Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious

Sometimes we just "know" something without being able to understand it. A computer would take a huge amount of time to identify a face, but people do it easily all the time. Even something like chess includes a number of quick decisions that are made without going through the detailed calculations a computer would need. How do humans do this? Many things are completed by "gut feelings". Many times these are correct.

In many cases, more information can make decisions worse. In some tests done to name the largest city of a pair, those that knew more of the cities made worse decisions. Germans were better able to choose a larger American city than a German one. The knowledge caused deeper analysis, while lack of knowledge led to just guessing, or chosing the one that was most familiar. The act of choosing the most recognizable is surprisingly often a successful heuristic. Stock portfolio of most recognizable companies has been shown to beat the market (while one of least recognizable trails.) General recognition of tennis players has better predictive power than their ratings. This seems logical - the most successful will have more name recognition. Alas, marketers have also used this to make their brands more "recognizable", rather than better. People may express a strong preference for a given brand of peanut butter or beer, even if they often pick out others in blind taste tests.

Science and policy often has trouble with gut instincts. There are many efforts to establish logical standards that must be followed instead. These can lead to plenty of problems on their own (such as medical overt-testing to avoid liability.) However, in many cases the gut of the experienced practitioner remains superior to the test results. In cases where it does not, processes to "retrain" the instincts can often lead to superior outcomes. 

People can often carry around "fake" understandings that are reinforced by real occurrences. Social pressure can continue to drive these. Social pressure can also nudge people away. Does social pressure sometimes move people from truths to falsehoods also? Are we sometimes too logical for our own good? What is the proper balance of gut instinct and logical calculation? Oftentimes are first impression is better than are detailed analysis. Other times it is very wrong. How do we work towards the right path?