What is Intuition?

What is Intuition?

What is intuition? Is it sixth sense, a psychic ability, clairvoyance or the gift of prophecy? This simple question has baffled seekers and led them to different directions in search of the answer. Intuition is the ability to arrive at decisions in the blink of an eye. It is immediate assimilation of reality without having to undergo the cognitive thinking and reasoning process.

Blink

We live in a world that assumes the quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it. What do we teach our children? Haste makes Waste. Look before you leap. Don’t judge a book by its cover. We believe that we are always better of gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation. We really only trust conscious decision making. But there are moments, particularly in times of stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world. Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately. There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.

The Adaptive Unconscious

Whenever we meet someone for the first time, whenever we interview someone for a job, whenever we react to a new idea, whenever we’re faced with making a decision quickly and under stress, we use that second part of our brain. When you walk down a street and suddenly realize that a truck is bearing down on you, do you have time to think through all your options? Of course not. The only way that the human beings could have ever survived as a species for as long as we have is that we’ve developed another kind of decision-making apparatus that’s capable of making very quick judgments based on very little information. That part of our brain that leaps to conclusions like this is called the adaptive unconscious.

Educating your blink

The power of knowing, in those first two seconds, is not a gift given magically to a fortunate few. It is an ability that we can all cultivate for ourselves. Your snap judgments can be controlled and educated.

The Art of Thin-Slicing

‘Thin-Slicing’ refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in behavior based on very narrow slices of experience. It too, is part of what makes the unconscious so dazzling. But it is also what is most problematic about rapid cognition. How is it possible to gather the necessary information for a sophisticated judgment in such a short period of time? The answer is that when the unconscious engages in Thin-Slicing, what we are doing is an automated accelerated unconscious function of the brain. While Thin-Slicing, one doesn’t need to focus on everything that happens. You will be overwhelmed by the task of counting events. Be far more selective, particularly in a negative environment.

Love Lab

In an experiment to determine whether a couple will get divorced or not, John Gottman asked his staff to come to a conclusion about marriages by watching a random fifteen minute videotape of couples, while focusing only on the Four Horsemen: Defensiveness, Stonewalling, Contempt and Criticism. On the basis of those calculations, Gottman has proven something remarkable. If he analyzes an hour of a husband and wife talking, he can predict with 95 percent accuracy whether that couple will still be married fifteen years later.

The Perils of Intuition

It’s not the case that our internal computer always shines through, instantly “decoding” the truth of a situation. It can be thrown off, distracted or disabled. Our instinctive reactions often have to compete with all kinds of other interest and emotions and sentiments. So, when should we trust our instincts, and when should we be wary of them?

Let First Impressions bloom in a Healthy Environment

Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means that we can change our first impressions- we can alter the way we thin-slice- by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions. If you are a white person who would like to treat black people as equals in every way- who would like to have a set of associations with black that are as positive as those of you have with whites- it requires more than simple commitment to equality. It requires that you change your life so that you are exposed to minorities on a regular basis and become comfortable with them, so that when you want to meet, hire, date or talk with a member of minority, you aren’t betrayed by your hesitation and discomfort. Taking rapid cognition seriously- acknowledging the incredible power, for good and ill, that first impressions play in our lives- requires that we take active steps to manage and control those impressions.


"Intuition can be cultivated by developing mindfulness. One of the simplest yet profound ways of developing mindfulness is by being aware of one's breath. The modern world is an over stimulated mind-world. In such a context, it is highly important to develop a tranquil refuge within by being aware of one's existence in the here and now."

Om Namah Shivay