Thinking – Class 11 Psychology Chapter 7 Notes & NCERT PDF

Class 11PsychologyChapter 7NCERT book: Introduction to Psychology - Psychology Class 11

Notes and a simple summary of Chapter 7 of the NCERT Class 11 Psychology book, with the official chapter PDF, flashcards, an MCQ quiz and an AI tutor for your doubts.

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Chapter 7: Thinking

Introduction

"…gradually from naming an object we advance step-by-step until we have traversed the vast difference between our first stammered syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare." — Helen Keller

We use the word 'think' loosely to mean remember, pay attention or feel unsure. In psychology, thinking is a mental activity directed at solving problems, making inferences, judging facts, and deciding and choosing between options. A small child building a tower of blocks often talks to herself or himself — which raises the question of how language and thought are related. This chapter covers the nature of thinking, problem solving, reasoning, decision-making, creative thinking, thought and language, and the development of language.

Key Concepts

1. Nature of Thinking

Thinking is the base of all cognitive activities and is unique to human beings.

It is a higher mental process through which we manipulate and analyse acquired or existing information — by abstracting, reasoning, imagining, problem solving, judging and decision-making. Understanding a painting creates new meaning added to your knowledge.

It is organised and goal directed — from cooking to solving a maths problem.

It is an internal mental process inferred from overt behaviour (a chess player's next move reveals the strategy he was evaluating).

2. Building Blocks of Thought

Mental image — a mental representation of a sensory experience used to think about things, places and events (imagining a cat on a tree with its tail curved, or yourself in front of the Taj Mahal; locating places on a blank map in Activity 7.1).

Concept — a mental representation of a category: a class of objects, ideas or events sharing common properties (apple → fruit, table → furniture). When we meet an unfamiliar small, barking quadruped we match its features to the category dog. Concepts organise knowledge so it can be accessed quickly and with less effort, like books arranged by subject in a library.

Box 7.1 — Culture and Thinking: shown an underwater scene, American students described the biggest and brightest objects ("the large fish swimming to the right") — analytical thinking; Japanese students described the background ("the water was green") — holistic thinking, typical of Asian people who focus on relationships between objects and background.

3. Problem Solving

Problem solving is thinking that is goal directed, moving from an initial state (the problem) to an end state (the goal) through mental operations.

Table 7.1 — Organising a Teachers' Day play: (1) identify the problem, (2) represent the problem, (3) plan the solution and set sub-goals, (4) evaluate all solutions, (5) select one solution and execute it, (6) evaluate the outcome, (7) rethink and redefine problems and solutions.

Obstacles to problem solving:

Mental set — a tendency to solve problems using already-tried operations. It can speed up solving but also creates mental rigidity. In the water-jar problems (Activity 7.2), problems 1–5 are solved by B – A – 2C; in problem 6 (A = 23, B = 49, C = 3, target 20) people keep using 49 – 23 – 6 = 20 instead of the simpler A – C = 23 – 3 = 20, and problem 7 (A = 28, B = 76, C = 3, target 25) can only be solved by A – C.

Functional fixedness — being fixed on an object's usual function; using a hardbound book to hammer a nail overcomes it.

Lack of motivation — skills are of no use if a person gives up easily; persistence is needed.

4. Reasoning

Reasoning is the process of gathering and analysing information to arrive at conclusions; it is also a form of problem solving.

A man running on a railway platform can be explained in two ways:

Deductive reasoning — from a general assumption to a specific conclusion ("people run on the platform only when they are late; he is running; so he is late"). Error: the general assumption may not be true, making the conclusion invalid (like the mouse concluding "all cats have four legs, I have four legs, therefore I am a cat").

Inductive reasoning — from specific observations to a general conclusion (you see him enter a compartment and return with a bag, so he had left his bag). Error: jumping to conclusions without all the facts. Most scientific reasoning is inductive.

Analogy — A is to B as C is to D (water is to fish as air is to human; white is to snow as black is to coal); helps visualise salient attributes.

5. Judgment and Decision-making

Judgment — drawing conclusions, forming opinions and evaluating events based on knowledge and evidence (a talkative, sociable, persuasive person would suit a salesperson's job). Some judgments are automatic (braking at a red light); others depend on past knowledge, beliefs and attitudes and change with new information (students first judge a new teacher as strict, later as student-friendly).

Decision-making — choosing among known alternatives by evaluating the costs and benefits of each (choosing psychology or economics in Class XI; a friend choosing between state-level badminton and exam preparation). It differs from other problem solving because the options are already known. Judgment and decision-making are interrelated; people's priorities differ, so their decisions differ.

6. Nature and Process of Creative Thinking

Examples: A.D. Karve devised a smokeless chullah using dry sugarcane leaves and won the UK's top energy award; Class XI student Ashish Panwar won a bronze medal at the First International Robotics Olympiad at Glasgow for a five-foot robot. Creativity includes everyday creativity (teaching, cooking, story telling, resolving conflicts), not only special talent creativity.

Nature of creative thinking: novelty and originality; what Bruner calls "effective surprise"; and appropriateness — creative thinking is reality-oriented, constructive and socially desirable, not merely bizarre or non-conformist.

J.P. Guilford:

Convergent thinking — one correct answer (3, 6, 9 … → 12).

Divergent thinking — open-ended, many answers (uses of cloth; making a chair more comfortable; abolishing examinations). Its abilities:

- Fluency — the number of ideas (many uses of a paper cup).

- Flexibility — variety of ideas (the cup as a container or to draw a circle).

- Originality — rare, unusual ideas from new relationships; fluency and flexibility are necessary conditions for it.

- Elaboration — working out details and implications.

Remote associations (extracting protein from weeds in the desert for food production) can yield original ideas. Both divergent (generating ideas) and convergent (selecting the best) thinking are needed.

Box 7.2 — Lateral thinking (Edward de Bono): vertical thinking "digs the same hole deeper"; lateral thinking "digs a hole in another place". His Six Thinking Hats: White — information and facts; Red — feelings and emotions; Black — judgment, caution and logic; Yellow — what will work and why it is beneficial; Green — creativity and alternatives; Blue — thinking about the process.

Process of creative thinking: it begins with a need to bring out something new, sensing problems and gaps, then:

Preparation — understanding and analysing the problem and background facts; divergent abilities help.

Incubation — feeling stuck and leaving the problem; ideas may strike while sleeping, bathing or walking.

Illumination — the "Aha!" or "I have found it" moment.

Verification — ideas are tested and judged; convergent thinking selects what works.

Strategies for creative thinking: become aware and sensitive (notice gaps, contradictions; read widely; ask questions); generate many ideas from multiple angles; use Osborn's brainstorming — keep producing ideas separate from evaluating them, give imagination priority over judgment; use checklists and questions (What else? In how many ways?).

7. Thought and Language

Language determines thought — Benjamin Lee Whorf's linguistic relativity hypothesis. Its strong version (linguistic determinism) says what and how we can think is determined by our language (Hindi has separate kinship terms where English has only uncle; some tribal languages have only two to four colour terms). Evidence shows the same quality of thought is possible in all languages, though some thoughts may be easier in one language.

Thought determines language — Jean Piaget. Thought precedes language; children form internal representations and imitate without language; understanding words requires the underlying concepts.

Different origins — Lev Vygotsky. Thought and language develop separately until about two years, then merge; before two, thought is pre-verbal and experienced in action; afterwards inner speech and conceptual thinking become interdependent. Thought can occur without language (visual/movement thinking) and language without thought ("Good morning! How are you?").

8. Development of Language and Language Use

Language is a system of symbols organised by rules used for communication (including non-verbal gestures and sign language). Human language is more complex, creative and spontaneous than anything taught to chimpanzees, dolphins or parrots.

Stages of development:

Crying — first undifferentiated, then varying for hunger, pain, sleepiness → cooing ("aaa", "uuu") to express happiness.

Babbling (around 6 months) — repeated consonant-vowel sounds (da—, ba—); by about 9 months strings like "dadadada" called echolalia; later babbling imitates adult voices.

One-word stage (around the first birthday) — holophrases, single words standing for whole sentences.

Two-word stage (18–20 months) — telegraphic speech with mostly nouns and verbs ("got admission, send money").

Beyond two and a half years — focus on the rules of the language.

How is language acquired?

B.F. Skinner (behaviourist) — association, imitation and reinforcement; shaping by successive approximation; regional accents show different reinforced patterns.

Noam Chomsky (innate view) — children produce sentences they never heard, go through the same stages worldwide, and have a critical period; they are born with a "universal grammar".

Most psychologists accept that both nature and nurture matter.

Language use: communication must be pragmatically correct (contextually appropriate) for requesting, thanking and demanding; children often sound demanding instead of polite and find turn-taking difficult.

Box 7.3 — Bilingualism and multilingualism: proficiency in two / more than two languages. Mother tongue is the language one identifies with at the emotional level; a person can have more than one. India has grass-root multilingualism, and bilingualism/multilingualism facilitates cognitive, linguistic and academic competence.

Examples & Activities from the Text

Activity 7.2: anagrams NAGMARA, BOLMPER, SLEVO, STGNIH, TOLUSONI → ANAGRAM, PROBLEM, SOLVE, INSIGHT, SOLUTION; the nine-dot problem; the seven water-jar problems (mental set).

Activity 7.3: frame divergent-thinking questions on traffic management, pollution, corruption, illiteracy or poverty.

Key-Facts Sheet

Building blocks of thought: images and concepts.

Obstacles: mental set, functional fixedness, lack of motivation.

Deductive: general → particular; inductive: particular → general (scientific reasoning).

Guilford: convergent vs divergent (fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration).

Creative process: preparation → incubation → illumination → verification.

Whorf: language determines thought; Piaget: thought determines language; Vygotsky: separate origins, merge at about 2 years.

Babbling ~6 months; echolalia ~9 months; one-word ~1 year; two-word 18–20 months.

Exam Focus

"Identify obstacles that one may encounter in problem solving." — Outline: mental set (definition + water-jar problem 6/7 solutions) → functional fixedness (book as hammer) → lack of motivation and persistence.

"Why is divergent thinking important in the creative thinking process?" — convergent vs divergent with examples → the four abilities → remote associations → both are needed, divergent for generating and convergent for verifying.

"Does thinking take place without language?" — Whorf vs Piaget vs Vygotsky, with the kinship-terms example, imitation, and 'Good morning' example.

Other likely questions: nature of thinking; role of concepts; how reasoning helps; judgment vs decision-making; enhancing creative thinking; how language is acquired (Skinner vs Chomsky).

Key Terms

Thinking (चिंतन), Concept (संप्रत्यय), Mental image (मानसिक प्रतिमा), Problem solving (समस्या समाधान), Mental set (मानसिक विन्यास), Functional fixedness (प्रकार्यात्मक स्थिरता), Deductive reasoning (निगमनात्मक तर्कना), Inductive reasoning (आगमनात्मक तर्कना), Decision-making (निर्णयन), Convergent thinking (अभिसारी चिंतन), Divergent thinking (अपसारी चिंतन), Incubation (उद्भवन), Illumination (प्रबोधन), Brainstorming (विचारावेश), Bilingualism (द्विभाषिकता)

Common Mistakes

Swapping deductive and inductive — deductive starts from a general assumption; inductive starts from specific observations.

Saying creativity only means "being different" — it must also be original and appropriate.

Forgetting that convergent thinking is part of creativity — it is used at the verification stage.

Mixing up the creative stages — incubation (stepping away) comes before illumination.

Attributing linguistic relativity to Chomsky — it is Whorf; Chomsky proposed universal grammar.

Confusing holophrases (one-word stage) with telegraphic speech (two-word stage).

💡 Key Learning Points

✓Thinking is a goal-directed, internal higher mental process that uses mental images and concepts as its building blocks.
✓Problem solving moves from an initial state to a goal through steps; mental set, functional fixedness and lack of motivation are obstacles.
✓Reasoning may be deductive (general to particular) or inductive (particular to general); judgment and decision-making are interrelated.
✓Creative thinking is novel, original and appropriate; it needs both divergent (fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration) and convergent thinking and passes through preparation, incubation, illumination and verification.
✓Whorf, Piaget and Vygotsky offer different views on thought and language; language develops from crying and babbling to one-word and two-word stages, explained by both learning (Skinner) and innate grammar (Chomsky).

👨‍🏫 Teaching Tips

→Start with Activity 7.2's anagrams and water-jar problems; reveal problems 6 and 7 only after students have formed a mental set.
→Ask students to hammer a nail with objects on their desk to illustrate overcoming functional fixedness.
→Use the railway platform example to let one half of the class reason deductively and the other inductively, then compare errors.
→Run a five-minute 'uses of a paper cup' task and score it for fluency, flexibility and originality.
→Assign the six thinking hats to groups to discuss a school problem such as traffic outside the gate.
→Compare Hindi kinship terms with the single English word 'uncle' to open the Whorf discussion.
→Have students record a younger sibling's speech for the project on language development.

📋 Assessment Questions

Can the student explain the nature of thinking and the role of images and concepts?
Can the student identify mental set and functional fixedness in given problems?
Can the student distinguish deductive and inductive reasoning with the typical errors of each?
Can the student describe the four divergent thinking abilities and the four stages of the creative process?
Can the student compare the views of Whorf, Piaget and Vygotsky and describe the stages of language development?

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