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Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious
An engaging explanation of the science behind Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling Blink
Gerd Gigerenzer is one of the researchers of behavioral intuition responsible for the science behind Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller Blink. Gladwell showed us how snap decisions often yield better results than careful analysis. Now, Gigerenzer explains why our intuition is such a powerful decision-making tool. Drawing on a decade of research at the Max Plank Institute, Gigerenzer demonstrates that our gut feelings are actually the result of unconscious mental processes—processes that apply rules of thumb that we’ve derived from our environment and prior experiences. The value of these unconscious rules lies precisely in their difference from rational analysis—they take into account only the most useful bits of information rather than attempting to evaluate all possible factors. By examining various decisions we make—how we choose a spouse, a stock, a medical procedure, or the answer to a million-dollar game show question—Gigerenzer shows how gut feelings not only lead to good practical decisions, but also underlie the moral choices that make our society function.
In the tradition of Blink and Freakonomics, Gut Feelings is an exploration of the myriad influences and factors (nature and nurture) that affect how the mind works, grounded in cutting-edge research and conveyed through compelling real-life examples.
Gerd Gigerenzer is one of the researchers of behavioral intuition responsible for the science behind Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller Blink. Gladwell showed us how snap decisions often yield better results than careful analysis. Now, Gigerenzer explains why our intuition is such a powerful decision-making tool. Drawing on a decade of research at the Max Plank Institute, Gigerenzer demonstrates that our gut feelings are actually the result of unconscious mental processes—processes that apply rules of thumb that we’ve derived from our environment and prior experiences. The value of these unconscious rules lies precisely in their difference from rational analysis—they take into account only the most useful bits of information rather than attempting to evaluate all possible factors. By examining various decisions we make—how we choose a spouse, a stock, a medical procedure, or the answer to a million-dollar game show question—Gigerenzer shows how gut feelings not only lead to good practical decisions, but also underlie the moral choices that make our society function.
In the tradition of Blink and Freakonomics, Gut Feelings is an exploration of the myriad influences and factors (nature and nurture) that affect how the mind works, grounded in cutting-edge research and conveyed through compelling real-life examples.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published June 28, 2007
About the author
Gerd Gigerenzer
37 books278 followersGerd Gigerenzer is a German psychologist who has studied the use of bounded rationality and heuristics in decision making, especially in medicine. A critic of the work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, he argues that heuristics should not lead us to conceive of human thinking as riddled with irrational cognitive biases, but rather to conceive rationality as an adaptive tool that is not identical to the rules of formal logic or the probability calculus.
Gerd Gigerenzer ist ein deutscher Psychologe und seit 1997 Direktor der Abteilung „Adaptives Verhalten und Kognition“ und seit 2009 Direktor des Harding-Zentrum für Risikokompetenz, beide am Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung in Berlin. Er ist mit Lorraine Daston verheiratet.
Gigerenzer arbeitet über begrenzte Rationalität, Heuristiken und einfache Entscheidungsbäume, das heißt über die Frage, wie man rationale Entscheidungen treffen kann, wenn Zeit und Information begrenzt und die Zukunft ungewiss ist (siehe auch Entscheidung unter Ungewissheit). Der breiten Öffentlichkeit ist er mit seinem Buch Bauchentscheidungen, bekannt geworden; dieses Buch wurde in 17 Sprachen übersetzt und veröffentlicht.
[English bio taken from English Wikipedia article]
[Deutsche Autorenbeschreibung aus dem deutschen Wikipedia-Artikel übernommen]
Gerd Gigerenzer ist ein deutscher Psychologe und seit 1997 Direktor der Abteilung „Adaptives Verhalten und Kognition“ und seit 2009 Direktor des Harding-Zentrum für Risikokompetenz, beide am Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung in Berlin. Er ist mit Lorraine Daston verheiratet.
Gigerenzer arbeitet über begrenzte Rationalität, Heuristiken und einfache Entscheidungsbäume, das heißt über die Frage, wie man rationale Entscheidungen treffen kann, wenn Zeit und Information begrenzt und die Zukunft ungewiss ist (siehe auch Entscheidung unter Ungewissheit). Der breiten Öffentlichkeit ist er mit seinem Buch Bauchentscheidungen, bekannt geworden; dieses Buch wurde in 17 Sprachen übersetzt und veröffentlicht.
[English bio taken from English Wikipedia article]
[Deutsche Autorenbeschreibung aus dem deutschen Wikipedia-Artikel übernommen]
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 202 reviews
September 12, 2010
It was great in the first few chapters. I learned some very interesting ideas (which I will summarize at the end of this review), but then it got too scientific and philosophical and I totally lost interest and goodwill once the author started attributing everything to so-called "evolution" and even started suggesting improvements to "shortcomings" in the creation of the human eye at some point.
Nevertheless, the following are my main takeaways from the book:
Recognition Heuristic: relying on what you know best and what you're familiar with to make a choice. That's why corporations invest in uninformative ads so they can build brand recognition.
Unconscious Intelligence: that's why I can know if a sentence is grammatically incorrect without knowing the rules that apply!
A gut feeling ("a hunch") is a feeling that:
1. Appears fairly quickly to the conscious
2. Have no reasonable underlying justification
3. Is strong enough to act upon
When investing your money in multiple assets like stocks and real estate, the 1/N rule (divide equally) is the most simple and optimal than all other complex methodologies. Page 27
Page 30: Interesting: have you heard of the "zero-choice diner". The menu has only 1 item that they prepare very well and lots of people love it and come thief quite often. Better than menus that resemble encyclopedias! People apparently love choice but less choice often leads to more conversion.
Page 33: OMG! That's why when I start thinking about my actions when driving I tend to drive poorer or lose confidence in my driving, whereas if I just drive without thinking I drive as good as always. Turns out that experts at any given task perform worse when they try to employ their conscious when executing the task, but they perform better when distracted, thereby leaving their unconscious to do all the work. Beginners are however the exact opposite. Therefore if you wanna have a chance of defeating someone who is a master in say sport ask him to tell you how he "swings his hand so accurately" or something, forcing him to consciously recall the steps he takes thereby increase his chances for failure!
Page 42: This misguided author attributes human creation to "evolution" and then says the design of the eye could have been better only if!
Page 42: when given insufficient information, our brains make things up based on our assumptions about the world. This explains why people in vet parts of real stories if they don't remember exactly the entire story.
Page 43: "unconscious inferences" weave together data from the senses using prior knowledge about the world.
Page 47.Gut feelings may appear simplistic,
but their underlying intelligence lies in selecting the right rule of
thumb for the right situation.
Page 105. Framing is a useful tool for saying something in different ways depending on the desired outcome. Like this operation has 90% success rate or there is a 10% chance you will die from this operation. The first is more appealing because it suggests optimism.
Nevertheless, the following are my main takeaways from the book:
Recognition Heuristic: relying on what you know best and what you're familiar with to make a choice. That's why corporations invest in uninformative ads so they can build brand recognition.
Unconscious Intelligence: that's why I can know if a sentence is grammatically incorrect without knowing the rules that apply!
A gut feeling ("a hunch") is a feeling that:
1. Appears fairly quickly to the conscious
2. Have no reasonable underlying justification
3. Is strong enough to act upon
When investing your money in multiple assets like stocks and real estate, the 1/N rule (divide equally) is the most simple and optimal than all other complex methodologies. Page 27
Page 30: Interesting: have you heard of the "zero-choice diner". The menu has only 1 item that they prepare very well and lots of people love it and come thief quite often. Better than menus that resemble encyclopedias! People apparently love choice but less choice often leads to more conversion.
Page 33: OMG! That's why when I start thinking about my actions when driving I tend to drive poorer or lose confidence in my driving, whereas if I just drive without thinking I drive as good as always. Turns out that experts at any given task perform worse when they try to employ their conscious when executing the task, but they perform better when distracted, thereby leaving their unconscious to do all the work. Beginners are however the exact opposite. Therefore if you wanna have a chance of defeating someone who is a master in say sport ask him to tell you how he "swings his hand so accurately" or something, forcing him to consciously recall the steps he takes thereby increase his chances for failure!
Page 42: This misguided author attributes human creation to "evolution" and then says the design of the eye could have been better only if!
Page 42: when given insufficient information, our brains make things up based on our assumptions about the world. This explains why people in vet parts of real stories if they don't remember exactly the entire story.
Page 43: "unconscious inferences" weave together data from the senses using prior knowledge about the world.
Page 47.Gut feelings may appear simplistic,
but their underlying intelligence lies in selecting the right rule of
thumb for the right situation.
Page 105. Framing is a useful tool for saying something in different ways depending on the desired outcome. Like this operation has 90% success rate or there is a 10% chance you will die from this operation. The first is more appealing because it suggests optimism.
March 24, 2012
I started to read Gut Feeling when I was half way through Thinking, Fast and Slow. These two books were developed around the same theme: human intuition. While Thinking, Fast and Slow exposes the dark side of intuition, Gut Feeling reveals the bright side: how intuition can facilitate our decision making.
The notion of “rules of thumb” is the leitmotif of the book. It goes like this: we make decisions following unexplainable rules that engraved in our consciousness. These rules are usually extremely simply, yet most of us cannot articulate the formulation or rationale of them. Author of this book argues, when making decisions that involving a myriad of information and highly unpredictable outcome, people who use the simple rules are more likely to get favorable outcome than people who over-analyse. He dubs this simple decision making “fast and frugal”.
The traditional analytic method tells us to list all the criteria that matter, score every criterion then add the score up and pick the option with the highest score. But in real life context, we often encounter circumstances when we have to decide without knowing what we should analyze. Take an example from the book to explain: a father is picking a school from two for his son and he wants to pick a school that makes his son less likely to drop out. With the absence of drop-out rate from both schools, what should this father do? Should he tabulate every criterion of schools, even thought he has no idea which ones have effects on drop out rate? The author introduces “sequential reasoning” to solve this kind of problem. Instead of endlessly tabulating criteria, he asks us just to focus on the big criterion, in this case, things that have conspicuous relation with drop out rate, like say attendance rate. Compare two schools’ attendance rate, if one school has a substantially higher attendance rate, say 15% higher than the other one, stop and pick the higher one. If the discrepancy is not wide enough, you scroll down the list and compare the second most essential criterion until you find the wide enough discrepancy. In addition to being drastically less nerve-wrecking, this method of decision making has been proven to have a higher successful rate to reach favorable result than that of the traditional method.
Knowing how to make a “snap” judgement facilitate your decision making process, and knowing people make snap judgements all the time make you understand human behaviors and how to “manipulate” social change. The notion that most of the people follow “rules of thumb”, even making crucial decision, is very powerful. This notion can explain why companies will throw huge sum of money on commercials: because consumers follow the rule “buy the brand they recognize. This notion can also explain why German soldiers in Nazi era carried out the order of executing the Jew even thought those soldiers were repulsed by the order and had the chance to opt out: because they followed the rule “don’t break rank”. The best illustration of this powerful force comes from organ donation system. In France, roughly 90% of the population is potential organ donors whereas the percentage in the US is 20%. You may wonder it is cultural or religious reason to cause this discrepancy, but in fact, the major culprit is the system. The organ donation system in France and most the European countries is an opt-out system: every person agrees to be a donor by default and can opt out the system by filling out a form. The system in the US operates vice verse. The majority of people didn’t put much of thoughts on the philosophical and moral codes on the idea of organ donation; they only followed a simple rule “the default option is better”. Yet this tiny design difference between two system result in whether ten of thousands of people’ lives can be saved. The author argues, to apply this intuitive tendency of people into social and moral context, we can reduce unwanted events by making people less likely to chose decisions of which can lead to those events.
To say “think less” is useful doesn't mean the author is championing ignorance in this book, and he acknowledges that gut feeling doesn’t always work. However, he argues, in the age of rationality, when we rationally analyse everything, we inadvertently restrict our imagination undercut our capability and underestimate what we can achieve. He says, at the end of the book, if we don’t know what we cannot do, we may bring wishful thinking come true.
The notion of “rules of thumb” is the leitmotif of the book. It goes like this: we make decisions following unexplainable rules that engraved in our consciousness. These rules are usually extremely simply, yet most of us cannot articulate the formulation or rationale of them. Author of this book argues, when making decisions that involving a myriad of information and highly unpredictable outcome, people who use the simple rules are more likely to get favorable outcome than people who over-analyse. He dubs this simple decision making “fast and frugal”.
The traditional analytic method tells us to list all the criteria that matter, score every criterion then add the score up and pick the option with the highest score. But in real life context, we often encounter circumstances when we have to decide without knowing what we should analyze. Take an example from the book to explain: a father is picking a school from two for his son and he wants to pick a school that makes his son less likely to drop out. With the absence of drop-out rate from both schools, what should this father do? Should he tabulate every criterion of schools, even thought he has no idea which ones have effects on drop out rate? The author introduces “sequential reasoning” to solve this kind of problem. Instead of endlessly tabulating criteria, he asks us just to focus on the big criterion, in this case, things that have conspicuous relation with drop out rate, like say attendance rate. Compare two schools’ attendance rate, if one school has a substantially higher attendance rate, say 15% higher than the other one, stop and pick the higher one. If the discrepancy is not wide enough, you scroll down the list and compare the second most essential criterion until you find the wide enough discrepancy. In addition to being drastically less nerve-wrecking, this method of decision making has been proven to have a higher successful rate to reach favorable result than that of the traditional method.
Knowing how to make a “snap” judgement facilitate your decision making process, and knowing people make snap judgements all the time make you understand human behaviors and how to “manipulate” social change. The notion that most of the people follow “rules of thumb”, even making crucial decision, is very powerful. This notion can explain why companies will throw huge sum of money on commercials: because consumers follow the rule “buy the brand they recognize. This notion can also explain why German soldiers in Nazi era carried out the order of executing the Jew even thought those soldiers were repulsed by the order and had the chance to opt out: because they followed the rule “don’t break rank”. The best illustration of this powerful force comes from organ donation system. In France, roughly 90% of the population is potential organ donors whereas the percentage in the US is 20%. You may wonder it is cultural or religious reason to cause this discrepancy, but in fact, the major culprit is the system. The organ donation system in France and most the European countries is an opt-out system: every person agrees to be a donor by default and can opt out the system by filling out a form. The system in the US operates vice verse. The majority of people didn’t put much of thoughts on the philosophical and moral codes on the idea of organ donation; they only followed a simple rule “the default option is better”. Yet this tiny design difference between two system result in whether ten of thousands of people’ lives can be saved. The author argues, to apply this intuitive tendency of people into social and moral context, we can reduce unwanted events by making people less likely to chose decisions of which can lead to those events.
To say “think less” is useful doesn't mean the author is championing ignorance in this book, and he acknowledges that gut feeling doesn’t always work. However, he argues, in the age of rationality, when we rationally analyse everything, we inadvertently restrict our imagination undercut our capability and underestimate what we can achieve. He says, at the end of the book, if we don’t know what we cannot do, we may bring wishful thinking come true.
December 22, 2015
GUT FEELINGS: THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS. I just enjoyed re-reading Gerd Gigerenzer's book "Gut Feelings". The reason I wanted to re-read it is to compare what Gigerenzer says about social instincts to what Matthew Lieberman has explored and written about in his recently published book "Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect". Lieberman seems to take up where Gigerenzer left off on the subject, fills in and expands further details of neurological studies (including his own) on the subject of human social instincts and our need for social networks driving our evolution and behaviors, as well as being at the core of our human nature. I highly suggest reading these two well written and important books together.
Gigerenzer has made a major contribution in presenting the idea of our social instincts and depicting human nature as caring for each other due to the instinctual social need for belonging and protecting both family and community. It is this more positive view of humankind that Gigerenzer should be applauded for, as it flies in the face of traditional psychological thought by giants such as Freud who viewed humankind as driven by more "selfish" motivations. While it was a brief introduction to the idea, Gigerenzer's last chapter in this book opened a new door for understanding human nature in a more hopeful view.
While this book is not about actual somatic gut feelings or the feelings in the gut area of the body, it does explore in depth the subconscious decisions that inform our choices and for that it is an important read. My own life's work has been in the area of exploring gut feeling through somatic reflection with people and how that informs a healthy decision-making process. However, I did appreciate learning more about the mental functions that Gigerenzer so clearly writes about and I enjoyed reading his many examples and stories the second time as much as the first.
If you are interested in psychology--cognitive, evolutionary, or even more somatic studies--I think you will enjoy reading this book and find that it adds an important insight to your overall understanding of what it means to be human and the process of living and evolving in our fundamental "human condition".
Martha Love,
Author of What's Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct and
Increasing Intuitional Intelligence: How the Awareness of Instinctual Gut Feelings Fosters Human Learning, Intuition, and Longevity
Gigerenzer has made a major contribution in presenting the idea of our social instincts and depicting human nature as caring for each other due to the instinctual social need for belonging and protecting both family and community. It is this more positive view of humankind that Gigerenzer should be applauded for, as it flies in the face of traditional psychological thought by giants such as Freud who viewed humankind as driven by more "selfish" motivations. While it was a brief introduction to the idea, Gigerenzer's last chapter in this book opened a new door for understanding human nature in a more hopeful view.
While this book is not about actual somatic gut feelings or the feelings in the gut area of the body, it does explore in depth the subconscious decisions that inform our choices and for that it is an important read. My own life's work has been in the area of exploring gut feeling through somatic reflection with people and how that informs a healthy decision-making process. However, I did appreciate learning more about the mental functions that Gigerenzer so clearly writes about and I enjoyed reading his many examples and stories the second time as much as the first.
If you are interested in psychology--cognitive, evolutionary, or even more somatic studies--I think you will enjoy reading this book and find that it adds an important insight to your overall understanding of what it means to be human and the process of living and evolving in our fundamental "human condition".
Martha Love,
Author of What's Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct and
Increasing Intuitional Intelligence: How the Awareness of Instinctual Gut Feelings Fosters Human Learning, Intuition, and Longevity
January 2, 2014
I just didn't find myself very compelled by this book. Unfortunately, the material covered in this book is covered by a lot of books these days, and the way this book does so is not very compelling. The writing itself was bland, and the book didn't necessarily delve into these things in a way that made you understand it better than many of the much better books covering the material.
August 20, 2007
After hearing this book described as the "science behind Malcolm Gladwell's Blink," I thought that it might be inaccessible and filled with jargon. Instead, I found that Gigerenzer directs his entertaining and controversial book to the average reader.
His scientific study of intuition in decision-making is fascinating. Throughout the book he defends simple, unconscious thought processes (what we would call intuition), which are usually ignored in favor of complex formulas. For example, many scientists—and average people—believe that looking at and carefully weighing twenty factors will lead to a better decision than relying on only one or two factors. But as Gigerenzer illustrates, a basic evolutionary rule of thumb, like “one good reason is enough” often leads to better predictions than an involved multiple regression!
Every chapter had something to surprise me. Besides offering an easy-to-read version of his scientific evidence, Gigenrenzer also provides some real world applications of his theories. I’d still like to read Blink and see how Gladwell draws upon or expands on Gigerenzer’s ideas.
His scientific study of intuition in decision-making is fascinating. Throughout the book he defends simple, unconscious thought processes (what we would call intuition), which are usually ignored in favor of complex formulas. For example, many scientists—and average people—believe that looking at and carefully weighing twenty factors will lead to a better decision than relying on only one or two factors. But as Gigerenzer illustrates, a basic evolutionary rule of thumb, like “one good reason is enough” often leads to better predictions than an involved multiple regression!
Every chapter had something to surprise me. Besides offering an easy-to-read version of his scientific evidence, Gigenrenzer also provides some real world applications of his theories. I’d still like to read Blink and see how Gladwell draws upon or expands on Gigerenzer’s ideas.
January 18, 2009
Basically, the theme of the book is that thinking in patterns of relations in domains of partial knowledge can be more effective than thinking sequentially through logical associations of all that is known. Toward the end of the book this message started feeling repetitive, so I felt that I was learning less as I read more. Condensed, it would make a great piece in Readers Digest.
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July 31, 2023very interesting even though i think that he started with one idea and proceeded to go deeper into many different ones
February 2, 2013
We seldom have full information, and we seldom have enough time to deliberate. Pure reason, in other words, is impractical in a bustling world. But we must decide, every hour, matters that affect us. So we exercise our gut feelings.
What is intuition, and where do we get it? Its very nature makes it elusive. Gigerenzer's contribution is to try to answer these hard questions.
The archetype is the fielder chasing a fly ball. A logical solution would require an intricate calculation of speed, distance, motion, and trajectory. No time. So the fielder applies an instinctive rule that he has learned from having chased thousands of fly balls: "keep the ball at a constant bearing from yourself". (Mariners, by the way, apply the rule consciously: a moving ship at constant bearing will hit you.) It works.
Such rules of thumb work in millions of other applications, from the mundane ("pick the stocks of companies you recognize") to the potentially deadly (heart attack or heartburn? Five simple one-at-a-time questions will yield a more reliable answer than a 50-variable formula that tries to account for everything).
Intuition is simply the mind filling in blanks. It has learned to do this from a combination of evolution and experience. For example, thousand of years of evolution have fixed in our minds that most light comes from above. Therefore, when we view circles drawn on a flat sheet, top-shaded circles appear as indentations, bottom-shaded circles appear as pop-outs.
Experience has taught us that brands we recognize are better quality than brands we don't. That rule is imperfect. Advertisers have learned to exploit it. But we don't have the time or ability to do scientific research on objective quality, so we indulge the (perhaps unconscious) assumption that such research by others filters down to us in the form of brand recognition. It works better than guessing.
My main criticism of the book is that it exalts intution and disparages reason too much. The point the reader should take away is that intuition should be relied on in preference to logic only when there is not time enough or information enough to reach a truly reasoned judgment; or when the decision is inherently uncertain, as whom to marry.
Amateur investors with moderate knowledge will beat professional fund managers by exercising their hunches. But Warren Buffet will beat all of them by putting in the labor to be sure he REALLY knows what he is doing. Gigerenzer understands this, and alludes to it in the book, but the point is obscurely made.
For the good of society, reason must always trump intuition in the long run. Most of the lousiest episodes in history are the result of applied intuition, from the impaling of Christians, to the burning of witches, to the bleeding of the diseased. Racial prejudice is an intuitive rule-of-thumb in action. Gigerenzer surely recognizes this, too. He points out that reason works better than intution in hindsight. But today's hindsight can be tomorrow's foresight, and I wish that point had been more emphasized.
What is intuition, and where do we get it? Its very nature makes it elusive. Gigerenzer's contribution is to try to answer these hard questions.
The archetype is the fielder chasing a fly ball. A logical solution would require an intricate calculation of speed, distance, motion, and trajectory. No time. So the fielder applies an instinctive rule that he has learned from having chased thousands of fly balls: "keep the ball at a constant bearing from yourself". (Mariners, by the way, apply the rule consciously: a moving ship at constant bearing will hit you.) It works.
Such rules of thumb work in millions of other applications, from the mundane ("pick the stocks of companies you recognize") to the potentially deadly (heart attack or heartburn? Five simple one-at-a-time questions will yield a more reliable answer than a 50-variable formula that tries to account for everything).
Intuition is simply the mind filling in blanks. It has learned to do this from a combination of evolution and experience. For example, thousand of years of evolution have fixed in our minds that most light comes from above. Therefore, when we view circles drawn on a flat sheet, top-shaded circles appear as indentations, bottom-shaded circles appear as pop-outs.
Experience has taught us that brands we recognize are better quality than brands we don't. That rule is imperfect. Advertisers have learned to exploit it. But we don't have the time or ability to do scientific research on objective quality, so we indulge the (perhaps unconscious) assumption that such research by others filters down to us in the form of brand recognition. It works better than guessing.
My main criticism of the book is that it exalts intution and disparages reason too much. The point the reader should take away is that intuition should be relied on in preference to logic only when there is not time enough or information enough to reach a truly reasoned judgment; or when the decision is inherently uncertain, as whom to marry.
Amateur investors with moderate knowledge will beat professional fund managers by exercising their hunches. But Warren Buffet will beat all of them by putting in the labor to be sure he REALLY knows what he is doing. Gigerenzer understands this, and alludes to it in the book, but the point is obscurely made.
For the good of society, reason must always trump intuition in the long run. Most of the lousiest episodes in history are the result of applied intuition, from the impaling of Christians, to the burning of witches, to the bleeding of the diseased. Racial prejudice is an intuitive rule-of-thumb in action. Gigerenzer surely recognizes this, too. He points out that reason works better than intution in hindsight. But today's hindsight can be tomorrow's foresight, and I wish that point had been more emphasized.
December 1, 2012
O autor explica muito bem como o pensamento simples e intuitivo pode ser usado para resolver os mais diversos problemas e situações, inclusive prever quais serão as melhores alternativas. A intuição é tão precisa quanto opiniões de especialistas em economia, medicina e direito. Os argumentos são fundados em estudos científicos que muitas vezes provam o senso comum. Acho que a maior crítica que fazem ao pensamento intuitivo, e que Gigerenzer rebate sempre no livro, é que uma análise profunda e racional deve ser levada em conta, mas a proposta do livro não é acabar com ele, mas identificar situações em que a simplificação pode gerar melhores resultados em menor tempo. Ótimo livro para quem gosta de pensar e ser contestado.
January 23, 2009
This is an intriguing work on human decision making. The argument is that evolution has given us an adaptive toolkit of decision making tools. Based on experience over eons, shortcuts for making decisions came about. And, accroding to the author, studies suggest that these can be more effective than statistical analysis. For instan ce, "Take the Best." In maing decisions, you simply accept the first choice that looks like it will work. That's it!
Well written and relatively short. Quite useful indeed.
Well written and relatively short. Quite useful indeed.
March 24, 2019
I think the author under-emphasized the importance of education, experience and knowledge in developing the "informed gut".
November 27, 2022
Only b/c this influenced "Blink". It's very scattered, kinda all over the place, quotes & tangents around a familiar concourse of names, and a load of (real & unreal) case examples & scenarios, all to prove that intuition is optimal, if not best. Easy to flit through when one is able to leap over the many fence-like instances of statistics. Gigerenzer liberally breaks just about everything down into probabilities, asking way too often, for instance, "Which city has the highest population, X or Z?" (like who cares?! how does this prove or reveal anything?) His aim is to show, in a myriad spheres of life, how people have been led astray by relying on complex thinking, measured analyses, expert opinion, tests, and so forth. It's a bit exhausting after a while because he just keeps throwing one example after another, all with the same trumpet blare: 'Go with thy gut!'
Gladwell remixed & riffed off this whole book, clearly, whether intentionally or not (idk). And he did it so well that one has to give this book, "Gut Feelings", its due props. It's quite a powerful and empowering message to say to oneself 'You're overthinking it.' That feeling of something happening effortlessly & perfectly because of falling back on oneself, trusting oneself, relaxing and allowing oneself to be guided by an innate intelligence. It's all very liberating. This book isn't much for recommendation in light of Malcom Gladwell's "Blink". The examples that Gladwell uses are more interesting & of wider appeal (of the few sports that Gigerenzer references, they are, drum roll please, golf and handball). There were some distasteful thought experiments too, in "Gut Feelings," like with the shooting down a plane of innocents in order to stop a potential terrorist plot, or with the indecent proposal, or with the German troops. They were to the point, for sure, but they weren't really necessary, in fact, this book needed but a handful of examples to be pulled off well, but instead it's chock-full of this & that. A big blur. 2.5 stars.
Gladwell remixed & riffed off this whole book, clearly, whether intentionally or not (idk). And he did it so well that one has to give this book, "Gut Feelings", its due props. It's quite a powerful and empowering message to say to oneself 'You're overthinking it.' That feeling of something happening effortlessly & perfectly because of falling back on oneself, trusting oneself, relaxing and allowing oneself to be guided by an innate intelligence. It's all very liberating. This book isn't much for recommendation in light of Malcom Gladwell's "Blink". The examples that Gladwell uses are more interesting & of wider appeal (of the few sports that Gigerenzer references, they are, drum roll please, golf and handball). There were some distasteful thought experiments too, in "Gut Feelings," like with the shooting down a plane of innocents in order to stop a potential terrorist plot, or with the indecent proposal, or with the German troops. They were to the point, for sure, but they weren't really necessary, in fact, this book needed but a handful of examples to be pulled off well, but instead it's chock-full of this & that. A big blur. 2.5 stars.
January 16, 2022
Overshadowed by Malcom Gladwell's Blink, this director on the Max Planck Institute for Human development looks at human intuition and how and why this intuition is not always irrational (as much of the research lead by Tversky and Kahneman suggest). In fact, the minds ability to make gut responses via simple heuristics are still better than all the computers you can throw at a problem when it comes to prediction of complex systems.
Perhaps the most interesting section is how the complexity of language can lead to multiple interpretations or additional implied information regarding a particular statement, which is at odds with mathematical interpretations of language. So much of the research conducted that claim that humans are irrational have flawed conclusions, he claims. Gigerenzer uses the oft-cited Linda problem (is Linda more likely a bank teller, or a bank teller who is involved in the feminist movement) to show how humans can extract much more complex understanding from a statement than a computer or mathematical algorithm can. He also provides research to show how humans do not view "the glass is half empty" and "the glass is half full" as the same thing. While the author doesn't venture this far, this section of the book made me wonder how much of studies in the social sciences have flawed conclusions because the complexity of language was not accounted for.
Overall a good contrarian perspective on modern research on human judgement and decision making.
Perhaps the most interesting section is how the complexity of language can lead to multiple interpretations or additional implied information regarding a particular statement, which is at odds with mathematical interpretations of language. So much of the research conducted that claim that humans are irrational have flawed conclusions, he claims. Gigerenzer uses the oft-cited Linda problem (is Linda more likely a bank teller, or a bank teller who is involved in the feminist movement) to show how humans can extract much more complex understanding from a statement than a computer or mathematical algorithm can. He also provides research to show how humans do not view "the glass is half empty" and "the glass is half full" as the same thing. While the author doesn't venture this far, this section of the book made me wonder how much of studies in the social sciences have flawed conclusions because the complexity of language was not accounted for.
Overall a good contrarian perspective on modern research on human judgement and decision making.
August 15, 2018
Lots of interesting research about how our gut instinct is often as good predicting right answers or even better than some educated guesses. However one might read Haidt’s work on moral reasoning or Kinneman on decision making to get the same information. This book just isn’t as well formed or readable as the ones above. It has patches that are great, but lots that’s just hard. Still, lovely to be reassured that just because something isn’t double blind study verified doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Read
December 2, 2019Thesis’
How the mind adapts and economizes by relying on the unconscious, on rules of thumb, and on evolved capacities is what Gut Feelings is about. The laws in the real world are puzzlingly different from those in the logical, idealized world. More information, even more thinking, is not always better, and less can be more
The lesson is to trust your intuition when thinking about things that are difficult to predict and when there is little information.
Intuition has its own rationale consisting on simple rules of thumb which take advantage of evolved capacities of the brain
gut feelings themselves have a rationale based on reasons. The difference between intuition and moral deliberation is that the reasons underlying moral intuitions are typically unconscious. Thus, the relevant distinction is not between feelings and reasons, but between feelings based on unconscious reasons and deliberate reasoning.
When given insufficient information, the brain makes things up based on assumptions about the world.
Unconscious inferences weave together data from the senses using prior knowledge about the world.
Example What is Charlie looking at
to understand behaviour, one has to look at both the mind and its environment.
A simple rule is less prone to estimation or calculation error and is intuitively transparent.
DEA hunches (after-the-fact justification ignores that good expert judgment is generally of an intuitive nature)
It would be erroneous to assume that intelligence is necessarily conscious and deliberate.
When to Trust Your Guts
Satisficers were reported to be more optimistic and have higher self-esteem and life satisfaction, whereas maximizers excelled in depression, perfectionism, regret, and self-blame.
Invest in what you know
When we’re an expert (Golf swings)
Dissin’
Franklin/Maximising expected utility/multiple regression
This logical view assumes that minds function like calculating machines and ignores our evolved capacities, including cognitive abilities and social instincts.
Big Memory
forgetting prevents the sheer mass of life’s detail from critically slowing down the retrieval of relevant experience and so impairing the mind’s ability to abstract, infer, and learn.
Stockbrokers
Less is more
Big Menus/Samples
The Linda Problem
intuitive understanding violates the conjunction rule, but this is not an error of judgment. Rather it is an indication that natural language is more sophisticated than logic.
Framing
This experiment (glass half full) reveals that the framing of a request helps people extract surplus information concerning the dynamics or history of the situation and helps them to guess what it means. Once again, intuition is richer than logic. Of course, one can mislead people by framing a choice accordingly. But that possibility does not mean that attending to framing is irrational. Any communication tool, from language to percentages, can be exploited.
Definitions
A gut feeling/intuition/hunch refer to a judgement
That appears quickly in consciousness
Whose underlying reasons we are not fully aware of
Is strong enough to act upon
A rule of thumb is quite different from a balance sheet with pros and cons; it tries to hit at the most important information and ignores the rest.
The term Gut Feelings
PART 1 Unconscious Intelligence
Thesis
How the mind adapts and economizes by relying on the unconscious, on rules of thumb, and on evolved capacities is what Gut Feelings is about. The laws in the real world are puzzlingly different from those in the logical, idealized world. More information, even more thinking, is not always better, and less can be more
Thesis
The lesson is to trust your intuition when thinking about things that are difficult to predict and when there is little information.
Thesis
Intuition has its own rationale consisting on simple rules of thumb which take advantage of evolved capacities of the brain
Thesis
gut feelings themselves have a rationale based on reasons. The difference between intuition and moral deliberation is that the reasons underlying moral intuitions are typically unconscious. Thus, the relevant distinction is not between feelings and reasons, but between feelings based on unconscious reasons and deliberate reasoning.
Thesis
When given insufficient information, the brain makes things up based on assumptions about the world.
Unconscious inferences weave together data from the senses using prior knowledge about the world.
Example What is Charlie looking at
Thesis
to understand behavior, one has to look at both the mind and its environment.
Premise
A simple rule is less prone to estimation or calculation error and is intuitively transparent.
DEA hunches (after-the-fact justification ignores that good expert judgment is generally of an intuitive nature)
Premise
It would be erroneous to assume that intelligence is necessarily conscious and deliberate.
When to trust our Guts
Satisficers were reported to be more optimistic and have higher self-esteem and life satisfaction, whereas maximizers excelled in depression, perfectionism, regret, and self-blame.
Invest in what you know
When we’re an expert (Golf swings)
Dissin’
Franklin/Maximising expected utility/multiple regression
This logical view assumes that minds function like calculating machines and ignores our evolved capacities, including cognitive abilities and social instincts.
Big Memory
forgetting prevents the sheer mass of life’s detail from critically slowing down the retrieval of relevant experience and so impairing the mind’s ability to abstract, infer, and learn.
Stockbrokers
Less is more
Big Menus/Samples
The Linda Problem
intuitive understanding violates the conjunction rule, but this is not an error of judgment. Rather it is an indication that natural language is more sophisticated than logic.
Framing
This experiment (glass half full) reveals that the framing of a request helps people extract surplus information concerning the dynamics or history of the situation and helps them to guess what it means. Once again, intuition is richer than logic. Of course, one can mislead people by framing a choice accordingly. But that possibility does not mean that attending to framing is irrational. Any communication tool, from language to percentages, can be exploited.
Definitions
A gut feeling/intuition/hunch refer to a judgement
That appears quickly in consciousness
Whose underlying reasons we are not fully aware of
Is strong enough to act upon
A rule of thumb is quite different from a balance sheet with pros and cons; it tries to hit at the most important information and ignores the rest.
Evolved does not refer to a skill made by nature or nurture alone. Rather, nature gives humans a capability, and extended practice turns it into a capacity.
recognition heuristic: If you recognize the name of one city but not that of the other, then infer that the recognized city has the larger population. Stock Picking. Advertisers love dis blind testing reveals the power.
fundamental attribution error
The tendency to explain behaviour internally without analysing the environment
tit for tat: Be kind first, keep a memory of size one, and imitate your partner’s last behavior.
Novelty Aversion
Tugot overcame it by making potato farming restricted
The string heuristic
Voters tend to reduce the complexity of the political landscape to one dimension: Left-Right. Parties are mentally arranged like pearls on a string.
One Reason Decision Making
Take the best
Peacocks (female choice, Zahavi handicap principle)
Choosing a partner cause others want too
Beat Bayes’s rule!
Sequential decisions
Search rule: Look up reasons in the order of importance. Stopping rule: Stop search as soon as the alternatives for one reason differ. Decision rule: Choose the alternative that this reason suggests
Conservatism
- means that only the old information is taken into consideration and the new information, the halftime result, is ignored. If, as in the second example, intuition is instead based on the halftime score only, this “sin” has been labeled the base-rate fallacy
Reason for the default rule could be that the existing default is seen as a reasonable recommendation—primarily because it has been implemented in the first place—and following it relieves a person from many decisions.
Ordinary Men, Organ Donation
Geeking out
The more complex strategy is better than the simple one in hindsight, but not in predictions. In general: Intuitions based on only one good reason tend to be accurate when one has to predict the future (or some unknown present state of affairs), when the future is difficult to foresee, and when one has only limited information. They are also more efficient in using time and information. Complex analysis, by contrast, pays when one has to explain the past, when the future is highly predictable, or when there are large amounts of information.
My point is that important decisions—whom to marry, which job to accept, what to do with the rest of your life—are not only a matter of our imagined pros and cons. Something else weighs in the decision process, something literally quite heavy: our evolved brain. It supplies us with capacities that have developed over millennia but are largely ignored by standard texts on decision making. It also supplies us with human culture, which evolves much faster than genes. These evolved capacities are indispensable for many important decisions and can prevent us from making crude errors in important affairs. They include the ability to trust, to imitate, and to experience emotions such as love does not refer to a skill made by nature or nurture alone. Rather, nature gives humans a capability, and extended practice turns it into a capacity.
How the mind adapts and economizes by relying on the unconscious, on rules of thumb, and on evolved capacities is what Gut Feelings is about. The laws in the real world are puzzlingly different from those in the logical, idealized world. More information, even more thinking, is not always better, and less can be more
The lesson is to trust your intuition when thinking about things that are difficult to predict and when there is little information.
Intuition has its own rationale consisting on simple rules of thumb which take advantage of evolved capacities of the brain
gut feelings themselves have a rationale based on reasons. The difference between intuition and moral deliberation is that the reasons underlying moral intuitions are typically unconscious. Thus, the relevant distinction is not between feelings and reasons, but between feelings based on unconscious reasons and deliberate reasoning.
When given insufficient information, the brain makes things up based on assumptions about the world.
Unconscious inferences weave together data from the senses using prior knowledge about the world.
Example What is Charlie looking at
to understand behaviour, one has to look at both the mind and its environment.
A simple rule is less prone to estimation or calculation error and is intuitively transparent.
DEA hunches (after-the-fact justification ignores that good expert judgment is generally of an intuitive nature)
It would be erroneous to assume that intelligence is necessarily conscious and deliberate.
When to Trust Your Guts
Satisficers were reported to be more optimistic and have higher self-esteem and life satisfaction, whereas maximizers excelled in depression, perfectionism, regret, and self-blame.
Invest in what you know
When we’re an expert (Golf swings)
Dissin’
Franklin/Maximising expected utility/multiple regression
This logical view assumes that minds function like calculating machines and ignores our evolved capacities, including cognitive abilities and social instincts.
Big Memory
forgetting prevents the sheer mass of life’s detail from critically slowing down the retrieval of relevant experience and so impairing the mind’s ability to abstract, infer, and learn.
Stockbrokers
Less is more
Big Menus/Samples
The Linda Problem
intuitive understanding violates the conjunction rule, but this is not an error of judgment. Rather it is an indication that natural language is more sophisticated than logic.
Framing
This experiment (glass half full) reveals that the framing of a request helps people extract surplus information concerning the dynamics or history of the situation and helps them to guess what it means. Once again, intuition is richer than logic. Of course, one can mislead people by framing a choice accordingly. But that possibility does not mean that attending to framing is irrational. Any communication tool, from language to percentages, can be exploited.
Definitions
A gut feeling/intuition/hunch refer to a judgement
That appears quickly in consciousness
Whose underlying reasons we are not fully aware of
Is strong enough to act upon
A rule of thumb is quite different from a balance sheet with pros and cons; it tries to hit at the most important information and ignores the rest.
The term Gut Feelings
PART 1 Unconscious Intelligence
Thesis
How the mind adapts and economizes by relying on the unconscious, on rules of thumb, and on evolved capacities is what Gut Feelings is about. The laws in the real world are puzzlingly different from those in the logical, idealized world. More information, even more thinking, is not always better, and less can be more
Thesis
The lesson is to trust your intuition when thinking about things that are difficult to predict and when there is little information.
Thesis
Intuition has its own rationale consisting on simple rules of thumb which take advantage of evolved capacities of the brain
Thesis
gut feelings themselves have a rationale based on reasons. The difference between intuition and moral deliberation is that the reasons underlying moral intuitions are typically unconscious. Thus, the relevant distinction is not between feelings and reasons, but between feelings based on unconscious reasons and deliberate reasoning.
Thesis
When given insufficient information, the brain makes things up based on assumptions about the world.
Unconscious inferences weave together data from the senses using prior knowledge about the world.
Example What is Charlie looking at
Thesis
to understand behavior, one has to look at both the mind and its environment.
Premise
A simple rule is less prone to estimation or calculation error and is intuitively transparent.
DEA hunches (after-the-fact justification ignores that good expert judgment is generally of an intuitive nature)
Premise
It would be erroneous to assume that intelligence is necessarily conscious and deliberate.
When to trust our Guts
Satisficers were reported to be more optimistic and have higher self-esteem and life satisfaction, whereas maximizers excelled in depression, perfectionism, regret, and self-blame.
Invest in what you know
When we’re an expert (Golf swings)
Dissin’
Franklin/Maximising expected utility/multiple regression
This logical view assumes that minds function like calculating machines and ignores our evolved capacities, including cognitive abilities and social instincts.
Big Memory
forgetting prevents the sheer mass of life’s detail from critically slowing down the retrieval of relevant experience and so impairing the mind’s ability to abstract, infer, and learn.
Stockbrokers
Less is more
Big Menus/Samples
The Linda Problem
intuitive understanding violates the conjunction rule, but this is not an error of judgment. Rather it is an indication that natural language is more sophisticated than logic.
Framing
This experiment (glass half full) reveals that the framing of a request helps people extract surplus information concerning the dynamics or history of the situation and helps them to guess what it means. Once again, intuition is richer than logic. Of course, one can mislead people by framing a choice accordingly. But that possibility does not mean that attending to framing is irrational. Any communication tool, from language to percentages, can be exploited.
Definitions
A gut feeling/intuition/hunch refer to a judgement
That appears quickly in consciousness
Whose underlying reasons we are not fully aware of
Is strong enough to act upon
A rule of thumb is quite different from a balance sheet with pros and cons; it tries to hit at the most important information and ignores the rest.
Evolved does not refer to a skill made by nature or nurture alone. Rather, nature gives humans a capability, and extended practice turns it into a capacity.
recognition heuristic: If you recognize the name of one city but not that of the other, then infer that the recognized city has the larger population. Stock Picking. Advertisers love dis blind testing reveals the power.
fundamental attribution error
The tendency to explain behaviour internally without analysing the environment
tit for tat: Be kind first, keep a memory of size one, and imitate your partner’s last behavior.
Novelty Aversion
Tugot overcame it by making potato farming restricted
The string heuristic
Voters tend to reduce the complexity of the political landscape to one dimension: Left-Right. Parties are mentally arranged like pearls on a string.
One Reason Decision Making
Take the best
Peacocks (female choice, Zahavi handicap principle)
Choosing a partner cause others want too
Beat Bayes’s rule!
Sequential decisions
Search rule: Look up reasons in the order of importance. Stopping rule: Stop search as soon as the alternatives for one reason differ. Decision rule: Choose the alternative that this reason suggests
Conservatism
- means that only the old information is taken into consideration and the new information, the halftime result, is ignored. If, as in the second example, intuition is instead based on the halftime score only, this “sin” has been labeled the base-rate fallacy
Reason for the default rule could be that the existing default is seen as a reasonable recommendation—primarily because it has been implemented in the first place—and following it relieves a person from many decisions.
Ordinary Men, Organ Donation
Geeking out
The more complex strategy is better than the simple one in hindsight, but not in predictions. In general: Intuitions based on only one good reason tend to be accurate when one has to predict the future (or some unknown present state of affairs), when the future is difficult to foresee, and when one has only limited information. They are also more efficient in using time and information. Complex analysis, by contrast, pays when one has to explain the past, when the future is highly predictable, or when there are large amounts of information.
My point is that important decisions—whom to marry, which job to accept, what to do with the rest of your life—are not only a matter of our imagined pros and cons. Something else weighs in the decision process, something literally quite heavy: our evolved brain. It supplies us with capacities that have developed over millennia but are largely ignored by standard texts on decision making. It also supplies us with human culture, which evolves much faster than genes. These evolved capacities are indispensable for many important decisions and can prevent us from making crude errors in important affairs. They include the ability to trust, to imitate, and to experience emotions such as love does not refer to a skill made by nature or nurture alone. Rather, nature gives humans a capability, and extended practice turns it into a capacity.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 10, 2022
Good insight poorly expressed.
While Gigerenzer is definitely onto something in the early chapters, he gets carried away as the book goes on. He pushes the envelope of his theory into a defense of his personal and political beliefs.
Disappointing. Three Stars. ***
While Gigerenzer is definitely onto something in the early chapters, he gets carried away as the book goes on. He pushes the envelope of his theory into a defense of his personal and political beliefs.
Disappointing. Three Stars. ***
January 1, 2024
Me gustó porque me hizo cambiar mi visión sobre la toma de decisiones. Contrario a la idea que se tiene de que mientras más información tengamos mejor será la decisión, a través de estudios que ha realizado el autor demostró que muchas veces la intuición y las rules of thumb pueden ser mucho más acertadas que un análisis exhaustivo o incluso computarizado. Relata cómo esta tendencia se ve una y otra vez en áreas donde hay mucha incertidumbre como el stock market y apuestas deportivas. También habla de cómo esta idea ha afectado el sistema de salud, sobre todo en Estados Unidos.
July 18, 2023
Read it after “thinking fast and slow”
December 16, 2019
The quality of intuition lies in the intelligence of the unconscious; the ability to know without thinking which rule to rely on in which situation.
Many people would rather avoid making a decision, even if it means life or death. Penn. & NJ offer drivers choice- insurance policy with unrestricted right to sue & a cheaper one with suit reservations. The unrestricted is default in Penn, whereas the restricted one is default in NJ. 79% bought full coverage, whereas only 30% of the NJ drivers did. Penn. drivers spend $450 million on coverage they would not have spent were the same in NJ, & vice versa. Default set impacts moral & econ behavior.
If a woman is a lawyer, or the wife of a lawyer, does she get better treatment? Lawyers seem to be regarded by doctors as especially litigious patients who should be treated with caution when it comes to risky procedures such a surgery. The rate of hysterectomy in the general population in Switzerland was 16%, whereas among lawyers' wives it was only 8%-among female doctors it was 10%.
Continuing education is indispensable in the rapidly changing world of medicine. Yet most physicians have neither time to read even a few of the 1000's of articles published every month in medical journals nor the methodological skills to evaluate the claims in these articles. Rather, continuing education mostly happens in seminars sponsored by the pharm industry, usually at a nice vacation spot, with spouses' & other expenses included. Pharma conveniently provides summaries of scientific studies of their featured products. As a recent investigation revealed, there are not neutral studies. The assertions in 175 different leaflets distributed to German physicians could be verified in only 8% of the cases. In the remaining 92% of cases, statements in the original study were falsely reported, severe side effects of meds were not revealed, the period during which meds could safely be taken was exaggerated, or-should docs have wanted to check the original studies-the cited source was not provided or was impossible to find.
Many physicians have only a tenuous connection with the latest medical research.
For patients & docs alike, geography is destiny. The surgeons in one medical region in Vermont removed the tonsils of 8% of the children living there, while those in another community removed the tonsils of 70% of the children. In one region in Iowa, 15% of all men had undergone prostate surgery by age 85; in another region, it was 60%. One region in Maine, 20% of the women had a hysterectomy by the age of 70; in another region, over 70% underwent this operation.
Name recognition was more influential than taste perception. Taste & price mattered little compared with the influence of the recognition heuristic.
Firms spend huge sums of $ to directly increase the recognition of their brand name in the media. The competition for space in consumers' recognition memory can impede or conflict with any interest in improving the product itself. In this case, the correlation between quality & media might be nil.
Many beer drinkers have a favorite personal brand & claim that it tastes better than others. They swear it has more aroma, more body, is less bitter, & has the right carbonation. Yet blind taste test have repeatedly shown that consumers were unable to detect their own preferred brand.
Similarly, politicians advertising their names & faces rather than their programs, & colleges, wannabe celebrities, & even small nations operate on the same principle that if we do not recognize them, we will not favor them. Taken to the extreme, being recognized becomes the goal in itself.
Each year, the "prediction industry"-the World Bank, stock brokerage firms, technology consultants, & business consulting firms, among others-earns some $200 billion as fortune tellers, despite its generally poor track record. To predict the future is a challenge for laypeople, experts, & politicians alike. As Winston Churchill once complained, the future is one damn thing after another.
Humans have an extraordinarily large capacity for recognizing faces, voices, & pictures. In a remarkable experiment, participants were shown 10,000 pictures for 5 seconds each. 2 days later, they correctly identified 8,300 of them. No computer program to date can preform face recognition as well as a human child can. Why is this? Humans are among few species whose unrelated members exchange favors, such as trading goods, engaging in social contracts, or forming organizations. If we were not able ro recognize faces, voices, or names, we would not be able to tell whom we'd encountered previously, & as a consequence, not recall who treated us fairly & who cheated. Hence, social contracts of reciprocity-"I share my food with you today, & you return the favor tomorrow"-could not be enforced.
Lack of recognition can be exploited in the natural world as well. European cuckoos take advantage of other birds' inability to recognize their own eggs & offspring & lay their eggs in others' nest. The host birds seem to have wired into their brains the rule of thumb "feed any small bird sitting in your nest."
One good reason is enough: one-reason decision making. What did Mcdonald's do when Burger King & Wendy's began to rival its top-ranked name recognition? It launched a campaign that provided the 1 reason to choose MCD: "It's an easy way to feel like a good parent." As the internal memo explained the underlying psychology, parents want their kids to love them, & taking the children to MCD seems to accomplish this, making them fell like good parents. Wouldn't a few more reasons make a more convincing case? There is a proverb that a man with too many good excuses shouldn't be trusted.
The adaptive toolbox consist of evolved capacities, including capacities to learn, that form the basis for building blocks that can construct efficient rules of thumb. Evolved capacities are the metal from which the tools are made. A gut feeling is like a drill, a simple instrument whose force lies in the quality of its material.
-even the fastest computer cannot determine the optimal strategy for chess, that is, the strategy that always wins, or at least never loses. Deep blue can foresee as many as 14 turns of play but has to use a quick rule of thumb in order to evaluate the quality of billions of possible positions generated. Kasparov, by contrast, thinks only 4 or 5 moves ahead. Deep Blue's capacities include brute force combinatorial power, whereas those of grand master include spatial pattern recognition. Because these capacities are fundamentally different, understanding computer "thought processes" does not necessarily help understand human ones.
Psychologist tested the intuitive powers of more than 15,000 men & women in distinguishing a real smile from a false one. They were shown 10 pairs of photos of smiling faces, 1 a genuine smile, the other a fake. Before studying the faces, the participants were asked to rate their intuitive abilities. 77% of the women said they were highly intuitive, compared to only 58% of the men. Yet women's intuitive judgements were not better than men's; they identified the real smile correctly 71% of cases, where as men did so 72%. Interestingly, men could better judge women's genuine smiles than those of other men, whereas women were less adept at judging the sincerity of the opposite sex.
According to selective hypothesis, men tend to base their judgements on only reason, good or bad, whereas women are sensitive to multiple reasons. Researchers on consumer studies concluded when targeting men, advertisers should associate the product with a single compelling message & feature it at the beginning of the ad. In contrast, when targeting women the ads should make use of ample cues that evoke positive associations & images. An auto ad shows a Saab intently pursuing a straight path at a junction where large white arrows painted on the road point right & left. The headline reads: "Does popular acceptance require abandoning the very principles that got you where you are?" Never compromise is the single reason presented by Saab. On the other hand, an ad by Clairol that introduced a new line of 7 shampoos provided rich visual images meant to appeal to the females powers of associative processing & subtle discrimination's. Within the single ad. 1 shampoo is placed on a Hawaiian beach replete with luscious coconuts, another in a landscape of Egyptian pyramids near a desert oasis, & so on, for each of the 7 products.
Gut feelings are what we experience.
Rules of thumb are responsible for producing gut feelings-the mind reading heuristic tells us what others desire, the recognition heuristic produces a feeling of which product to trust, & the gaze heuristic produces a feeling an intuition of where to run.
Evolved capacities are the construction material for rules of thumb-gaze heuristic the ability to track objects.
The tendency to explain behavior internally without analyzing the environment is known as "fundamental attribution error."
We know more than we can tell. -Michael Polanyi
Many people would rather avoid making a decision, even if it means life or death. Penn. & NJ offer drivers choice- insurance policy with unrestricted right to sue & a cheaper one with suit reservations. The unrestricted is default in Penn, whereas the restricted one is default in NJ. 79% bought full coverage, whereas only 30% of the NJ drivers did. Penn. drivers spend $450 million on coverage they would not have spent were the same in NJ, & vice versa. Default set impacts moral & econ behavior.
If a woman is a lawyer, or the wife of a lawyer, does she get better treatment? Lawyers seem to be regarded by doctors as especially litigious patients who should be treated with caution when it comes to risky procedures such a surgery. The rate of hysterectomy in the general population in Switzerland was 16%, whereas among lawyers' wives it was only 8%-among female doctors it was 10%.
Continuing education is indispensable in the rapidly changing world of medicine. Yet most physicians have neither time to read even a few of the 1000's of articles published every month in medical journals nor the methodological skills to evaluate the claims in these articles. Rather, continuing education mostly happens in seminars sponsored by the pharm industry, usually at a nice vacation spot, with spouses' & other expenses included. Pharma conveniently provides summaries of scientific studies of their featured products. As a recent investigation revealed, there are not neutral studies. The assertions in 175 different leaflets distributed to German physicians could be verified in only 8% of the cases. In the remaining 92% of cases, statements in the original study were falsely reported, severe side effects of meds were not revealed, the period during which meds could safely be taken was exaggerated, or-should docs have wanted to check the original studies-the cited source was not provided or was impossible to find.
Many physicians have only a tenuous connection with the latest medical research.
For patients & docs alike, geography is destiny. The surgeons in one medical region in Vermont removed the tonsils of 8% of the children living there, while those in another community removed the tonsils of 70% of the children. In one region in Iowa, 15% of all men had undergone prostate surgery by age 85; in another region, it was 60%. One region in Maine, 20% of the women had a hysterectomy by the age of 70; in another region, over 70% underwent this operation.
Name recognition was more influential than taste perception. Taste & price mattered little compared with the influence of the recognition heuristic.
Firms spend huge sums of $ to directly increase the recognition of their brand name in the media. The competition for space in consumers' recognition memory can impede or conflict with any interest in improving the product itself. In this case, the correlation between quality & media might be nil.
Many beer drinkers have a favorite personal brand & claim that it tastes better than others. They swear it has more aroma, more body, is less bitter, & has the right carbonation. Yet blind taste test have repeatedly shown that consumers were unable to detect their own preferred brand.
Similarly, politicians advertising their names & faces rather than their programs, & colleges, wannabe celebrities, & even small nations operate on the same principle that if we do not recognize them, we will not favor them. Taken to the extreme, being recognized becomes the goal in itself.
Each year, the "prediction industry"-the World Bank, stock brokerage firms, technology consultants, & business consulting firms, among others-earns some $200 billion as fortune tellers, despite its generally poor track record. To predict the future is a challenge for laypeople, experts, & politicians alike. As Winston Churchill once complained, the future is one damn thing after another.
Humans have an extraordinarily large capacity for recognizing faces, voices, & pictures. In a remarkable experiment, participants were shown 10,000 pictures for 5 seconds each. 2 days later, they correctly identified 8,300 of them. No computer program to date can preform face recognition as well as a human child can. Why is this? Humans are among few species whose unrelated members exchange favors, such as trading goods, engaging in social contracts, or forming organizations. If we were not able ro recognize faces, voices, or names, we would not be able to tell whom we'd encountered previously, & as a consequence, not recall who treated us fairly & who cheated. Hence, social contracts of reciprocity-"I share my food with you today, & you return the favor tomorrow"-could not be enforced.
Lack of recognition can be exploited in the natural world as well. European cuckoos take advantage of other birds' inability to recognize their own eggs & offspring & lay their eggs in others' nest. The host birds seem to have wired into their brains the rule of thumb "feed any small bird sitting in your nest."
One good reason is enough: one-reason decision making. What did Mcdonald's do when Burger King & Wendy's began to rival its top-ranked name recognition? It launched a campaign that provided the 1 reason to choose MCD: "It's an easy way to feel like a good parent." As the internal memo explained the underlying psychology, parents want their kids to love them, & taking the children to MCD seems to accomplish this, making them fell like good parents. Wouldn't a few more reasons make a more convincing case? There is a proverb that a man with too many good excuses shouldn't be trusted.
The adaptive toolbox consist of evolved capacities, including capacities to learn, that form the basis for building blocks that can construct efficient rules of thumb. Evolved capacities are the metal from which the tools are made. A gut feeling is like a drill, a simple instrument whose force lies in the quality of its material.
-even the fastest computer cannot determine the optimal strategy for chess, that is, the strategy that always wins, or at least never loses. Deep blue can foresee as many as 14 turns of play but has to use a quick rule of thumb in order to evaluate the quality of billions of possible positions generated. Kasparov, by contrast, thinks only 4 or 5 moves ahead. Deep Blue's capacities include brute force combinatorial power, whereas those of grand master include spatial pattern recognition. Because these capacities are fundamentally different, understanding computer "thought processes" does not necessarily help understand human ones.
Psychologist tested the intuitive powers of more than 15,000 men & women in distinguishing a real smile from a false one. They were shown 10 pairs of photos of smiling faces, 1 a genuine smile, the other a fake. Before studying the faces, the participants were asked to rate their intuitive abilities. 77% of the women said they were highly intuitive, compared to only 58% of the men. Yet women's intuitive judgements were not better than men's; they identified the real smile correctly 71% of cases, where as men did so 72%. Interestingly, men could better judge women's genuine smiles than those of other men, whereas women were less adept at judging the sincerity of the opposite sex.
According to selective hypothesis, men tend to base their judgements on only reason, good or bad, whereas women are sensitive to multiple reasons. Researchers on consumer studies concluded when targeting men, advertisers should associate the product with a single compelling message & feature it at the beginning of the ad. In contrast, when targeting women the ads should make use of ample cues that evoke positive associations & images. An auto ad shows a Saab intently pursuing a straight path at a junction where large white arrows painted on the road point right & left. The headline reads: "Does popular acceptance require abandoning the very principles that got you where you are?" Never compromise is the single reason presented by Saab. On the other hand, an ad by Clairol that introduced a new line of 7 shampoos provided rich visual images meant to appeal to the females powers of associative processing & subtle discrimination's. Within the single ad. 1 shampoo is placed on a Hawaiian beach replete with luscious coconuts, another in a landscape of Egyptian pyramids near a desert oasis, & so on, for each of the 7 products.
Gut feelings are what we experience.
Rules of thumb are responsible for producing gut feelings-the mind reading heuristic tells us what others desire, the recognition heuristic produces a feeling of which product to trust, & the gaze heuristic produces a feeling an intuition of where to run.
Evolved capacities are the construction material for rules of thumb-gaze heuristic the ability to track objects.
The tendency to explain behavior internally without analyzing the environment is known as "fundamental attribution error."
We know more than we can tell. -Michael Polanyi
June 13, 2012
With reservations, recommended.
Overall, Gut Feelings is a fascinating discussion of human social behavior by a well respected expert. Although Gigerenzer's unifying theme / central idea remains unproven, nevertheless his insights about social behavior, including interesting anecdotes and descriptions of research findings, is worthwhile and useful. It's amusing and ironic to notice that his all-or-nothing heuristic conclusion apparently does not follow the presented evidence and arguments.
Gigerenzer's explanations of social decision heuristics -- what we do versus what we think we are doing -- are compelling and thought-provoking. On the other hand, it seems that his central proposition -- a judgment that partially informed, sub-conscious decision-making is *always* superior to reasoned argument -- does not follow and seems ill advised. Heuristic decision making driven by social / emotional factors may be more common, and in certain cases may even be more accurate; however, Gigerenzer has not provided evidence for his central claim that less information is *always* better. Could that claim have been editorial hyperbole? After all, the text generally exercises more caution than the opening statements and backs off a bit from that initial claim.
It may be a minor point but is noticeable that some of the logical arguments are a little bit flawed. For example, Gigerenzer's discussion of the recognition heuristic claims that familiarity with the name Chernobyl, and not reasoning, permits most people to estimate accurately the relative size of the city: "its nuclear power accident ... has nothing to do with its size." It can be argued, however, that the public can rely upon reasoning: there was wide publicity that Chernobyl was generally evacuated in response to the accident, therefore, the city population must be relatively small. It's difficult to understand why Gigerenzer would claim that the accident and population size are unrelated. Non-experts like me may wonder what other weaknesses may exist, and whether these affect Gigerenzer's claims.
Although with various reservations and questions, I would recommend _Gut Feelings_ for its many novel ideas.
Next on my list: David G. Myers' Intuition: Its Powers and Perils.
Overall, Gut Feelings is a fascinating discussion of human social behavior by a well respected expert. Although Gigerenzer's unifying theme / central idea remains unproven, nevertheless his insights about social behavior, including interesting anecdotes and descriptions of research findings, is worthwhile and useful. It's amusing and ironic to notice that his all-or-nothing heuristic conclusion apparently does not follow the presented evidence and arguments.
Gigerenzer's explanations of social decision heuristics -- what we do versus what we think we are doing -- are compelling and thought-provoking. On the other hand, it seems that his central proposition -- a judgment that partially informed, sub-conscious decision-making is *always* superior to reasoned argument -- does not follow and seems ill advised. Heuristic decision making driven by social / emotional factors may be more common, and in certain cases may even be more accurate; however, Gigerenzer has not provided evidence for his central claim that less information is *always* better. Could that claim have been editorial hyperbole? After all, the text generally exercises more caution than the opening statements and backs off a bit from that initial claim.
It may be a minor point but is noticeable that some of the logical arguments are a little bit flawed. For example, Gigerenzer's discussion of the recognition heuristic claims that familiarity with the name Chernobyl, and not reasoning, permits most people to estimate accurately the relative size of the city: "its nuclear power accident ... has nothing to do with its size." It can be argued, however, that the public can rely upon reasoning: there was wide publicity that Chernobyl was generally evacuated in response to the accident, therefore, the city population must be relatively small. It's difficult to understand why Gigerenzer would claim that the accident and population size are unrelated. Non-experts like me may wonder what other weaknesses may exist, and whether these affect Gigerenzer's claims.
Although with various reservations and questions, I would recommend _Gut Feelings_ for its many novel ideas.
Next on my list: David G. Myers' Intuition: Its Powers and Perils.
December 30, 2011
Chapters of particular interest:
- Chapter 7 on the recognition heuristic. Merely by recognizing the name of a foreign city or a consumer brand, we have some information about it: the city must have a lot of inhabitants; the brand must be fairly reliable. (I wonder how this might be applied to the recognition of moral "rules of thumb" discussed in subsequent chapters.)
- Chapter 10 on moral intuitions. He says we have an unconscious "moral grammar," but our rules can conflict with each other and they can be misapplied. Claiming to describe how people actually think and behave, rather than how they should behave, Gigerenzer identifies rules of thumb such as sticking by your peers (e.g. not bowing out if your military commander gives you the option to excuse yourself from killing civilians) and sticking with default options (e.g. not volunteering to donate your organs). He says we should not be disillusioned by this knowledge of human behavior and instead use it to our advantage to sway outcomes.
- Chapter 11 on the power of social awareness. He pointed out that sometimes we imitate the majority of our peers and sometimes we imitate only successful individuals. Apparent acts of moral bravery sometimes emerge from our ignorance of unwritten social rules. (The Berlin Wall fell after a false rumor was seeded.) He concludes the book: "The quality of intuition lies in the intelligence of the unconscious: the ability to know without thinking which rule to rely on in which situation."
Just before reading this book, I'd re-read Burton's On Being Certain which criticized Malcolm Gladwell's Blink for praising intuition over scientific deliberation. This primed me to be skeptical of much of the praise of gut feelings in this book. However, Gigerenzer balanced his focus on gut feelings with the admission that some kind of evaluative process is needed to make good decisions.
- Chapter 7 on the recognition heuristic. Merely by recognizing the name of a foreign city or a consumer brand, we have some information about it: the city must have a lot of inhabitants; the brand must be fairly reliable. (I wonder how this might be applied to the recognition of moral "rules of thumb" discussed in subsequent chapters.)
- Chapter 10 on moral intuitions. He says we have an unconscious "moral grammar," but our rules can conflict with each other and they can be misapplied. Claiming to describe how people actually think and behave, rather than how they should behave, Gigerenzer identifies rules of thumb such as sticking by your peers (e.g. not bowing out if your military commander gives you the option to excuse yourself from killing civilians) and sticking with default options (e.g. not volunteering to donate your organs). He says we should not be disillusioned by this knowledge of human behavior and instead use it to our advantage to sway outcomes.
- Chapter 11 on the power of social awareness. He pointed out that sometimes we imitate the majority of our peers and sometimes we imitate only successful individuals. Apparent acts of moral bravery sometimes emerge from our ignorance of unwritten social rules. (The Berlin Wall fell after a false rumor was seeded.) He concludes the book: "The quality of intuition lies in the intelligence of the unconscious: the ability to know without thinking which rule to rely on in which situation."
Just before reading this book, I'd re-read Burton's On Being Certain which criticized Malcolm Gladwell's Blink for praising intuition over scientific deliberation. This primed me to be skeptical of much of the praise of gut feelings in this book. However, Gigerenzer balanced his focus on gut feelings with the admission that some kind of evaluative process is needed to make good decisions.
January 12, 2010
So, if you want to save yourself the time and expense of taking a Cognitive Science 101 course, this book is a pretty good solution. Gigerenzer offers up some theories on how human decision-making actually works (hint: it's not by drawing up a big list of pro's and con's and doing a weighted analysis), why we evolved to make decisions this way (VOMIT. instant -1 star.), and presents evidence that these innate methods of decison-making are often "better" than advanced statistical models.
The first third of the book was basically a primer in how corporations exploit the recognition heuristic to promote sales and brand loyalty, by plastering their logo on every imaginable surface because humans are more likely to "like" or "buy" something they recognize over an unknown. Only Gigerenzer didn't explain it like that, he was actually talking about the processes that inform intuitive, morally-neutral decision making... I just can't read a book morally-neutrally.
Listen, this book is fine. I'm sure the science behind it is solid and I think Malcolm Gladwell used it as a jumping-off point more than once. Reading it just made me uneasy because once the more we understand about the way people make gut decisions, the more that understanding will be exploited. Which could be a good thing! Gigerenzer even gives some examples of how it could be a good thing, like how it could increase the percentage of organ donors or help doctors better prioritize the symptoms and care of patients! But I am forever cynical, and read this whole book thinking about how it gets easier every day for those with power to subtly control those without power.
In conclusion, this book made me sad in ways a book of statistically-driven, non-narrative nonfiction should not. But the processes of intuition described in this book are probably things we should know about ourselves, and things we should call out corporations/the government/etc for exploiting.
[Today's review brought to you by the word "exploit" and the number "paranoia.":]
The first third of the book was basically a primer in how corporations exploit the recognition heuristic to promote sales and brand loyalty, by plastering their logo on every imaginable surface because humans are more likely to "like" or "buy" something they recognize over an unknown. Only Gigerenzer didn't explain it like that, he was actually talking about the processes that inform intuitive, morally-neutral decision making... I just can't read a book morally-neutrally.
Listen, this book is fine. I'm sure the science behind it is solid and I think Malcolm Gladwell used it as a jumping-off point more than once. Reading it just made me uneasy because once the more we understand about the way people make gut decisions, the more that understanding will be exploited. Which could be a good thing! Gigerenzer even gives some examples of how it could be a good thing, like how it could increase the percentage of organ donors or help doctors better prioritize the symptoms and care of patients! But I am forever cynical, and read this whole book thinking about how it gets easier every day for those with power to subtly control those without power.
In conclusion, this book made me sad in ways a book of statistically-driven, non-narrative nonfiction should not. But the processes of intuition described in this book are probably things we should know about ourselves, and things we should call out corporations/the government/etc for exploiting.
[Today's review brought to you by the word "exploit" and the number "paranoia.":]
May 24, 2008
In order to make sense of Gerd Gigerenzer's Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious you kind of have to stop making sense (to borrow from the Talking Heads) or at least let go of the idea that everything has to make sense. It is a very interesting book, and if you just let yourself go with it, highly readable.
Gigerenzer's basic principle is that many of our decisions are based on unconscious and instinctual heuristic processes and that these processes are often more efficient than statistical and/or logical decision making processes (until you try combining the two). He makes an interesting observation in the first chapter, that i have found true in my own life~if you take the time to apply Ben Franklin's "Reasons of Motive" (basically making a list of pros and cons~if I ever take the time to do so) at the end of the ordeal you often find you've already made you're decision, even if it goes against reason (though you sometimes needed to go through the exercise to find that out.) He also talked about the gut instincts of baseball players who estimate where a fly ball will land while running rather than making a mathematical calculation and then waiting for it at its destination (what he calls the "gaze heuristic"~and which seems a tad obvious for me, but is illustrative for many of the other points he makes.)
He offers evidence for less knowledge often being more help than hindrance for predicting things like stock markets and sports winners as well as behaviours of opponents. Gigerenzer is the director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany but he makes this text highly accessible for the layperson (even concepts that may at first seem daunting deserve perseverance, for it takes just a paragraph or two). His extrapolation into the health care field and moral behavior is especially enlightening.
Gigerenzer's basic principle is that many of our decisions are based on unconscious and instinctual heuristic processes and that these processes are often more efficient than statistical and/or logical decision making processes (until you try combining the two). He makes an interesting observation in the first chapter, that i have found true in my own life~if you take the time to apply Ben Franklin's "Reasons of Motive" (basically making a list of pros and cons~if I ever take the time to do so) at the end of the ordeal you often find you've already made you're decision, even if it goes against reason (though you sometimes needed to go through the exercise to find that out.) He also talked about the gut instincts of baseball players who estimate where a fly ball will land while running rather than making a mathematical calculation and then waiting for it at its destination (what he calls the "gaze heuristic"~and which seems a tad obvious for me, but is illustrative for many of the other points he makes.)
He offers evidence for less knowledge often being more help than hindrance for predicting things like stock markets and sports winners as well as behaviours of opponents. Gigerenzer is the director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany but he makes this text highly accessible for the layperson (even concepts that may at first seem daunting deserve perseverance, for it takes just a paragraph or two). His extrapolation into the health care field and moral behavior is especially enlightening.
August 27, 2019
Some interesting perspectives on decision making relying on gut feelings and intuition however not the most enjoyable read.
June 9, 2010
This book definitely opened up my mind to how my mind actually works. This book was kind of like "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell, but instead of how you think, it's about how the brain works. I loved this book. It is so interesting and it makes you want to read more and more. I learned some things I had never heard of before, and it cleared up a few things I had questions on, but was never motivated enough to go check out or research. Knowing the trick to playing tic-tac-toe is never fun because you always know how to win, and the other person feels bad about losing ALL THE TIME. Or if it is two people that know the trick, it becomes a tie every single game. "...knowing the optimal strategy is exactly what makes the game boring." This book ruined the game of tic-tac-toe for me! But that's okay. I've learned so much from this book that it doesn't even matter! I've gained more than I have lost you could say. I recommend this book to anyone who likes to learn about things people usually don't think about on their own. It's not that long and gives you more information than you think.
March 8, 2015
This book was not exactly what I expected, but good nonetheless. It really was more of a scientific look vs. a spiritual (which I had been expecting.)
The author maps out individual examples and research to show us how we utilize our unconscious in everyday decisions. He does this in a pretty simple and interesting way.
What stood out to me, was how the author demonstrated that those who have average knowledge of a given subject often can accurately deduce things about that subject as well as, if not better than, those with a lot of knowledge on the subject. I just found that to be highly relevant in today's society where we are swarming with so called "experts" on everything from relationships to fantasy sports. I felt for a long time that as a society, we rely too much on "experts" to tell us how to live every nuance of our lives. This book seems to put all of that into perspective; shows us that in truth, we are individually better equipped to make judgments and decisions regarding our own lives than any "expert."
The author maps out individual examples and research to show us how we utilize our unconscious in everyday decisions. He does this in a pretty simple and interesting way.
What stood out to me, was how the author demonstrated that those who have average knowledge of a given subject often can accurately deduce things about that subject as well as, if not better than, those with a lot of knowledge on the subject. I just found that to be highly relevant in today's society where we are swarming with so called "experts" on everything from relationships to fantasy sports. I felt for a long time that as a society, we rely too much on "experts" to tell us how to live every nuance of our lives. This book seems to put all of that into perspective; shows us that in truth, we are individually better equipped to make judgments and decisions regarding our own lives than any "expert."
September 8, 2012
Gigerenzer is worthy of your attention. This book is lighter than another of his I recently read, "Calculated Risks," which I recommend more strenuously.
The essential takeaway which I was left with, in simple terms, when faced with a decision, your gut instincts are likely to be at least as good, and probably better than a complex and carefully weighed analysis.
The book discusses at length why this might be so, and the heuristics or mental rules-of-thumb involved.
I'd recommend the section discussing triage in a cardiac care unit, to any healthcare professional who must make a decision about directing a patient on for any type of care, or who is being asked to render advice about seeking care.
This section can also help anyone begin thinking about designing a method to quickly take decisive action on a situation. Such methods developed with this book in mind are more likely to perform well and be simple to remember and implement.
The essential takeaway which I was left with, in simple terms, when faced with a decision, your gut instincts are likely to be at least as good, and probably better than a complex and carefully weighed analysis.
The book discusses at length why this might be so, and the heuristics or mental rules-of-thumb involved.
I'd recommend the section discussing triage in a cardiac care unit, to any healthcare professional who must make a decision about directing a patient on for any type of care, or who is being asked to render advice about seeking care.
This section can also help anyone begin thinking about designing a method to quickly take decisive action on a situation. Such methods developed with this book in mind are more likely to perform well and be simple to remember and implement.
November 15, 2008
Highly readable for such a scientific book. We live in a world where logics and rationality are treated as gods but this book proves that intution could work so much better, solving riddles, problems and anything with less efforts. Faster and more efficient.
I especially like the way Gigerenzer describes that people don't think and feel like rational computers by giving example of the half empty half full glass. Logically, the two are equals. But human beings don't work that way. Facing two glasses, one full of water and the other one empty and then the empty glass is half filled in with the wated from the full glass, when asked to move the half empty glass, peop;e will move the previously full of water glass. When asked the other way around, they will move the previously empty glass. So much for logics.
I especially like the way Gigerenzer describes that people don't think and feel like rational computers by giving example of the half empty half full glass. Logically, the two are equals. But human beings don't work that way. Facing two glasses, one full of water and the other one empty and then the empty glass is half filled in with the wated from the full glass, when asked to move the half empty glass, peop;e will move the previously full of water glass. When asked the other way around, they will move the previously empty glass. So much for logics.
August 25, 2009
Annotated study on the value of instinctive responses over rational ones
According to Freud and other intellectuals and philosophers, intuition is unsound and has no merit. Freud warns not to put any value on gut feelings. Instead, people should trust logic and reasoning. German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer begs to differ. He claims that intuition often works far better than reason to solve problems and make decisions. Gigerenzer details numerous studies that repeatedly demonstrate intuition’s ability to trump logic. He illustrates how people with less information often make better decisions than experts. getAbstract recommends Gigerenzer’s book to people who want to understand and improve the way they make decisions. As Alexander Pope said, “Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise.” Gigerenzer might agree. What do you think? More to the point, what do you feel in your gut?
According to Freud and other intellectuals and philosophers, intuition is unsound and has no merit. Freud warns not to put any value on gut feelings. Instead, people should trust logic and reasoning. German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer begs to differ. He claims that intuition often works far better than reason to solve problems and make decisions. Gigerenzer details numerous studies that repeatedly demonstrate intuition’s ability to trump logic. He illustrates how people with less information often make better decisions than experts. getAbstract recommends Gigerenzer’s book to people who want to understand and improve the way they make decisions. As Alexander Pope said, “Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise.” Gigerenzer might agree. What do you think? More to the point, what do you feel in your gut?
September 28, 2015
If the book had been shorter, it might have gained a fourth star - not because it's too long per se, but because there are just too many pages on which Gigerenzer keeps on sniping at Behavioural Economics, which he believes denies the value of heuristics and gut feelings. It is somewhat puzzling that a clearly very wise person is so exercised by a (mistaken) perception. Perhaps there are some blind believers in Behavioural Economics, but its main proponents - from Ariely to Kahneman, and from Thaler to Shiller - are in my opinion pretty nuanced people, who start from the observation that what often works as a gut feeling, sometimes doesn't.
That said, Gut Feeling is a great catalogue of the kind of short cuts we use all the time, and often with great success. A recommended complement to the BE literature. Just try to read over the unnecessary rants...
That said, Gut Feeling is a great catalogue of the kind of short cuts we use all the time, and often with great success. A recommended complement to the BE literature. Just try to read over the unnecessary rants...
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