Everything Intuition

This article: Psychology Today: The Powers and Perils of Intuition has one of the better summaries of intuition I have come across in a long while.

If I remember correctly, the author, David G Myers, has written a book about intuition which ranks pretty high when you search for intuition on the web. As he says in the article, he is presenting “psychology’s assessment of intuition’s powers and perils”. In other words, the viewpoint of an established methodology on a phenomenon experienced by so many people.

Obviously, he and I are from different camps. He refers to the ‘new cottage industry” of those who deal with and communicate about intuition in one form or another. That term itself is indicative of a view which is almost condescending but not condemnatory (which makes a change).

He does make a valid point about the way many writers are oblivious to the new scientific explorations of how the mind processes information. The gist of the early part of the piece (which I urge you to read in full), is that there is now an awareness of a greater range of functions of the mind (mostly subconscious) which were previously not known about (to scientists). He reels off the areas of research with impressive terms such as “automatic processing, subliminal priming, implicit memory, heuristics, right-brain processing, instant emotions, nonverbal communication and creativity” which, to me at least, seems to be giving labels to things which gifted intuitives knew all along.

He also refers to thin-slicing as revealing much information from a small sample (something which Malcolm Gladwell has explored in his book “Blink”, the subject of a previous post). Then he spends time on the supposed male-female gap in empathy and intuition noting that

“Psychologists debate whether the intuition gap is truly intrinsic to gender. Whatever the reason, Western tradition has historically viewed rational thinking as masculine and intuition as feminine, notes feminist historian Evelyn Fox Keller. Women’s ways of knowing, argues feminist writer Mary Field Belinky, give greater latitude to subjective knowledge. She contends that women winnow competing ideas less through hostile scrutiny than by getting inside another’s mind, and often by way of friendly conversation. Some personality tests show that nearly six in ten men score as “thinkers” (claiming to make decisions objectively, using logic), while three in four women score as “feelers” (claiming to make decisions subjectively, based on what they feel is right).”

Not a great deal new in that analysis, but interesting nevertheless.

However, the area which I find most irritating (and I hasten to add, it’s not aimed at David Myers per se, just that he is making the point in this article), is at the beginning of the section titled ‘The Perils”:..”Intuition often errs”

This one point is pulled out of the hat as a standard condemnation of intuition. Skeptics are keen to emphasize this inadequacy whenever they discuss intuition. The implication is that intuition should not be wrong, or should at least be more right than it plainly is. If it is wrong, many arguments go, then intuition can be dismissed because it is unreliable. Yet these self same critics are loath to dismiss sight as erroneous when examples abound of vision seeing things which aren’t there.

I have never said anywhere that intuition, in whatever form it appears, is faultless. I think that is a stupid idea. What I DO think is that intuition is one aspect of being human which, if nurtured and encouraged and listened to, is a marvelous help in life. However, that is a whole ‘nother post, as they say and would take far
too much time to go into now. I hope that the scope of what I
mean becomes clear as these posts develop and the blog grows.

The one thing I would wholeheartedly agree upon is the statement David Myers makes in the last paragraph: “Intuition is bigger than we realize”. I am firmly convinced that intuition plays a far larger role in our lives than we are usually aware of. What I also believe is that intuition comes to us in more than the traditional roles of feelings, hunches, voices and to on. I think that it is present in our lives continuously and that, to an extent, it is almost impossible to separate it and study it as if it were somehow apart form us in a small box which can be opened and inspected. Despite this caveat, it’s worth quoting the last paragraph completely:

Intuition is bigger than we realize. It feeds our expertise,
creativity, love and spirituality. It is a wonder. But it’s also
perilous. Today’s cognitive science aims not to destroy intuition but
to fortify it, to sharpen our thinking and deepen our wisdom.
Scientists who expose intuition’s flaws note that it works well in some
areas, but needs restraints and checks in others. In realms from sports
to business to spirituality, we now understand how perilous intuitions
often go before a fall, and how we can therefore think smarter, even
while listening to the creative whispers of our unseen mind.

It’s not often that you’re going to get a scientifically minded person taking this sort of stance on this subject, actually admitting that it exists and that it can be useful!

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