Thinking as a solution to problems - Psychology

Thinking as a solution to problems

The surrounding reality contains an infinite number of objects that have a complex internal structure and are interconnected. Man is constantly confronted with what he does not yet know, they are not known and require the work of thinking. A person faces a cognitive goal that he can not achieve directly at the level of sensory cognition or relying on his own past experience. A problem situation arises, the problem, which can be defined as the goal given in specific conditions (LN Leontiev). The conditions under which the achievement of the goal turns into a task for the subject are characterized by the fact that they create obstacles and hinder the achievement of the goal. The presence of the problem is an objective condition for the emergence of thinking.

Example

Man, for example, ns can use his car because of its breakdown. Car inspection does not reveal the cause of the malfunction. The use of previously used methods of repair is also not successful. To eliminate a defect, a person needs to solve a problem. The main components of the task are: the goal formulated in the form of a requirement or question; the conditions in which it is given, and the unknown (unknown).

In the example, the goal is to determine the cause of the problem; conditions (known) - a set of technical parameters that ensure the operation of the car and the violation of a certain link; The query is formulated in the form of a question: "which link is broken?". There are certain connections and dependencies between the goal, the conditions and the desired, which must be found and disclosed.

The task components can have serious differences that will determine its nature and difficulty of the solution. So, the goal can be posed to a person by someone else or formulated by him independently; conditions can differ in completeness and degree of contradiction; requirements - in terms of certainty. Tasks arise in various types of activities: production, gaming, and training. In the learning activity, tasks are often created intentionally, the way to solve them and the result is known to the teacher, but unknown to the students and must be solved by them. In life, a person has to solve a variety of tasks, including professional ones. Psychological studies have shown that the process of solving problems has a complex structure, including various stages, links and actions carried out at different levels - conscious and unconscious.

There are four major steps in the task solution process :

• At the first stage, conditions that hinder the achievement of the goal are studied, the hidden properties of the object and unknown connections are revealed, new generalizations are made. SL Rubinshtein described this process as the interaction of the subject with the object, "scooping out" from an object of new content;

• At the second stage, a plan is drawn up and assumptions about a possible solution - of the hypothesis are formed. They reflect the approaches to the solution of the problem, its probes, a certain anticipation of the result;

• At the third stage, hypotheses are evaluated and one of them is selected as a solution;

• In the fourth stage, the solution found is compared with the target and with the original data. If it does not agree with them, the thinking continues.

In a real process of thinking, individual stages can be skipped or repeatedly repeated, intertwined and ahead of each other. AV Brushlinsky called this feature of human thinking "specific continuity".

Often a person finds a solution to a problem, but the NS can tell how he did it. It seems to him that the decision came suddenly, as an insight, because the mental actions in their considerable part are not realized by man. This phenomenon, first described in psychology by the German scientist Wolfgang Koehler (1887-1967), was called insight (from English, insight - insight, insight). Individual components of mental actions have an external expression. They manifest themselves, for example, in articulation, eye movements (when solving visual problems), in vegetative reactions reflecting the dynamics of intellectual emotions. Experimental studies of this kind of movements and reactions have shown that an unconscious level establishes a direct connection between the subject and the object. This makes it possible to identify hidden properties and relationships in a problem situation. Under the influence of significant motives, the activity of the thought search is increased, the number of movements and the relationships established between the elements increases. In the course of thinking, intellectual emotions arise that perform heuristic and evaluative functions, which brings the subject closer to finding the desired.

Thinking as a solution to problems is not a purely logical analysis of the situation, but a complex living and multilevel process, regulated by the motives and emotions of a person.

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