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Thinking in groups is where several people collaborate efforts to work towards a common goal. Working in groups can motivate its members to work more efficiently, but is also raises the problem of conflicts among members. The success of groups is often due to a single effective leader. Although groups may come up with more answers in less time, skilled individuals can often exceed the efficiency of the group, with less net man-hours.
Autistic thinking is the exact opposite of realistic thinking. Environmental influences decrease; internal influences increase and dominate thought. In this thought process, the mind is vulnerable to emotional and motivational thought. The individual thus responds purely to needs and desires, no matter what they may be. There are four subtypes of autistic thinking: free association, fantasy, dreaming, and pathological thinking.
The first subtype, free association, happens when the bounds of logical thought are removed. During free association, the person's thoughts wander uncontrollably and become symbols without an apparent meaning. This jumbo of garble merely disguises the thoughts of the individual. These trains of thought may cue a psychologist as to the current mental state of the patient.
The psychologist verbally gives one word to the patient. The patient then responses with the first thought that came to mind after hearing the word. A mentally healthy person, when given the word "pen," may say a word such as "paper," or "ink," or "desk." If the response were something totally unrelated like "knife" or "weapon," the psychologist may become concerned.
Whereas free association is a garble of thoughts, fantasy is an organized set of thoughts. Again, logical constraints are removed; however, thoughts in a fantasy are usually coherent and sometimes vivid. These fantasies, which happen before sleep and during daydreams and drug usage, may be so lifelike that they may include imagined vision, sounds, touch, tastes, and/or smells.