Family Relations

Description of the instrument
Family Relations uses a system of relationships to link separate beings and categories and emphasizes the necessary and sufficient conditions for inclusion in and exclusion from categories. The exercises in Family Relations demand precise use of language in encoding and decoding relationships and require inferential thinking, analytic thinking, and deductive reasoning to justify conclusions based on logical evidence.

Cognitive functions developed

• Definition of problem in order to determine what one is being asked to do.
• Using only information that is relevant.
• Comparison between elements and relationships to determine similarities and differences.
• Enlarging the mental field by bearing in mind a number of discrete elements and the relationships among them.
• Hypothetical thinking and the use of logical evidence to justify one's conclusions.
• Overcoming an episodic grasp of reality by seeking the links and bonds that unite separate entities.

Mediation of sample task
Individuation and psychological differentiation, as well as sharing behavior, should be mediated in the sample tasks below, which require taking a point of view other than one's own. Mediation of goal-planning and goal- achieving behavior is necessary in discussing the process by which the tasks are solved.

Sample task

©1996 R. Feuerstein, HWCRI.