Friday 28 March 2014

Types of Thinking - Science Behind Day to Day Thinking

Science of Thinking - System 1 & 2 Thinking Processes
With all your amazement, I would like to tell you that any person thinks in two different ways. This is a fact of science behind thinking. You, me, any intelligent or a dumb person have a running thinking process. For any situation, question or scenario we run a thinking process consciously or unconsciously in our mind. Today, I'm going to reveal this phenomenon in brief.

There are two types of thinking. System 1 and System 2. So what is it? Lets Explore.

What is System 1 Thinking Process?
Let's start with an example. Fill in the blanks with the first word pops into your mind. Trust me it's really easy. So ready? Alright then,
1. Bread and ______
2. 2 + 2 = _____
3. Your Name is _____

A majority of people there might come upon a quick answer popped into their mind like, bread & Butter; 2 + 2 = 4 and your name. Isn't it? So this is called System 1 thinking. The easy, fast & effortless answers which pop up into your mind unconsciously is part of system 1 thinking. In a majority of the scenario, we use system 1 thinking. The features of system 1 thinking is Automotive, Primary, Rapid, Blind, Intuitive, Instinctive & WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is). Sometimes or I would say most of the times this kind of thinking phenomenon misleads us and we might take wrong decisions.

What is System 2 Thinking Process?
If you guessed it's a complex thinking process which acquire a good amount of efforts, energy and pondering. Then you are absolutely right [see you have just used your system 1 thinking]. System 2 thinking is a bit slow. It needs your complete concentration, reasoning & logical power. You have to think deliberately about the situation, question, etc. Let me give an example:
1. The dress you wore two weeks ago on Tuesday was of ______ color
2. 768*9538 = ____

The answers don't pop us that easily. Right? The system 2 thinking process features are Effortful, Secondary, Focused, Considered, Slower & Lazy. Hope the phenomenon is clear to you. If you found it interesting then continue reading :)

History of this Thinking System Phenomenon
If you are curious just like me then read further to know some interesting facts & details of this thinking system phenomenon.  Daniel Kahneman performed the research with Amos Tversky for this subject. He received the Noble prize as well for the same. You may read more about him from the wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman

How to be Intelligent? 
The Humans are tend to use system 1 thinking all the time, so when we should use system 2 thinking. We use only system 1 until something force us to use system 2 thinking. We take the wrong decisions, give wrong answers because of this habit. That is the human mind limitations, but is it end? Neah. We can practice, practice and do some more practice to develop our system 2 thinking. Once we develop it, system 2 thinking will perform as system 1. It will be fast, efficient and correct which will lead us to correct and precise decision making.

Let's take an example:
Don't Google it :)
In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how many days would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

At 1st glance, you might come up with an answer 24. You might have used your system 1 thinking. The correct answer is 47. Read the question again & think again.

Hope you found the post interesting and informative. If you have any query, feel free to leave a message in the comment section. To get regular updates of such interesting posts subscribe to my blog. And do you want to develop your system 2 thinking? Wait for my next post with some interesting questions which will test your system 2 thinking and help you to develop it.

Ash Vyas SEO Ash Vyas is working as an internet Marketing manager handling digital marketing activities like SEO, SMO, Content Marketing etc.
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