“If your gut reaction is different from the decision you reach after more deliberative processing, it is important to reconcile this inconsistency. If you let your gut rule, something as simple as whether a choice is framed as a gain or a loss might influence a decision. But if you ignore your gut and completely base your decision only on a cold calculation of the costs and benefits, you may be ignoring internal warning signs that ‘something isn’t right,’ such as the omission of the decision’s ethical implications from the calculation…. It’s important to get the two systems to talk to each other. Essentially, when the two systems disagree, that is your hint to have each system ‘audit’ the other system. Your gut can help you figure out what feelings you may have left out of your careful calculations, and rational analysis may help you determine whether irrelevant factors are influencing your gut response.”
Max H. Bazerman & Ann E. Tenbrunsel, Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do About It (Princeton University Press, 2011) at 36
