We have all had those moments where we have a fleeting thought or a “hunch” about something. For example, you meet someone for the very first time. You get a bad feeling about this person, and so you decide to stay away from them. You find out later that this person is indeed ill-intentioned and you feel thankful for the “bad feeling” that saved you from being in an undesirable situation. This is your intuition. And it is more than just some mysterious sensation or feeling.
According to Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, intuition is a part of a fast, automatic system of thought that occurs spontaneously. This type of unconscious reasoning has been found to result in successful decision making. Researchers of the University of New South Wales studied this in 2016. Their participants were presented with stimuli made up of a cloud of multiple moving dots. Participants had to report whether the cloud of dots was moving left or right. While they were engaged in this task, emotional photographs were presented to one of their eyes using a technique known as continuous flash suppression, so that the emotional photographs were almost invisible. Basically, the participants were not consciously aware that they were being presented with emotional photographs. These photographs were both positive and cute like puppies as well as disturbing, negative images like those including snakes on the verge of an attack. The type of image, positive or negative, implied the direction in which the cloud of dots were moving. The researchers found that participants were able to make more accurate decisions when they unconsciously processed viewed the emotional images.
According to German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer of the Max Planck Institute of Human Development, intuition is particularly helpful when it comes to making complex decisions. For example, in a 2006 study participants were presented with descriptions of four different used cars. The experiment was designed in a way that one car was objectively “ideal” and it had predominantly positive aspects. The cars were rated on the basis of twelve different categories, such as mileage, transmission, sound system etc., and these car ratings were presented to the participants. In addition to all this, the participants were also given extra information about the car, such as the number of cup holders, size of the trunk, etc. Overall, they were provided with nearly 48 different pieces of information. One group of participants was given some time to consciously think about their decision. Another group of participants were not given an opportunity to consciously think by distracting them with simple word games. While the participants engaged in these games, they were suddenly asked to choose a car. The researchers found that participants who contemplated all the choices, picked the ideal car less than 25% of the times, whereas those who were distracted chose the ideal car 60% of the times. This implies that choices in complex matters should be left to unconscious thought. A more recent paper published in 2011 found similar results. Participants were divided into feeling-focused and “detail-focused” groups. Those in the former group had to focus on how different car choices made them feel, whereas those in the latter group had to focus on the details and information provided to them about various car attributes. It was found that participants in the “feeling-focused” group chose the ideal car more often. When these participants were asked about their subjective choice quality, those in the “feeling-focused” group reported being more satisfied with their choice of car. These results suggest that affective decision strategies may be more advantageous for certain complex decisions.
Research also suggests that intuition is the result of predictive processing framework. Our brains are predictive machines that compare and match incoming information with information that is already stored about prior experiences. This comparing and matching occurs outside of conscious awareness. An example from the book “You’re Stronger Than You Think: The Power To Do What You Feel You Can’t” by Les Parott illustrates this. Consider a Formula One driver who escaped death by stopping sharply when he was approaching a hairpin turn. He thus avoided hitting a pileup of cars on the track ahead. However, he was unable to explain why he stopped. When mentally reliving the event later while going through a forensic analysis by psychologists, he realised that the crowd was not looking at him nearing the turn but was rather focused the other way in a static, frozen way. Even though he did not consciously process this, he knew something was wrong. Intuition is an unconscious and fast system of thinking that bases its decisions on the stored information.
So does intuition trump logic? It would be unwise to pit analytical thinking and intuition against each other. Dr Kamila Malewska of the Poznán University of Economics and Business in Poland found that when managers in a food company were asked how they use intuition in their everyday work, they cited a combination of rational thought and intuition in making decisions. Similarly, another related study was conducted in 2017 in which the participants indicated how strongly they agreed or disagreed with various statements relating to their decision-making over the prior three months. The researchers, who consider experience-based and emotional processes as “two dimensions of intuitive processing,” also rated the success of a manager based on the unit price the person negotiated for a purchased product, as well as on the quality of the product and the punctuality of delivery. The researchers found that a combination of intuition and rational thought was useful.
Another factor that is important in making intuitive decisions is expertise. Research shows that intuition can help people make effective decisions, particularly in a domain where they have expertise. Since intuition involves looking at patterns and signals, expertise in a particular area allows one to recognize most important patterns or signals quickly and effectively and ignore irrelevant information. In a recent study when participants were asked to watch a video footage of a college basketball game and rate the players’ shots according to difficulty, the researchers found that participants who had experience playing the sport were able to rank the shots quickly and more accurately according to standards set by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Similarly, when participants were asked to identify whether a handbag was “real” or “fake,” those who had experience with handbags and brands, and owned several handbags were able to make quick and effective judgements about the items.
Ultimately, a mix of both is considered to be a more useful and reliable strategy than simply depending on either one of them. In some cases, you may be faced with a lot of options that can be reduced down to fewer options based on your gut feeling and then these remaining options can be analysed rationally to make a decision; in other cases you may come up with a few options from a larger pool of choices on the basis of analytic processing and later use intuition to pick the right one.
Kimaya Khanolkar
