Is Our Intuition Trustworthy
We all have a negativity bias that causes us to notice and process negative information more than positive information. As a result we tend to over-emphasize risk / danger when there is none present.
This isn’t a bad thing, but it is important to be aware of. We may make some bad decisions in situations that really matter if we fly by intuition alone.
Intuition is the combination of our subconscious interacting with our current perceptions and tilted by our negativity bias - a stew of inaccuracies.
Confirmation bias provides the “proof” that our intuitions are accurate by recalling the very few times when we didn’t listen to our gut and got burned, but confirmation bias ignores the vast number of times in which we ignored our intuitions and everything worked out really well.
A very few super talented people can use intuition effectively because their intuition is absolutely packed with a shit ton of evidence, knowledge, and experience. In other words they are absolute experts in their field.
The rest of us are just making shit up and shooting inaccurately from the hip, yet because of all of our biases, cognitive distortions, thinking errors, faulty heuristics, limited intelligence and limited knowledge, our tendencies toward self-deception, etc., we have no idea that we are wrong.
It’s all a fascinating process and life-problem.
If your gut starts telling you something is off, unless there is imminent danger, holster your intuition, pause before making decisions, check the accuracy of your perceptions (almost guaranteed to be inaccurate), check your subconscious input (not easy), and gather more factual evidence.
In case of emergency, break glass and go with your gut.
K. H. Little Consulting Services
Kenneth H. Little, MA
KHLittle603@gmail.com
