Related News
Home » Opinion » Book review
Trust your gut, use both logic and intuition
By Wu Jiayin |
September 26, 2009, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
MANY scientists and philosophers tend to underestimate the value of intuition, which, in their view, is neither scientific nor logical.
German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer challenges this anti-intuition bias by arguing in his book "Gut Feelings" that intuition is the "intelligence of the unconscious" and that people use it to make many important decisions.
In support he cites many persuasive examples and studies, which make fascinating reading.
It is true that we do not need complex strategies to judge if a person is trustworthy, if it is safe to walk down the street, or if eating a certain kind of food will cause illness.
Intuition, which largely works by applying "rules of thumb" or heuristics, helps us solve similar problems quickly and correctly.
As Gigerenzer emphasizes, our brains possess intuition because it works. So it is a waste not to take advantage of it.
He is also right in saying that one doesn't always need a lot of information to make a good decision.
For instance, in one case of research, two groups of college students, one American and one German, were asked which city has a larger population, Detroit or Milwaukee.
While nearly 40 percent of American students wrongly voted for Milwaukee, almost every German student chose Detroit, the correct answer.
It is not that German students had superior knowledge. They actually knew almost nothing about Detroit and had never heard of Milwaukee. They simply chose the city they had heard of, assuming that it could be larger.
According to Gigerenzer, German students employed a rule of thumb, or a "recognition heuristic," which says, "If you recognize one object but not the other, then infer that the recognition object has a higher value."
By contrast, the American students knew a little of both cities, so they could not employ the heuristic.
Hence Gigerenzer's observation: "more information, even more thinking, is not always better."
While the author makes sense in most of his arguments, he sometimes over-emphasizes the importance of intuition over logic.
Indeed, he is not wrong in saying that "reasoning can conflict with what we call intuition." And there are cases in which intuition, rather than reasoning, leads to the right conclusion.
But he appears to have gone too far when he asserts: "Good expert judgment is generally of an intuitive nature."
He cites the example of golfers and says if they are asked to think about their swing, they'll inevitably fall apart.
So Gigerenzer concludes that experts of all types understand that intellectualizing can impair a skill that has become second nature.
However, for an expert, such as a golfer, to develop such second nature skill requires innumerable swing practices, each representing a careful analysis of the combination of strength and angle.
In other words, it is not that professional golfers do not reason when swinging. Rather, they have become so accustomed to the reasoning that their brains could do the calculation even more quickly than they themselves realize.
In fact, the debate over whether intuition or logic is more important is as meaningless as the question of asking whether the right hand or the left is more useful.
The best answer to both questions is that a combination of the two leads to the most promising result.
In the golfer's case, numerous reasoning experiences lay the foundation for the expert's intuition.
In some other cases, intuition is the premise for logic and reasoning.
For example, many mathematical theories were originally hypotheses that came into existence from some mathematicians' intuition.
The hypotheses become theories only when they are proved by mathematicians by using logic and reasoning.
Therefore, Gigerenzer's book would have been more useful had he focused more on the combined use of intuition plus logic and reasoning.
German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer challenges this anti-intuition bias by arguing in his book "Gut Feelings" that intuition is the "intelligence of the unconscious" and that people use it to make many important decisions.
In support he cites many persuasive examples and studies, which make fascinating reading.
It is true that we do not need complex strategies to judge if a person is trustworthy, if it is safe to walk down the street, or if eating a certain kind of food will cause illness.
Intuition, which largely works by applying "rules of thumb" or heuristics, helps us solve similar problems quickly and correctly.
As Gigerenzer emphasizes, our brains possess intuition because it works. So it is a waste not to take advantage of it.
He is also right in saying that one doesn't always need a lot of information to make a good decision.
For instance, in one case of research, two groups of college students, one American and one German, were asked which city has a larger population, Detroit or Milwaukee.
While nearly 40 percent of American students wrongly voted for Milwaukee, almost every German student chose Detroit, the correct answer.
It is not that German students had superior knowledge. They actually knew almost nothing about Detroit and had never heard of Milwaukee. They simply chose the city they had heard of, assuming that it could be larger.
According to Gigerenzer, German students employed a rule of thumb, or a "recognition heuristic," which says, "If you recognize one object but not the other, then infer that the recognition object has a higher value."
By contrast, the American students knew a little of both cities, so they could not employ the heuristic.
Hence Gigerenzer's observation: "more information, even more thinking, is not always better."
While the author makes sense in most of his arguments, he sometimes over-emphasizes the importance of intuition over logic.
Indeed, he is not wrong in saying that "reasoning can conflict with what we call intuition." And there are cases in which intuition, rather than reasoning, leads to the right conclusion.
But he appears to have gone too far when he asserts: "Good expert judgment is generally of an intuitive nature."
He cites the example of golfers and says if they are asked to think about their swing, they'll inevitably fall apart.
So Gigerenzer concludes that experts of all types understand that intellectualizing can impair a skill that has become second nature.
However, for an expert, such as a golfer, to develop such second nature skill requires innumerable swing practices, each representing a careful analysis of the combination of strength and angle.
In other words, it is not that professional golfers do not reason when swinging. Rather, they have become so accustomed to the reasoning that their brains could do the calculation even more quickly than they themselves realize.
In fact, the debate over whether intuition or logic is more important is as meaningless as the question of asking whether the right hand or the left is more useful.
The best answer to both questions is that a combination of the two leads to the most promising result.
In the golfer's case, numerous reasoning experiences lay the foundation for the expert's intuition.
In some other cases, intuition is the premise for logic and reasoning.
For example, many mathematical theories were originally hypotheses that came into existence from some mathematicians' intuition.
The hypotheses become theories only when they are proved by mathematicians by using logic and reasoning.
Therefore, Gigerenzer's book would have been more useful had he focused more on the combined use of intuition plus logic and reasoning.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
