As a person with high inituition, I have always been a fan of listening to my gut. The direction I get from my heart is statistically far more accurate and practical than when I get my head involved. Appears our gut may also be more ethical than our brains.
Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto conducted a series of experiments partnering test subjects with anonymous people. Each test subject had two options: treat their partners fairly or lie to them. If they decided to lie, they would gain at the expense of their partner.
Prior to making their decisions, some test subjects were encouraged to think rationally about the situation and ignore their emotions. 69% concluded, despite analysis, to lie. Other test subjects were encouraged to make decisions based on their gut feelings. Only 27% lied. Surprising, I’m sure but no more surprising than the fact that even though we are treated better by people who trust their feelings, we actually don’t trust them. 75% of the partners chose to deal with the “rational” test subject despite their tendency to cheat them.
These results put a new perspective on the recent financial debacle. When times are good, we may quiet our gut feelings rather than listen to their warnings. We automatically provide rationalizations for what we and others are doing. And we may only seek out information that agrees with our rationalizations. There are those within our financial institutions that had a “bad” feeling about what was occurring. We can only hope that the next time, we all listen.
Filed under: Perspectives and Trends | Tagged: ethics, intuition
As another advocate, proponent and strong believer in intuition, I appreciate your comments. It is always such a challenge to trust that feeling in the pit of our stomachs since most of us have been conditioned to follow our heads. There is mounting evidence both circumstantial and scientific to question the value of that conditioning.
I’d love to hear about other studies or additional data on this topic. Pass them along if you can. I think understanding the criticality of these abilities could significantly change education, politics and other social institutions.