Can you trust your gut? The pros (and cons) of intuition—according to science
Do you make decisions using your intuition—or is it actually “misintuition”? Here’s what researchers are learning about how to make better choices.
There are many times in life when we have to make decisions without having all of the information—whether that’s a split-second decision during a crisis or a major life decision such as accepting a new job. In these situations, we often find ourselves relying on our intuition, in the hope that our unconscious knowledge can help us choose the right path.
Intuition is the ability to attain knowledge or make decisions without evident rational thought and inference. For a long time, intuition has been thought of as something almost mystical—something that might be good or might be bad, but that is nonetheless beyond our ability to define let alone quantify how much it really helps us.
(Does trusting your doctor's gut feeling lead to better care?)
Even though intuition has been notoriously difficult to define and study, scientists are working to better understand it—and even come up with new definitions for it.
“My definition [of intuition] is it’s the learned, productive use of our unconscious information, to help you make better decisions or actions,” says Joel Pearson, a researcher at the University of New South Wales in Australia, and the author of the book The Intuition Toolkit. As Pearson has found, there are times when unconscious information can help us make better decisions, while there are times when other unconscious processes, such as bias, can lead us astray.
Understanding the difference between the two can make the difference in making a good decision.
The benefits of intuition
It’s not practical to rely on intuition all the time, Pearson explains, but there are situations in which our intuition can help us make better decisions by letting us tap into patterns that may be outside our conscious knowledge. “The time when [intuition] is most useful is when you have to make a rapid decision, and the information is ambiguous,” says Pearson.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdóttir, author of the book InnSæi about the Icelandic art of intuition, agrees. She describes intuition as “an embodied knowledge”—meaning that it is often driven by our bodily responses such as a sense of unease or a sense of rightness. These feelings can be very subtle and are shaped by unconscious knowledge, such as cues in our environment or patterns of information we’ve come across before.
Relying on intuition can help make sense of a confusing situation, often by picking up on patterns that may not always be obvious at face value. “Very intuitive decision strategies can actually be very powerful, because they can zoom into just the right information,” says Florian Artinger, a professor of business administration at Berlin International University of Applied Sciences, whose research focuses on decision-making.
Artinger says he often sees situations in the business world where decisions are made in one of two ways: either intuitively by a person who is experienced and knowledgeable in a certain area, or a decision made through an extensive and time-consuming analysis.
Both strategies can be valid, but under the right circumstances an intuitive decision can be made quicker, using fewer resources, and even result in the best decision possible. “If you have expertise, it could be very well that your intuition provides a very good solution,” Artinger says.
This particularly applies to business decisions such as whether to enter a new market or modifying a product based on customer feedback, which are both situations in which there tends to be limited information for making a decision.
The drawbacks to intuitive thinking
As Pearson’s research is showing, however, there are situations in which the use of unconscious information can lead us astray, a scenario that he coins as “misintuition.”
For instance, Pearson has found that the accuracy of our intuition can be shaped by our internal state—and that feelings of intense emotion, such as anxiety or overwhelming happiness, can often drown out the more subtle, unconscious cues that would otherwise guide intuition. So if you’re afraid of sharks, that fear might override the evidence that shark attacks are statistically very rare.
Another major example of misintuition is a link between an over-reliance on intuitive thinking and conspiracy theories, says Darel Cookson, a lecturer in psychology at Nottingham Trent University, whose research focuses on beliefs in conspiracy theories.
(Why people latch onto conspiracy theories, according to science.)
As Cookson notes, we tend to have dual modes of thinking: a more analytical style and a more intuitive style. Analytical thinking tends to be slower but more accurate, while intuitive thinking is faster but more prone to cognitive biases. In the case of conspiracy theories, “sometimes it’s easier to read something, and jump to a conclusion, rather than to think more critically or analytically about the information that was shown,” Cookson says.
Another pitfall of intuition can be when a person steps outside their area of expertise, which can lead to lapses in judgment when they try to make gut decisions. As Pearson notes, one notable example would be Steve Jobs, who frequently relied on intuition to great success in the business and tech world, but who pursued alternative medicine treatments for pancreatic cancer, which some experts have speculated may have led to his premature death.
Can you get better at using your intuition?
Although intuition can be hard to define, it turns out there are a few general rules that can help us make better decisions, which Pearson has reduced to five major rules. To help remember these five rules, Pearson came up with the acronym SMILE:
1. Self-awareness: Maintain self-awareness of your emotional and physical state—and avoid using intuition when that internal state is compromised by strong emotions such as anxiety or euphoria.
2. Mastery: Use intuition only in areas where you have a mastery of knowledge.
3. Instincts and impulses: Recognize that intuition is not the same as our instincts and impulses. Instincts are hard-wired behaviors, such as a fear of heights or an aversion to bad smells, while impulses can cause a person to confuse cravings for addictive things with their intuition.
4. Low-probability events: Avoid using intuition when it comes to low-probability events, such as the chances of being in a plane crash or winning the lottery. As Pearson notes, people are really bad at understanding probabilities, while the emotions associated with low-probability events, such as the fear of being attacked by a shark, or the hopefulness of winning the lottery, can often overwhelm intuition.
5. Environment: Recognize the role that a familiar environment plays in honing intuition. Our intuition is often developed in a specific environment, such as our workplace or home. Shifting to a different environment, such as moving to a different city or starting a new job, can make it harder to access that unconscious intuition.
Cookson notes, too, that you can use both analytical and intuitive thinking styles in tandem. For example, you might use analytical thinking to come up with potential solutions to a complicated problem, only to then rely on your intuition to make the final decision.
By understanding the limitations of your intuition—and supplementing it with analytical thinking—you can ultimately make better decisions.
