The Good and Bad of Intuition

Intuition allows individuals to react quickly and typically in an adaptive manner without conscious reasoning.

fig. 1

Carl Jung in 1910

In Carl Jung's theory of the ego, described in 1921 in Psychological Types, he defined intuition as "perception via the unconscious."

KEY POINTS

Intuition occurs on the unconscious level, arising out of experience.
Intuition can be a helpful tool in everyday decision making.
Recognition primed decision (RPD) model explains a blend of intuition and analysis during decision making.

TERMS

intuition
Immediate cognition without the use of conscious rational processes.

Cognition is a faculty for the processing of information, applying knowledge, and changing preferences. Cognition, or cognitive processes, can be natural or artificial, conscious or unconscious. Within psychology or philosophy, the concept of cognition is closely related to abstract concepts such as mind and intelligence. It encompasses the mental functions, mental processes (thoughts), and states of intelligent entities. Problem solving and decision making are examples of mental processes that incorporate conscious analysis as well as unconscious intuition.

The term intuition is used to describe thoughts and preferences that come to mind quickly and without much reflection, and is popularly associated with the "right brain." While some view intuition as a negative attribute, some scientists contend that intuition is associated with innovation in scientific discovery.

In Carl Jung's theory of the ego, described in 1921 in Psychological Types, intuition was an "irrational function," opposed most directly by sensation, and opposed less strongly by the "rational functions" of thinking and feeling. Jung defined intuition as "perception via the unconscious:" using sense perception only as a starting point to bring forth ideas, images, possibilities, or ways out of a blocked situation by a process that is mostly unconscious. Jung said that a person in whom intuition was dominant, an "intuitive type," acted not on the basis of rational judgment, but on sheer intensity of perception. (Figure 1)

In more recent psychology, intuition can encompass the ability to solve problems and make decisions. For example, the recognition primed decision (RPD) model explains how people can make relatively fast decisions without having to compare options. Gary Klein found that under time pressure, high stakes, and changing parameters, experts used their base of experience to identify similar situations and intuitively choose feasible solutions. Thus, the RPD model is a blend of intuition and analysis. Intuition is the pattern-matching process that quickly suggests feasible courses of action. The analysis is the mental simulation, essentially a conscious and deliberate review of the courses of action.

The reliability of one's intuition depends greatly on past knowledge and occurrences in a specific area. For example, someone who has had more experiences with children will tend to have a better instinct or intuition about what they should do in certain situations with them. This is not to say that one with a great amount of experience is always going to have an accurate intuition (because some can be biased); however, the chances of it being more reliable are amplified.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_%28knowledge%29
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16484496
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15200627