Many times we summarize all the mental processes related to the intellect by simply calling them thoughts. However, reality is more complex than this very abstract concept. In reality, the individual psychology of each person is composed of various types of thought .

When we make a decision, when we do mental calculations, or when we reflect on issues that have to do with politics, for example, we are using different mental processes, which are guided by different logics and even involve different parts of the brain.

Now, how many are the types of thought and what characteristics do they have? Let’s look at it.

What is a thought?

The concept of thought refers to relatively abstract mental processes, voluntary or involuntary , through which the individual develops his ideas about the environment, others or himself. In other words, thoughts are ideas, memories and beliefs in movement, relating to each other.

However, thoughts do not exist as “pure” intellectual activities , since they always go hand in hand with other mental processes that have to do with emotions and are generated and regulated by a part of the brain called the limbic system.

The latter means that thoughts are always “tinged” by emotionality, they are not alien to feelings and emotions.

The main types of thoughts

With what we have seen so far it is already clear that thoughts are highly complex and, in many cases, so abstract that typecasting them into hermetic categories means falling into reductionism . However, knowing an indicative classification of types of thought has been very useful to better understand the human mind.

Bearing this in mind, and that many of the categories we will see below overlap with each other in certain respects, let us see what the main types of thought proposed are and what characteristics they have.

1. Deductive thinking

Deductive thinking starts from statements based on abstract and universal ideas to apply them to particular cases. For example, if we start from the idea that a French person is someone who lives in France and France is in Europe, we will conclude that René Descartes, who lived in France, was European.

2. Inductive thinking

This type of thinking does not start from general statements, but is based on particular cases and, from them, generates general ideas . For example, if we observe that pigeons have feathers, ostriches have feathers and herons also have feathers, we can conclude that these three animals are part of an abstract category called “sauropods”.

3. Analytical thinking

Analytical thinking creates pieces of information from a broad informational unit and reaches conclusions by looking at the way these “fragments” interact with each other.

4. Lateral or creative thinking

Creative thinking plays at creating original and unique solutions to problems, by questioning the rules that at first seem to be evident. For example, a swing chair seems to be “predestined” to be used in a very particular type of toy, but it is possible to transgress this idea by using it as a support for a pot hanging from a porch. This is one of the most commonly used types of thinking in art and crafts.

5. Soft thinking

This type of thinking is characterized by the use of concepts with very diffuse and unclear limits, often metaphorical , and the tendency not to avoid contradictions. Nowadays it is very characteristic of currents of thought linked to post-modern philosophy or psychoanalysis. For example, you can see an example of this style in the description of the concepts used by Sigmund Freud in the theory of psychosexual development.

6. Hard thinking

Hard thinking uses concepts as definite as possible , and tries to avoid contradictions. It is typical of the type of reasoning linked to science, in which a slight nuance in the vocabulary used can lead to totally erroneous conclusions, and therefore it can be difficult to move forward from it, given that it requires a good amount of cognitive skills working at the same time to achieve an end.

7. Divergent thinking

In divergent thinking a division between two or more aspects of an idea is established , and the possibilities of maintaining this “partition” are explored. For example, if someone uses the same word, causing it to have a different meaning each time, detecting this error is a case of divergent thinking in which the different meanings are detected. You can see examples of this by looking at the usual use of the concept of “natural” applied to food products, unusual sexual orientations or generalised behavioural trends.

8. Convergent thinking

In convergent thinking there is a process by which we realize that there are different facts or realities that fit together even though at first they seemed to have nothing in common. For example, if a family of monarchs realizes that in a war they are interested in putting themselves in favor of one of the sides, they will have started from the analysis of the different actors in conflict until they reach an overall conclusion about the most convenient option.

This is a type of thinking used when detecting common patterns and regularities, and can lead to abstracting a general concept that explains specific parts of reality.

9. Magical thinking

Magical thinking confers intentions on elements that have no will or awareness of their own, let alone the capacity to act according to plans. For example, a girl who because of her young age believes that the waves on the beach are trying to soak her hair is using magical thinking.

On the other hand, magical thinking is not only appropriate for the childhood stage: it also appears in adults belonging to societies and cultures that are not very familiar with writing and science. The reason for this is that they have not developed a system for testing the validity of hypotheses, and therefore mythical explanations of the reality around us can be supported.