We Think in Categories. Yes, We Do. It Is Easier To Go Around the World
Categorized thinking is how we learn the world. Look, there are cows, pigs and chicken. These are trousers and these are shirts. This might be a food department, and this department sells shoes.
As we grow we structure our subject-matter thinking into more abstract categories. This is history, here we will learn about the life that happened prior to us. The next lesson is biology, now we study botanics in particular - we talk a lot about vegetation and plants. And zoology is about animals.
As we proceed we start to create our own categories. This is used in many higher educations and professional environments. A great example is object-oriented programming or categorization of products in supermarkets and the concentrated work in selling them to us.
Categorising is a sound way to think as this is also the way our world is structured in.
Situation-Based Thinking as a Great Supplement to Our Categorized Way to See the World
Our life would have been boring if
we only thought in categorizations. It would have been dry and inpersonal and
even psychotic. Our life consists of multiple situations and contexts.
Therefore situation-based thinking is another way we see the world.
Situation-based thinking increases our ability to solve problems effectively. It develops in a more subjective way when we interact with the world based on a given situation, task and social context. Here we start to apply our categorized way to see the world to a specific concept and context, We open up for the unknown and make our own subjective conclusions. In situation-based thinking we learn to challenge our subbjectivity and objectivity of perception.
Think Both - Solve Well
Great example of good thinking are the companies who excell in customer service. These companies apply both categorization thinking – their policy, and situational thinking – a personal situation.
Detached Thinking and Unsound Categorization
Our situation-based thinking can get detached by emotional traumas we went through, and as emotional traumas are caused in situations, our thinking can get detached from them, the situations that is. I noticed that some humans avoid situation-based thinking altogether or go into more inpersonal categorization thinking.
Small Ways to Increase Your Situation-Based Thinking
- Read
literature. Subjective stories written in books will help your brain to
see situations in your life in a more elaborate way. The books display
also multiple situations humans experience in their life. It is highly
improbable that your own personal experience can bring a variety of them
into your life.
- Watch
one problem-based documentaries. These one to two hours movies tell the
viewers about a fact or a piece of knowledge in a detailed way. This way
your brain can learn multiple ways of watching at one and the same
problem, fact and your situation-based thinking will increase.
- Observe daily situations – engage your brain in bewildering the world around
you. Notice small peculiarities, sounds, people and their ways of being.
- Deal with your emotional problems and cleanse blockages that prohibit your brain from interacting with situations in a proper way.
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