Trust Your Gut? Not So Fast
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Trust your instinct, we’re urged; it’s never wrong. Nice platitude. It makes us feel safe. But gut instinct is based in our knowledge and experience. Thus, it’s inevitably limited to our specific perceptual frame.
Cognitive research has found that the formation of a perceptual frame involves two primary avenues for processing information. Some moves through rational channels and some through intuitive channels. Intuition is aligned with automatic, subconscious judgment, which can be highly influenced by emotion. It’s fast, and its conclusions arrive without analysis. Thus, it’s vulnerable to personal bias and error.
Although analytical reasoning is slower, it offers perspective, along with awareness of a greater range of factors. The result of careful, objective analysis is usually more reliable.
Read original articleTags: Cognitive research, gut instinct, Trust Your Gut
