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The Nature of Problems - Part 10

What hampers us from seeing such basic relationships between apparently "different" types of problems are largely word blocks. Each of us tends to think in terms of word symbols for our par­ticular job or industry or craft. We read about or hear about other people's problems, expressed in their own particular word symbols, and even though they may be absolute transfers of our own problems, we are blocked by the words from making the transfer.

In many cases, we have different words for the same thing, de­pending on where in the country we live or come from. For ex­ample, in some parts of the country, a certain type of cooked batter is called a "pancake." The same cooked batter, in other parts of the country, may be called hot cakes, flapjacks, slapjacks, frit­ters, flannel cakes, batter cakes, batty cakes, and griddle cakes. Is it any wonder that words often get in the way of understanding!

Then, too, different people tend to think in different ways. The mental associations we make with any particular word or phrase will depend, to a great extent on our education, experience, temperament, or other background characteristics. Sex certainly af­fects the way we "associate" on any particular word. Here are the results of word-association tests that were given to groups of men and women. Each person was asked to say the first word that came to his mind when he or she heard a given word:

Word               Men                Women

It is important to be conscious of these differences in word interpretations. The fact that each job or industry or craft does have its own word symbols or "jargon" means that words may get in your way in trying to understand your own problems. Once you become conscious of this, then you will find yourself better able to look "beyond" the words and see more basic rela­tionships in problems. And this will, in turn, enable you to make more of almost any kind of experience you have ever had or heard about for solving your problem of the moment.

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