Gut Feeling or Rational Thinking?

Think of a golf player. To make a good shot, a series of decisions (sweep strength, ball hitting point, direction, etc.) should be made based on some pieces of information (distance, topography, wind, etc.). A professional player is much better off if he follows his intuitions to sweep the club. On the other hand, an amateur player has to go through every step of analyzing the situation and his movements; otherwise, he may even not hit the ball!

Gut feeling and rational thinking are two powerful decision making tools that are required to be correctly understood to be properly applied to the related situations. Some people are so in love with fastness, easiness, and “coolness” of making decisions based on their gut feelings that they forget about its underlying limitations, while some other people immerse themselves in analysis so deep that they cannot recognize that they may have selected an inefficient and erroneous decision making tool.

Gut feeling is not a magic, gifted talent, chance, or the result of an extraordinary IQ. It is a smart recognition and decision making tool that is trained based on rational thinking. When we practice a series of logical analysis regularly for a long period, the procedure is programmed in our unconsciousness. After a while, we can take advantage of the “shortcuts” provided by an expert system (gut feeling) that is deeply trained over time.

Most analytical people don’t rely on their intuitions because they believe they need to spend a reasonable amount of time on some sort of analysis to reach a good decision. They are not aware that gut feeling automatically applies the most efficient and accurate analysis based on its years of training. The training might be conscious (a sport player), unconscious (the effect of environment) or even transferred from generations (evolution).

Located in unconsciousness, gut feeling automatically includes factors such as internalized values and feelings in decision making process. Rational thinking, on the other hand, may miss counting in these factors due to high concentration on analyzing information. Such ignorance may lead to regrets and unhappiness later after making a choice when the dust settles down and the ignored long-term existed values start to show up.

I think there is only one, but major drawback with gut feelings: We may make disastrous decisions if we overestimate the training, and thus, correctness of our gut feelings.