NCERT Solutions for Class 11 Psychology Chapter 7: Thinking

Chapter at a glance

Exercise Questions

Answer

1. Thinking is the base of all cognitive activities — a higher mental process through which we manipulate and analyse information received from the environment.
2. It is an internal mental process that can be inferred from overt behaviour.
3. It is goal-directed — aimed at solving a problem or reaching a conclusion.
4. It involves manipulation and analysis of acquired or stored information — through abstracting, reasoning, imagining, problem solving, judging and decision-making.
5. Thinking is organised around mental representations: mental images (sensory-like representations) and concepts (categories of objects or ideas).
6. It relies on language and is influenced by culture and context.

Thinking is an internal, goal-directed higher mental process that manipulates stored and incoming information through reasoning, imagination and problem solving, using mental images and concepts.

Answer

A concept is a mental representation of a category — a group of objects, ideas or events that share common features (e.g. “fruit”, “vehicle”, “justice”).

Role in thinking

1. Concepts help us organise knowledge into categories, reducing the complexity of the world.
2. They allow us to identify and classify new objects quickly (seeing a new bird and recognising it as a bird).
3. They save time and effort — we do not need to learn about each object separately.
4. They help in reasoning, problem solving and communication — we think and talk in terms of concepts.
5. Concepts are formed around prototypes (best examples) and features; they can be natural (bird) or artificial (square).

A concept is a mental category of objects or ideas with common features; concepts organise knowledge, enable quick classification, save effort and are the units of reasoning, problem solving and communication.

Answer

1. Mental set: a tendency to approach problems in a fixed, previously successful way, even when a better method exists (e.g. the water-jar problems — continuing to use a long formula when a simpler one works).
2. Functional fixedness: the tendency to see objects only in terms of their usual function (e.g. not thinking of using a coin as a screwdriver).
3. Lack of motivation: without persistence, a person gives up easily after failure.
4. Other obstacles: insufficient information, emotional stress or anxiety, poor representation of the problem.

Mental set, functional fixedness, lack of motivation and persistence, and also insufficient information or anxiety.

Answer

Reasoning is the process of gathering and analysing information to arrive at conclusions logically.

1. Deductive reasoning starts from a general assumption and reaches a specific conclusion (e.g. “All metals expand on heating; iron is a metal; so iron expands on heating”). It helps apply known rules to particular problems.
2. Inductive reasoning draws general conclusions from specific observations (e.g. noticing that every swan seen is white and concluding all swans are white) — used in science to form hypotheses.
3. Analogical reasoning uses similarity between a familiar and a new situation to solve the new problem.

Reasoning helps in understanding the problem, evaluating alternatives, predicting outcomes and choosing logical solutions, avoiding errors.

Reasoning — deductive (rule to case), inductive (cases to rule) and analogical — lets us analyse information logically, evaluate alternatives and reach sound solutions.

Answer

Yes, they are closely interrelated.

• Judgment is the process of forming opinions, drawing conclusions or evaluating events and people on the basis of available information and past experience (e.g. judging that a person is honest).
• Decision-making involves choosing among two or more alternatives, based on judgments about their value, costs and consequences (e.g. deciding which course to study).

In decision-making we must make judgments about the options — their advantages and disadvantages — and then choose. Thus every decision is based on judgments. However, judgments do not always lead to decisions. Both are influenced by personal values, past experience and biases.

Yes; judgment evaluates information and options, and decision-making chooses among alternatives on the basis of those judgments, so decisions rest on judgments.

Answer

Divergent thinking is open-ended thinking that produces many different ideas or solutions to a problem, unlike convergent thinking which seeks one correct answer.

Importance

1. It generates fluency — many ideas.
2. Flexibility — variety of ideas in different categories.
3. Originality — unusual, novel ideas.
4. Elaboration — developing ideas in detail.

Creativity requires producing new and useful ideas; divergent thinking supplies the raw material from which creative solutions are selected and refined (by convergent thinking). For example, thinking of many uses for a brick.

Because it generates many varied, original and elaborated ideas (fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration), providing the novel possibilities essential for creativity.

Answer

1. Become aware and sensitive to problems, gaps and oddities around you.
2. Use brainstorming — produce as many ideas as possible without criticism.
3. Generate alternatives; try lateral thinking — look at problems from different perspectives.
4. Avoid mental sets and functional fixedness; question assumptions.
5. Engage in free association and use analogies.
6. Allow time for incubation — step away from the problem, then return.
7. Read widely and seek new experiences; build knowledge in various fields.
8. Develop self-confidence, curiosity and persistence; don’t fear failure.
9. Use techniques like mind mapping and checklists.

By being sensitive to problems, brainstorming, lateral thinking and generating alternatives, avoiding mental sets, allowing incubation, gaining wide knowledge and experiences, and building curiosity, confidence and persistence.

Answer

Three views exist:

1. Language determines thought (Benjamin Whorf — linguistic relativity): the language we speak shapes how we think; e.g. people with more words for colours or snow perceive finer distinctions.
2. Thought determines language (Jean Piaget): thought develops first; language is a means of expressing thought. Children show thinking (e.g. object permanence) before they can speak; deaf people and animals can think.
3. Thought and language develop independently and then merge (Lev Vygotsky): before about 2 years, thought is pre-verbal and speech is pre-intellectual; later they combine — thought becomes verbal and speech becomes rational.

Conclusion: thinking can occur without language — through images, sensations and motor representations (e.g. infants, artists, deaf persons without sign language) — but language greatly expands and refines abstract thinking.

Yes, some thinking (images, actions, pre-verbal infants) occurs without language, as Piaget and Vygotsky suggest, though Whorf argued language shapes thought; language greatly enhances abstract thinking.

Answer

Stages of language development

1. Crying at birth, then cooing (vowel-like sounds, around 6 weeks to 2 months).
2. Babbling (6–9 months) — repeating consonant-vowel sounds like “ba-ba”, “ma-ma”.
3. One-word stage (holophrastic) — around 1 year, single words express whole ideas (“milk” for “I want milk”).
4. Two-word / telegraphic speech (18–24 months) — “mummy go”, “want ball”.
5. Rapid growth of vocabulary and grammar thereafter; by about 5 years children speak in complex sentences.

Theories

• Learning view (B.F. Skinner): language is learnt through imitation, reinforcement and association — children repeat words that are rewarded by parents.
• Nativist view (Noam Chomsky): humans are born with an innate Language Acquisition Device (LAD) that enables them to learn the grammar of any language; children produce sentences they have never heard and pass through the same stages worldwide.
• Both biology and environment (rich language exposure, interaction) play a role.

Through stages — cooing, babbling, one-word, two-word (telegraphic) speech and then complex sentences — explained by learning through imitation and reinforcement (Skinner) and an innate language acquisition device (Chomsky), with environment and biology both important.

Topic checklist

• Nature of thinking; images and concepts
• Problem solving and its obstacles
• Reasoning, judgment and decision-making
• Creative thinking; divergent and convergent thinking
• Thought and language; language acquisition

Total questions answered: 9 of 9