How strong is your instinct and do you trust it? Or do you hesitate and think again?

A study at Kingston suggests your first thoughts might be right after all. Anna Craig finds out more.

judgement

The problem of

he world is an uncertain place. We muddle by, trying to make the right decisions with the information available, but often we make mistakes by basing our judgements on intuition rather than reason or probability. Or do we? Take the example below. Linda is 31. Shes a philosophy major whos bright, outspoken and deeply concerned about discrimination and social justice. She regularly participates in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Is it more likely that: a) Linda is a bank teller or b) that Linda is a feminist and a bank teller? Its illogical, but most people will pick the second option (it cant be more likely that both things are true than just one of them). This is because humans, when asked to make probability judgements (that is, judgements of the likelihood that something will happen or is true) usually take shortcuts with their reasoning. They answer heuristically using ruleof-thumb reckoning or intuition. And because these types of judgement often contradict the laws of probability, experts therefore believe that intuition must not be a good method for making decisions. But Dr Gaelle Villejoubert, Kingston University senior lecturer in psychology, is challenging this accepted wisdom with some innovative research. She believes that we may be making flawed judgements because we are second guessing our intuition rather than trusting ourselves the first time. We think intuition is leading us down the wrong path, but what if its the other way round? Gaelle says. What if its over-thinking that leads us astray? If the first answer that comes to mind gets superseded by afterthoughts and questioning, that might be where were going wrong. During her career, Gaelle has taught quantitative skills to students of psychology and business management who often struggled with mathematical concepts. Eventually she realised that students who experienced the most difficulties were those who thought too deeply about routine operations as opposed to simply carrying them out. She suspected they were over-deliberating, rather than accepting their initial intuitive responses. With funding from the Leverhulme Trust, Gaelle will, over the next three years, conduct a series of experiments with 450 people. She will use a three-pronged methodology: applying time pressure to ensure people give their first response to probability statements; tracking eye movements to determine what information people pay attention to before making a judgment; and identifying individual differences to discover whether people make errors of judgment because they do not pay enough attention to their first intuitions. This is important because people are often told they dont think enough, Gaelle said. But that might not be helpful at all. If we find out that peoples first thoughts are usually right, it may be that we need to encourage intuitive thinking after all. Gaelle believes the research could have a far-reaching impact. If youre a doctor and someone comes to you with symptoms, you might have an idea of what their illness is, but

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...we may be making flawed judgements because we are second guessing our intuition rather than trusting ourselves the first time.

youre not sure. This is an uncertain situation. Likewise, if youre on a jury and you need to decide whether someone is guilty or innocent without having witnessed the crime, you need to make a decision in an uncertain environment. People will always need to make decisions without having all the information, and how we do this affects the world of finance, education, medicine, law everything.

Happy
Dr Gaelle Villejoubert

talk

Are you illogical? Check your intuition.

One thousand people were tested in a survey. The respondents included four men and 996 women. Jo is a randomly chosen respondent of this survey. Jo is 23 years old and is finishing a degree in mechanical engineering. On Friday nights, Jo likes to go out cruising with friends while listening to loud music and drinking beer. Which is most likely? a. Jo is a woman b. Jo is a man

Are married people happier than unmarried people? Is unemployment worse than divorce? Would winning the lottery make you happier?
ingston University has appointed an expert in happiness economics to run its Centre for Research into Employment, Skills and Society (CRESS). Professor Yannis Georgelliss field of expertise combines business and psychology to answer questions like these to identify how we make decisions and how we can maximise our wellbeing. Yannis was one of the first researchers to apply the study of adaptation how human beings adapt to changing situations to the field of management. In 2008, he wrote a report on adaptation to major life and economic events, including marriage, divorce and unemployment, which received worldwide press coverage. The study suggested that peoples happiness tended to remain constant throughout their lives and that the elation or despair we feel when momentous events happen tends to be short-lived. The pursuit of happiness has been a human endeavour since ancient times, so it is not surprising that any new findings on happiness will capture the public imagination, he said. But what is interesting and intriguing about happiness research in recent years is that it has challenged traditional economic doctrine and encouraged economists to embrace ideas from other social sciences. As director of CRESS, Yannis will lead research into how work can be better organised for the benefit of employers and employees. The Centre is currently working on projects with partners including waste and energy firm Veolia, the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development and Birmingham City Council. CRESS brings academics and practitioners together to learn from each other, he said. The combination of our academic knowledge and our partners business experience promises to have a real impact on the workplace and society. Yannis joins Kingston from Bournemouth University where he was professor of human resource management and organisational behaviour.

Answer: a. This is because there were 996 women in the sample. Jos description may be more typical of a man, but given that there were so many women in this survey, she is more likely to be a woman. If you answered b, you used the representativeness heuristic and neglected the information about base rates (the relative proportion of men and women in the sample).
In one chapter of a bestselling novel, which of the following types of words would you expect to be more frequent? (Select one answer.) a. Words that end in ing b. Words that have n as the second-to-last letter

Answer: b. This is because all the words that end in ing are included in the set of words that end in n. If you answered a, you used another type of heuristic to make your judgment: the availability heuristic. You mistakenly concluded that ing words were more frequent because it was easier to think of words ending in ing than words ending in n.

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