). Reproductive thinking is thinking based on images and ideas drawn from certain sources. Productive thinking is thinking based on creative imagination. Based on the means of thinking, thinking is distinguished: verbal, visual. Visual thinking is thinking based on images and representations of objects. Verbal thinking is thinking that operates with abstract sign structures. It has been established that for full-fledged mental work, some people need to see or imagine objects, others prefer to operate with abstract sign structures. Thinking is distinguished by functions: critical; creative. Critical thinking aims to identify flaws in other people's judgments. Creative thinking is associated with the discovery of fundamentally new knowledge, with the generation of one’s own original ideas, and not with evaluating the thoughts of others. 1.5 Individual psychological characteristics of thinking The thinking of a particular person has individual characteristics. These features in different people are manifested, first of all, in the fact that they have different relationships between complementary types and forms of mental activity (visual-effective, visual-figurative, verbal-logical and abstract-logical). In addition, individual characteristics of thinking also include such qualities of cognitive activity as: mental productivity, independence, breadth, depth, flexibility, speed of thought, creativity, criticality, initiative, quick wit, etc. At the same time, speed of thinking is the speed of thought processes. Independent thinking is the ability to see and pose a new question or problem, and then solve it on your own. The creative nature of thinking is clearly expressed precisely in such independence. Flexibility of thinking - the ability to change aspects of consideration of objects, phenomena, their properties and relationships, the ability to change the intended path to solve a problem if it does not satisfy the changed conditions, active restructuring of initial data, understanding and use of their relativity. Inertia of thinking is a quality of thinking that manifests itself in a tendency towards a pattern, towards habitual trains of thought, and in the difficulty of switching from one system of actions to another. The pace of development of thought processes is the minimum number of exercises necessary to generalize the solution principle. Economy of thinking is the number of logical moves (reasoning) through which a new pattern is learned. Breadth of mind - the ability to cover a wide range of issues in various fields of knowledge and practice. Depth of thinking - the ability to delve into the essence, reveal the causes of phenomena, foresee consequences; manifests itself in the degree of significance of the features that a person can abstract when mastering new material, and in the level of their generality. Consistency of thinking is the ability to maintain a strict logical order in considering a particular issue. Critical thinking is a quality of thinking that allows for a strict assessment of the results of mental activity, finding strengths and weaknesses in them, and proving the truth of the propositions put forward. Stability of thinking is the quality of thinking, manifested in orientation towards a set of previously identified significant features, towards already known patterns. All of these qualities are individual, change with age, and can be corrected. These individual characteristics of thinking must be specifically taken into account in order to correctly assess mental abilities and knowledge.
2. THE CONCEPT OF CREATIVITY

Creativity is a mental process of creating new values, like a continuation and replacement of children's play. Activities the result of which is the creation of new material and spiritual values. Being essentially a cultural and historical phenomenon, it also has a psychological aspect - personal and procedural. It assumes that the subject has abilities, motives, knowledge and skills, thanks to which a product is created that is distinguished by novelty, originality, and uniqueness. The study of these personality traits has revealed the important role of imagination, intuition, unconscious components of mental activity, as well as the individual’s need for self-actualization, in revealing and expanding one’s creative capabilities.

“I think, therefore I am” Descartes

Human cognitive activity begins with sensations and perception. All necessary information is stored in memory. However, such knowledge about the objective world is not enough for a person. A person receives comprehensive knowledge about the objects of reality, their inner essence, not directly given in sensations and perceptions, with the help of thinking.

A person who lives among events that occur both in her immediate environment and throughout the world. The needs and goals of a person determine the need to understand what follows from what, how objects, phenomena and events are related to each other, and what properties determine this connection.

Thinking- this is the process of indirect and generalized reflection by a person of objects and phenomena of objective reality in their essential connections and relationships

A person resorts to indirect cognition when direct cognition turns out to be impossible due to the imperfection of human analyzers or inappropriateness, which is due to the complexity of the cognition process. The mediation of thinking is also manifested in the fact that all its acts occur with the help of words and previous experience, which is stored in human memory.

Another feature of thinking is the generalized nature of the reflection of reality. With the help of thinking, a person learns essential features that appear common to related objects.

The material basis of thinking is language, which is a tool and way of existence of thought. This is how human thinking differs qualitatively from animal thinking.

Human thinking is inextricably linked with language. Opinion is based on collapsed inner speech. Experiments have shown that not a single complex thought occurs without collapsing internal linguistic processes. It turned out that if we register the position of the tongue and pharynx in a calm state, and then invite the subject to start inventing any task, then a complex activity will begin in the language analyzer, which can be registered. Thus, every thought is associated with an internal language process.

Mental activity is organically connected with practice. Practice is the source of mental activity. Thinking is generated by the needs of human practice and develops in the process of finding ways to satisfy them.

The meaning of thinking in human life is that it provides the opportunity for scientific knowledge of the world, foresight and forecasting of the development of events, practical mastery of the laws of objective reality. Thinking is the basis of the conscious activity of the individual. The level of development of thinking determines the extent to which a person is able to navigate the world around him, how he dominates circumstances and himself.

Human mental activity, aimed at understanding the laws of the objective world, has a social nature. The socio-historical conditioning of thinking is manifested in the fact that in every act of cognition of reality, a person relies on the experience accumulated by previous generations, operates with those means of cognition that were created by them (speech, tools of expression, generalization and preservation of results, science and social practice). The social nature of thinking is also manifested in the needs of society, the nature of those cognitive tasks to which it is aimed.

The object of mental activity is always the most pressing problems generated by modernity.

Mental actions and thinking operations

To understand a certain object, you need to know the facts that characterize it. The transition from facts to the disclosure of their essence, to generalizing conclusions occurs with the help of mental and practical actions.

Mental Actions- these are actions with objects reflected in images, ideas and concepts about them

These actions occur mentally with the help of speech. Before acting with objects, a person does this mentally, without coming into contact with these objects. Actions of thinking are formed on the basis of external practical actions.

The operational component of thinking, which ensures its processuality, consists of mental operations (components of mental actions):

Rice. 2.4.1. Mental operations

Analysis and synthesis are two main mental operations that arose on the basis of practical actions - from the real decomposition of objects into parts and their combination. This long historical path of transforming an external operation into an internal one can be observed in an abbreviated form by studying thinking in children. When a small child first removes ring after ring from the pyramid and then puts them back on, she, without knowing it, is already carrying out analysis and synthesis.

Analysis- mental division of objects of consciousness, identifying parts, aspects, elements, signs and properties in them

There are two types of analytical operations: firstly, you can mentally decompose the object itself, the phenomenon into its component parts (for example, analysis of a chemical substance, messages). Secondly, you can mentally identify certain signs, properties, qualities in objects and phenomena (for example, studying the style of a work, its composition).

Synthesis- is a mental combination of individual parts, aspects, features of objects into a single whole

Synthetic operations are of the same types as the analytical ones described above.

Analysis and synthesis are the basic mental operations that, in unity, provide complete and deep knowledge of reality. They interact and mutually determine each other and underlie all other mental operations, in particular comparison.

Comparison-Rozumov’s operation, with the help of which similar and distinctive features and properties of objects are recognized

A person can visually compare data or imaginary objects, creating images of them. The process of comparing people, literary characters, social phenomena, and the like is complex.

When comparing objects and phenomena, it is necessary to carry out analysis at the first stage, and then synthesis. When comparing, you should follow an important rule: you need to compare on one basis.

The analytical-synthetic process also includes such complex mental operations as abstraction and generalization.

“We learn everything in the world through comparison, and if some new object came to us, which we could not distinguish from anything or anything, then we would not give a single thought about this object and could not say anything about it. not a single word."

K. D. Ushinsky

Abstractions(from lat. Abstragere- distract, distract) - that is, the mental separation of some signs and properties of objects from others and from the objects themselves to which they are inherent

Thus, observing various transparent objects: air, glass, water, we identify a common feature in them - transparency and can talk about transparency in general. Also, with the help of abstraction, concepts of length, height, volume, triangle, number, verb, etc. are created.

Generalization- this is the continuation and deepening of the synthesizing activity of the brain with the help of words

Generalization usually manifests itself in conclusions, definitions, rules, classifications. Generalization requires highlighting not just general, but essential features in objects.

Specification- this is a transition from the general to the individual, which corresponds to this general

In educational activities, to specify means to give an example, a fact that confirms a general, theoretical position. Concretization is of great importance because it connects our theoretical knowledge with life and practice, and helps to correctly understand reality.

Thus, the process of understanding objects and phenomena of objective reality requires the study of facts, their analysis and synthesis, comparison, abstraction, and generalization of their essential features and characteristics. The general mechanism of the operational activity of thinking is the analytical-synthetic work of the cerebral hemispheres.

Thinking is the process of movement of thought from the unknown to the known, which begins where something new and incomprehensible confronts a person. Mental activity arises and is formed as a process, subject to the creation problematic situation.

Problem situation - this is a contradiction between circumstances and conditions, between what knowledge the subject has today and what what does he strive for

Rice. 2.4.2. Scheme for solving a mental problem

The problem situation is perceived and realized by the person as task, which requires an answer to a specific question. For thinking, awareness of a question is like a signal to the beginning of active mental activity. The next stage is to find ways to analyze the question posed and build a hypothesis (assumption). After this, the hypothesis is tested in practice or mentally. If the hypothesis turns out to be incorrect, it is rethought.

Insight (from English Insight - insight)

Testing the effectiveness of the hypotheses put forward is the final process of solving a mental problem. It happens that a person acts by trial and error. Sometimes the process of solving a problem can occur as a creative process, sometimes it helps insight.

Feelings (surprise, curiosity, feelings of newness) play an important role in stimulating mental activity in the process of solving problems. Solving a problem requires significant volitional efforts from a person.

So, the process of solving problems requires the mobilization and tension of all the mental forces of the individual, the concentration of his cognitive activity.

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Specificity and features of thinking.

The specificity of thinking is that:

Thinking makes it possible to understand the deep essence of the objective world, the laws of its existence;

Only in thinking is it possible to understand the becoming, changing, developing world;

Thinking allows you to foresee the future, operate with what is potentially possible, and plan practical activities.

For the psychological analysis of thinking, it is important to point out two more of its features that characterize the specific qualities of human thinking - the connection of thinking with action and speech. “Thinking is closely connected with action. A person cognizes reality by influencing it, understands the world by changing it. Thinking is not simply accompanied by action, or action by thinking; action is the primary form of existence of thinking. The primary type of thinking is thinking in action and by action, thinking that occurs in action and is revealed in action” (S.L. Rubinstein).

The thinking process is characterized by the following features (see Fig. 2):

Rice. 2. Features of the thinking process

1. Thinking always has an indirect nature. Establishing connections and relationships between objects and phenomena of the objective world, a person relies not only on immediate sensations and perceptions, but also on data from past experience preserved in memory.

2. Thinking is based on the knowledge a person has about the general laws of nature and society. In the process of thinking, a person uses the knowledge of general provisions that has already been established on the basis of previous practice, which reflects the most general connections and patterns of the surrounding world.

3. Thinking comes from “living contemplation”, but is not reduced to it. Reflecting connections and relationships between phenomena, we always reflect these connections in an abstract and generalized form, as having a general meaning for all similar phenomena of a given class, and not just for this specifically observed phenomenon.

4. Thinking is always a reflection of connections and relationships between objects in verbal form. Thinking and speech are always in inextricable unity. Due to the fact that thinking takes place in words, the processes of abstraction and generalization are facilitated, since words by their nature are very special stimuli that signal reality in the most generalized form.

5. Human thinking is organically connected with practical activity. In its essence, it is based on human social practice. This is by no means a simple “contemplation” of the external world, but a reflection of it that meets the tasks that arise before a person in the process of labor and other activities aimed at reorganizing the world around him.

To describe the manifestations of thinking, psychology uses the definition of thinking in a broad sense: this is the active cognitive activity of the subject, necessary for his full orientation in the surrounding natural and social world. To study specific psychological mechanisms of thinking, psychology speaks of thinking in the narrow sense as a problem-solving process.