ABSTRACT
Many of our daily activities involve problem solving of some sort. For example, we decide what to wear in the morning, which route to take to get to our office, which job-related duties to perform in which sequence once we arrive at our office, what to have for lunch, and so on. Of course, not all problem solving is alike. There are problems that can be solved with a few mental steps, and there are problems that require extensive thinking. There are problems that we have never encountered before, and there are problems we are familiar with. There are problems that have very clear goals, and there are problems where the goals are far from clear. Problems, then, can be distinguished on any number of meaningful dimensions, and the solution processes, the mental steps we engage in when solving a problem, may differ widely for different types of problems.
