Why intuition is often stronger than reason?

Many times, we all think that the conclusions drawn after rational decision-making are more reliable and powerful than those drawn by intuition, but a book tells us that 90% of the choices in this society are determined by intuition, and its correctness is often higher than that of rational choice.

This book is called intuition: why we can make decisions without reasoning. 199 1 won the behavioral science research award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the German Science Book Award in 2002. The author is Gerd Jirenze, director of Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany, and a cognitive psychologist. He has written more than a dozen works, and this book is his masterpiece, which is in the position of "always quoted and never surpassed".

The author's definition of intuition is that our thoughts adapt to this society by virtue of unconsciousness, the rule of experience and the instinct of human evolution, bypass detours and reach their destinations. When we make a decision, the result of rational calculation often makes people regret, because people think they have enough knowledge to make a decision when facing complex situations, but in fact this knowledge is incomplete. The author's theory about intuition is that the more information and thinking you rely on, the better, sometimes even the less the better, the simpler the better, so the higher the correct rate of decision-making.

The author's research on intuition is divided into two parts: unconscious wisdom and unconscious behavior.

Unconscious wisdom

The author thinks that intuition has three characteristics: first, it appears quickly in the mind; Second, I don't know the deep operating mechanism; Third, there is a strong motivation to achieve.

Psychologist Freud once evaluated intuition as illusion and warned people not to expect it. He believes that intuition violates knowledge and logic and belongs to pseudoscience such as fortune telling.

But the author disagrees with this view. He believes that people can maximize their intuition through the following two abilities:

(A) the ability to stimulate experience

In ball games, excellent athletes generally don't understand advanced mathematics and can't calculate the trajectory of the ball by drawing parabola, but they can make accurate judgments through intuition. This is the wisdom of experience.

This is consistent with the real life situation. Most people with sports talent have low educational level, but their wisdom in sports is far higher than those with corresponding cultural knowledge.

The same is true of investment. People with rich investment experience must have high academic qualifications and do not need to do too much fundamental analysis and financial analysis. They can intuitively achieve better performance than financial experts and first-class fund managers.

For them, the first reaction is the best reaction, without too much information and too many choices, "less is more", the author analyzes the following reasons:

1. Proper ignorance can overcome complex, redundant and chaotic information combination;

2. Unconscious exercise can help people make better judgments, but once thinking is used, it will hinder the implementation of this skill;

3. There are limitations in human cognition, and intuitive choice becomes the ideal choice;

4. People's choice faces the contradiction of free choice. The more options they can choose, the easier it is to fall into contradiction and difficult to choose.

5. Simple rules of thumb can often predict complex phenomena like complex rules;

6, the cost of knowledge and information collection and processing, in dealing with some urgent problems, too curious, too much thinking will hinder the appropriate and timely response.

(B) the ability of brain evolution

In the long process of evolution, our brain's own ability can prevent us from making big mistakes in important things. It has the ability to trust, imagine and produce feelings. These abilities cannot be quantified, so their importance is often overlooked by us.

Of course, human intuition is also related to the acquired environmental impact, but good intuition will definitely go beyond the known information and logic.

Unconscious behavior

Unconscious behavior is a good decision we can make in life. The author gives some suggestions:

1, trust your intuition.

For simple things, you can trust your own cognitive memory, which is often better than listening to experts.

2, good reason, one is enough.

In an uncertain world, complex strategies will be completely ineffective, because it is usually "hindsight" and only part of the information is useful for the future. The simple principle is that only by looking at the best reasons and directly ignoring others can we find the most useful information.

Step 3 simplify the complex

For complex problems, you can simplify them by trusting the words of authoritative people.

4. Don't infer default options and moral behavior.

The author believes that there are two principles in human nature: one is the principle of conformity, and we don't want to be isolated because we are different from others; The second is the default principle, which thinks that the default option is the best and is unwilling to do something to change it.

Various studies show that the default value set according to customs has a very significant impact on human economic and moral behavior, so many people will avoid making decisions on their own initiative.

On the other hand, morality is only a reflection of intuition, which comes from the following principles: conformity and acquiescence. Therefore, it is invalid to logically reason these default and solidified rules.

5. Ignorant people are fearless

If you don't know what to do, just follow others and imitate intuitively, which may be the best decision objectively.

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This book analyzes the intuitive wisdom of "less is more, simplifying complexity", so that we can know how to act without careful thinking and reasoning. Although intuition is not perfect, it goes beyond most complicated recommendations and calculations, so that we can avoid doing a lot of useless work and go straight to our destination.

Of course, although intuition has many advantages, it should not deny the role of reason. If the problem is too complicated for intuition to make a decision, or the problem is too important for intuition to make a decision, then letting reason participate in decision-making is the best solution.