In this series we publish blog posts written by our first year undergraduate students for the PB101 Foundations of Psychological Science course. In this post, Amy Booth explores whether we should actually trust our intuition, or whether we are better off considering other factors when making decisions. 

Like Goldilocks, we all have the feeling when making a decision that one option is just right. We often don’t question this as it feels too uncomfortable to go against it. We all know this feeling as our gut instinct. But what really is it? Why do we have it? And can we trust it?

Image created by the author using Canva. 

What really is a gut instinct? 

Intuition is ‘an ability to understand or know something immediately based on your feelings rather than facts’ (Cambridge University Press, n.d.). But for most people intuition is called a gut feeling; it’s that sixth sense when you know the answer to a quiz question or that uneasy feeling when you know for some reason you shouldn’t go out tonight.

Most researchers acknowledge that we think in 2 different ways. Some use the terms System 1 and System 2, where System 1 is intuitive and System 2 is analytical (Cabrera et al., 2015; Kahneman, 2011). It’s System 1 in action when you answer 2+2 without thinking (Kahneman, 2011). It’s System 1 communicating with you through a gut-instinct (Cabrera et al., 2015).

Ever wondered why experts like chess masters can make a crucial move just based on intuition? One theory is that, through experience, they’ve stored numerous patterns and actions linked with these in their memory. (Gobet & Chassy, 2009; Hodgkinson et al., 2008; Simon, 1997). They can then quickly recognise patterns and know what move to make (Gobet & Chassy, 2009; Simon, 1997). However, this theory has been adapted, partly because it doesn’t include emotion (Gobet & Chassy, 2009). We all know emotions and intuition are linked from experience, like the relief we feel when we’ve made the right choice, but this link has also been demonstrated by research (Sinclair & Ashkanasy, 2005).

Why do we have gut instincts?

How is it we can feel in our gut what our brain is telling us? The gut and brain communicate with each other through what is called the brain-gut axis (Farmer et al, 2014). One crucial part of this connection is the vagus nerve (Mörkl et al, 2023), which allows chemicals to travel between the gut microbiome (a collection of bacteria) and the brain (Han et al, 2022; Naidoo, 2020).

But this doesn’t tell us why we’ve developed this ability. It’s suggested gut instincts evolved to warn us of danger (Sadler-Smith, 2010); they made our ancestors more likely to survive by allowing them to detect threats (Honeycutt & Rasner, 2021). Perhaps then these survivors taught their children to also rely on instincts, therefore over generations integrating the idea of using your gut feeling into everyday life.

Differences in gut instincts

We’ve all heard the idea that women have better instincts than men, but is this actually true? Some studies support this (Bao et al, 2022; Pacini & Epstein, 1999) whereas Delaney and colleagues (2015) found that men are more likely to be intuitive. These contradictory findings could be because these studies measured intuition differently (Sinclair & Ashkanasy, 2005), or because the participants were of different ages. Whereas the participants in Delaney and colleagues (2015) study varied in age, university students were used in the others (Bao et al, 2022; Pacini & Epstein, 1999) and age has been shown to influence how you make decisions; the older you are the less likely you are to use intuition (Delaney et al, 2015; Loo, 2000).

Cultural differences have also been found regarding gut instincts, with East Asian participants placing more importance on being intuitive than Western participants (Buchtel & Norenzayan, 2008). One potential reason for this is that different cultures hold different values about intuition (Buchtel & Norenzayan, 2008). However, there is a difference between thinking intuition is important and actually using it, so the results of this study may not be generalisable to everyday life.

But can we trust our gut instincts?

Gut feelings have proved useful for many well-known individuals; Sir Richard Branson and Albert Einstein attributed their success to using their gut instincts to make decisions (Robson, 2022; Sadler-Smith, 2010). Although, it’s very easy to put your success down to intuition after it’s happened, it’s harder to know whether to trust your gut in the moment.

Perhaps the study from Mikels and colleagues (2011) provides better evidence for trusting our gut where participants were asked to choose a car. Those who used their feelings were just as likely to choose the best one as those who analysed the details. Furthermore, when the decision was made more complex, 68% of those who used their feelings chose the best car compared to 26% of those who used analysis (Figure 1). Although these findings are interesting, the participants were undergraduate students, who only represent a small section of people. Perhaps those who are older or less educated would have had less success using their instincts.

Figure 1: Mikels et al. (2011)

In another study, participants were asked to recruit healthcare professionals, with some being “experts” whose job it was to do this (Vincent et al., 2021). The “experts” were more likely to choose the best candidate than the “non-experts” when using intuition, suggesting gut feelings are more helpful if you have made that decision many times before. However, this study was in the USA so different findings might be seen in other countries, perhaps the American recruitment process leans towards employers using intuition.

Sometimes if we rely on our gut instinct without also thinking something through, we get the answer wrong (Kahneman, 2011; Thaler & Sunstein, 2021).

‘A bat and ball cost £1.10 in total. The bat costs £1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?’ (Frederick, 2005)

By answering this question instinctively most of us answer 10p but if we thought it through, we’d realise the answer is 5p (Kahneman, 2011; Thaler & Sunstein, 2021). What happened was that our System 1 replaced this complex problem with an easier one (Kahneman, 2011) – instead of ‘the bat costs £1.00 more than the ball’ we might have used ‘the bat costs £1.00’ (Hoover & Healy, 2019). There are some similar examples (Frederick, 2005) you can try in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Frederick (2005)

But there have been instances where people claim their gut instincts saved their lives. For example, one man suddenly decided to change his driving route based on a gut feeling, it turned out the bridge he would have driven on collapsed (Quilon, 2022).

So perhaps it’s safer to follow our gut instinct when making a quick decision but, if possible, spend a bit of time deliberating options, to get the best of both worlds.

• This post was originally written as part of PB101: Foundations of Psychological Science, which is a core course on the BSc Psychological and Behavioural Science. It has been published with the permission of the author.
• The opinions in this post are of the author, not of the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science or LSE.
• Cover image by Alicia Harper from Pixabay.

References

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• Buchtel, E.E., & Norenzayan, A. (2008). Which should you use, intuition or logic? Cultural differences in injunctive norms about reasoning. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 11(4), 264-273. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-839X.2008.00266.x
• Caberera, D., Thomas, J.F., Wiswell, J.L., Walston, J.M., Anderson, J.R., Hess, E.P., & Bellolio, M.F. (2015). Accuracy of ‘My gut feeling’: Comparing system 1 to system 2 decision-making for acuity prediction, distortion and diagnosis in an academic emergency department. Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 16(5), 653-657. https://doi.org/10.5811/westjem.2015.5.25301
• Cambridge University Press. (n.d.). Intuition. In Cambridge dictionary. Retrieved February 3, 2024, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/intuition
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• Mörkl, S., Butler, M.I., & Wagner-Skacel, J. (2023, July). Gut-brain-crosstalk- the vagus nerve and the mircobiota-gut-brain axis in depression. A narrative review. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, 13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadr.2023.100607
• Naidoo, U. (2020). The food mood connection. Short Books.
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• Quilon, P. (2022, August 12). “Something was pulling me towards the exit”: Intuitive folks are recalling the moments listening to their gut saved their life, and I’m shaking. BuzzFeed. https://www.buzzfeed.com/pernellquilon/intuitive-people-listening-to-their-gut
• Robson, D. (2022, April 4). Intuition: When is it right to trust your gut instincts? BBC Worklife. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220401-intuition-when-is-it-right-to-trust-your-gut-instincts
• Sadler-Smith, E. (2010). The intuitive mind: Profiting from your sixth sense. John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. https://ebookcentral-proquest.com.gate3.library.lse.ac.uk/lib/londonschoolecons/detail.action?pq-origsite=primo&docID=565096
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