Demystifying Intuition: What it is, What it does, and How it does it - Research Paper Example

Psychological Inquiry Volume 21, Issue 4, Demystifying Intuition: What It Is, What It Does, and How It Does It PreviewView full textDownloadfull textFree accessDOI:10.1080/1047840X.2010.523875Seymour Epsteinapages 295-312Available online: 03 Dec 2010TOC email alert | Citation email alert Alert meTOC email alertTOC RSS feedCitation email alertCitation RSS feedAbstractDefinitions of intuition are discussed and two working definitions are proposed.

This is followed by a list of eight unresolved problems concerning intuition. It is suggested that all of these problems can be resolved by cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST), a dual-process theory of personality according to which people process information with two systems, an experiential/intuitive system that is an associative learning system that humans share with other animals and a uniquely human verbal reasoning system. Intuition is considered to be a subsystem of the experiential/ intuitive system that operates by exactly the same principles and attributes but has narrower boundary conditions.

The next section includes a presentation of the most relevant aspects of CEST with an emphasis on the operating rules and attributes of the experiential/intuitive system. This is followed by demonstrating how the operation of the experiential/intuitive system can resolve each of the unresolved problems concerning intuition. The article closes with a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the experiential/intuitive and rational/analytic systems. It is concluded that neither system is generally superior to the other, as each has important advantages and disadvantages.

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Resolving the Eight Unresolved Problems.Summary and ConclusionsDefinitions of intuition are discussed and two working definitions are proposed. This is followed by a list of eight unresolved problems concerning intuition. It is suggested that all of these problems can be resolved by cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST), a dual-process theory of personality according to which people process information with two systems, an experiential/intuitive system that is an associative learning system that humans share with other animals and a uniquely human verbal reasoning system.

Intuition is considered to be a subsystem of the experiential/ intuitive system that operates by exactly the same principles and attributes but has narrower boundary conditions. The next section includes a presentation of the most relevant aspects of CEST with an emphasis on the operating rules and attributes of the experiential/intuitive system. This is followed by demonstrating how the operation of the experiential/intuitive system can resolve each of the unresolved problems concerning intuition.

The article closes with a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the experiential/intuitive and rational/analytic systems. It is concluded that neither system is generally superior to the other, as each has important advantages and disadvantages.To understand a phenomenon such as intuition, it is helpful to begin with a definition of precisely what one wishes to understand. This article therefore begins with a discussion of definitions of intuition.What Is Intuition? How Should It Be Defined?

Jump to sectionWhat Is Intuition? How Should It Be Defined?Eight Unresolved Problems Regarding.CEST: A Dual-Process Theory That Provides.Conclusions Regarding Intuition and the.Resolving the Eight Unresolved Problems.Summary and ConclusionsThere are few phenomena in the history of psychology that have so many different definitions as intuition. In a survey by Abernathy and Hamm (1995)1. Abernathy, C. M. and Hamm, R. M. 1995. Surgical intuition: What it is and how to get it , Philadelphia, PA: Hanley & Belfus.

View all references, the authors identified 20 different definitions of intuition, and their list is hardly exhaustive. Although many psychologists agree that there is something important captured by the construct of intuition, there are others who doubt that intuition is a useful construct, and yet others who regard it as nothing more than a “lazy” or degraded form of analytic reasoning. Not only do authorities on intuition disagree with each other, they sometimes even disagree with themselves.

Nobel laureate Herbert Simon (1979) proposed one of the more influential views on intuition that he referred to as “bounded rationality” (p. 501). Bounded rationality is a reduced form of deliberative reasoning that is sufficient for practical purposes. Consistent with this view, Simon (1992)79. Simon, H. A. 1992. What is an “explanation” of behavior. Psychological Science , 3: 150–161. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references also defined intuition as “nothing more and nothing less than recognition” (p. 155). Accordingly he believes there is nothing special about intuitive thinking that makes it qualitatively different from analytical reasoning.

Yet, in marked contrast to this view, Simon reported that he can judge people's intelligence by the expression in their eyes and that he used this insight to make recommendations for professional positions. He reported I began thinking of the clear, dark, Armenian eyes of Arrow, the cool, clear, Frisian eyes of Koopmans, and the sharp, black Roman eyes of Modigliani. It was certainly true that they all had remarkable eyes. Ever since, I think I have included that among my own selection criteria; intelligence shines through the eyes.

(Simon, as cited in Hammond, 1996, p. 85)This behavior implies that Simon implicitly believes in a form of intuition that is based on associations with past experience, and that is concretive and imagistic and therefore qualitatively different from analytical reasoning rather than just a reduced form of it.It is noteworthy that most authorities define intuition primarily in terms of what it is not rather than in terms of what it is. They agree that it is a form of information processing that is different from analytical reasoning, but beyond that they have little or nothing to add.

As an example, the definition of intuition in Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Merriam, & Merriam, 196660. Merriam, C. and Merriam, G. 1966. Webster's third new international dictionary , Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam Co. View all references) is “coming to direct knowledge or certainty without reasoning or inferring.” Myers (2002), in agreement with the dictionary definition, defines intuition as “our capacity for direct knowledge, for immediate insight without observation or reason” (p. 1). Bruner (1961)7.

Bruner, J. 1961. The process of education , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. View all references defines it as “the intellectual technique of arriving at plausible but tentative conclusions without going through the analytic steps by which such formulations would be found to be valid or invalid conclusions” (p. 13). Hammond (1996)43. Hammond, K. 1996. Human judgment and social policy: Incredible uncertainty, inevitable error, unavoidable justice , New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

View all references defines intuition as a “cognitive process that somehow produces an answer, solution, or idea without the use of a conscious, logically defensible step-by-step process” (p. 60). According to Hogarth (2001)47. Hogarth, R. M. 2001. Educating intuition , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. View all references, “the essence of intuition or intuitive responses is that they are reached with little apparent effort, and typically without conscious awareness. They involve little or no conscious deliberation” (p. 14). Apparently, these authorities have agreed that intuition is some kind of information acquired without conscious, deliberative reasoning, but they have not identified what it actually is in any substantive way.

Thus, the challenge remains to define intuition better or to indicate how it actually operates.In an attempt somewhat to remedy the situation, I propose the following definitions of intuition: “Intuition involves a sense of knowing without knowing how one knows.” “Intuition involves a sense of knowing based on unconscious information processing.” The first definition is how laypeople tend to view how they experience intuition. It can therefore be considered a phenomenological definition of intuition.

Like the definitions previously reviewed, it is limited by defining intuition by what it is not. The second definition avoids this problem by noting that the source of intuition is unconscious processing. However, this definition is still limited because it tells us nothing about the nature of the unconscious processing.Where then does this leave us? It leaves us with the view that intuition is a fuzzy construct, and although some of its definition are of some use descriptively, they are of very limited value scientifically as they indicate nothing about the operation of intuition other than the one definition that states that is operates unconsciously, which several other definitions also imply.

However, for advancing our understanding of intuition, we need to go beyond a general recognition that intuition involves unconscious processing. We need to know what purpose, if any, intuition serves and what its operating principles and processing attributes are. I believe that cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) can provide such information. An interesting test of its ability to do so is whether it can resolve the eight unresolved problems concerning intuition that are presented next.

Eight Unresolved Problems Regarding IntuitionJump to sectionWhat Is Intuition? How Should It Be Defined?Eight Unresolved Problems Regarding.CEST: A Dual-Process Theory That Provides.Conclusions Regarding Intuition and the.Resolving the Eight Unresolved Problems.Summary and ConclusionsProblem 1: Establishing the Boundary Conditions of IntuitionAs part of explaining a phenomenon, it is necessary to indicate what falls within its boundaries and what lies outside of them. To accomplish this, the various definitions of intuition that were based solely on the exclusion of analytical reasoning would have to include all nonanalytic information processing within its boundaries and all analytic information processing outside of its boundaries.

Thus, they would have to include irrational fears, superstitions, fundamentalist religious beliefs, esoteric beliefs such as extrasensory perception, and learned psych-motor coordination as in sport activities. Some authors do in fact extend intuition in this manner (e.g., Hogarth, 200147. Hogarth, R. M. 2001. Educating intuition , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. View all references; Myers, 200262. Myers, D. G. 2002. Intuition, its powers and perils , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

View all references), but it obviously is stretching the meaning of intuition well beyond its normal usage. This, of course, is not a scientifically acceptable reason for rejecting a definition, but it nevertheless raises the question of where reasonably to set the boundary conditions for intuition. Thus, an issue that requires resolution is the determination of the boundary conditions of intuition.Problem 2: Should Intuition be Restricted to Valid Beliefs?Some authors require intuitive beliefs to be valid, whereas others do not.

According to some of the definitions in Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Merriam & Merriam, 196660. Merriam, C. and Merriam, G. 1966. Webster's third new international dictionary , Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam Co. View all references), intuition is “direct insight into reality” and “quick and ready insight,” which implies that intuitive beliefs are valid, as invalid beliefs can hardly be regarded as insightful. Vaughan (1979)85. Vaughan, F. E. 1979. Awakening intuition , New York, NY: Anchor/Doubleday.

View all references explicitly defined intuition as necessarily valid. If a belief is not valid, according to Vaughan, it should not be regarded as intuitive. In contrast, Bruner (1961)7. Bruner, J. 1961. The process of education , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. View all references believes that intuitive knowledge is only tentative.Can the belief that intuitive beliefs must be true be dismissed as unreasonable? Not if it is a definition of intuition, for definitions can be neither true nor false; they simply indicate the meaning a person assigns to a term for the purpose of communicating with precision.

Therefore there is nothing false about a definition of intuition as a valid belief obtained outside of awareness. Thus, an issue that remains to be resolved is whether such a definition is scientifically useful.Problem 3: Identifying the Operating Principles and Attributes of Intuitive ProcessingIf intuition is to be understood, it is necessary to understand how it operates. Thus, a third important issue that requires resolution is the identification of the operating principles and attributes of intuitive processing.

As will be shown, there are a variety of views regarding this issue. Which of these positions, if any, is correct remains to be determined.Problem 4: Is There a Source of Intuition That Identifies the Very Essence of Intuitive Processing and Can Account for Its Other Attributes?All modern dual-process theories list operating principles and attributes of their proposed intuitive-like systems, such as that the systems operates in a manner that is unconscious, rapid, effortless, and associative (e.g., Chen & Chaiken, 199912. Chen, S. and Chaiken, S. 1999. “The heuristic–systematic model in its broader context”.

In Dual-process theories in social psychology , Edited by: Chaiken, S. and Trobe, Y. 73–96. New York, NY: Guilford. View all references; Hammond, 199643. Hammond, K. 1996. Human judgment and social policy: Incredible uncertainty, inevitable error, unavoidable justice , New York, NY: Oxford University Press. View all references; Kahneman, 200351. Kahneman, D. 2003. A perspective on judgment and choice. Mapping bounded rationality.. American Psychologist , 58: 697–720. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Petty & Wegener, 199970. Petty, R. E.

and Wegener, D. T. 1999. “The elaboration-likelihood model: Current status and controversies”. In Dual-process theories in social psychology , Edited by: Chaiken, S. and Trope, Y. 41–72. New York, NY: Guilford. View all references; Reber, 199371. Reber, A. S. 1993. Implicit learning and tacit knowledge: An essay on the cognitive unconscious , New York, NY: Oxford University Press. View all references; Sloman, 199680. Sloman, S. A. 1996. The empirical case for two systems of reasoning.. Psychological Bulletin , 119: 3–22.

[CrossRef], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Smith & DeCoster, 200082. Smith, E. R. and DeCoster, J. 2000. Dual-process models in social and cognitive psychology: Conceptual integration and links to underlying memory systems. Personality and Social Psychology Review , 4: 108–131. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Stanovich & West, 200083. Stanovich, K. E. and West, R. F. 2000. Individual differences in reasoning: Implications for the rationality debate. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

, 23: 645–665. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Strack & Deutsch, 200484. Strack, F. and Deutch, R. 2004. Reflective and impulsive determinants of social behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review. , 8: 220–247. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references). It is not clear from their selection of operating principles and attributes whether the authors regard any of them as fundamental and the others as subordinate. Their position on this issue may be indicated by the titles they assign to their systems.

Thus, an issue to be resolved is whether there is a single operating principle that is so fundamental that it can account for all the rules and attributes of intuitive processing.Problem 5: Is a Dual-Process Theory Necessary to Account for Intuitive and Analytical Processing or Can They Be Accounted for by a Single Process?Some authors believe that it requires two qualitatively different processing systems to account for the differences between intuitive and analytic information processing (e.g., Chen & Chaiken, 199912. Chen, S. and Chaiken, S. 1999. “The heuristic–systematic model in its broader context”.

In Dual-process theories in social psychology , Edited by: Chaiken, S. and Trobe, Y. 73–96. New York, NY: Guilford. View all references; Epstein, 197322. Epstein, S. 1973. The self-concept revisited or a theory of a theory. American Psychologist. , 28: 404–416. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references, 199425. Epstein, S. 1994. Integration of the cognitive and the psychodynamic unconscious.. American Psychologist , 49: 709–724. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references, 200329.

Epstein, S. 2003. “Cognitive-experiential self-theory of personality”. In Comprehensive handbook of psychology Vol. 5, Personality and social psychology , Edited by: Millon, T. and Lerner, M. J. 159–184. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. View all references; Hogarth, 200147. Hogarth, R. M. 2001. Educating intuition , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. View all references; Kahneman's, 2003, revised view; Myers, 200262. Myers, D. G. 2002. Intuition, its powers and perils , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

View all references; Petty & Wegener, 199970. Petty, R. E. and Wegener, D. T. 1999. “The elaboration-likelihood model: Current status and controversies”. In Dual-process theories in social psychology , Edited by: Chaiken, S. and Trope, Y. 41–72. New York, NY: Guilford. View all references; Sloman, 199680. Sloman, S. A. 1996. The empirical case for two systems of reasoning.. Psychological Bulletin , 119: 3–22. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Smith & DeCoster, 200082. Smith, E. R.

and DeCoster, J. 2000. Dual-process models in social and cognitive psychology: Conceptual integration and links to underlying memory systems. Personality and Social Psychology Review , 4: 108–131. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Strack & Deutsch, 200484. Strack, F. and Deutch, R. 2004. Reflective and impulsive determinants of social behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review. , 8: 220–247. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references). Others, including Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky (1982); Kruglansky, Thompson, and Spiegel (1999); and Simon (1992), believe that intuitive and analytical thinking are simply different levels of processing within a single system.

Thus the fifth problem to be resolved is whether two qualitatively different processing systems are necessary to account for the differences between intuitive and analytical information processing.Problem 6: How Important is the Role of Experience in Intuition?Several authors (e.g., Betsch, 20086. Betsch, T. 2008. “The nature of intuition and its neglect in research on judgment and decision-making”. In Intuition in judgment and decision-making , Edited by: Plessner, C., Betsch, C. and Betsch, T. 3–22. New York, NY: Erlbaum.

View all references; Epstein, 197322. Epstein, S. 1973. The self-concept revisited or a theory of a theory. American Psychologist. , 28: 404–416. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references, 200329. Epstein, S. 2003. “Cognitive-experiential self-theory of personality”. In Comprehensive handbook of psychology Vol. 5, Personality and social psychology , Edited by: Millon, T. and Lerner, M. J. 159–184. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. View all references; Hogarth, 200147. Hogarth, R. M. 2001.

Educating intuition , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. View all references; Simon, 199279. Simon, H. A. 1992. What is an “explanation” of behavior. Psychological Science , 3: 150–161. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references) regard experience as playing a vital role in intuitive processing. As previously noted, Simon (1992)79. Simon, H. A. 1992. What is an “explanation” of behavior. Psychological Science , 3: 150–161. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references regarded intuition as “nothing more nor nothing less than recognition” (p. 195). Recognition, of course, requires recollection of previous experience.

Hammond (1996)43. Hammond, K. 1996. Human judgment and social policy: Incredible uncertainty, inevitable error, unavoidable justice , New York, NY: Oxford University Press. View all references, however, took exception to Simon's view as unnecessarily restrictive, as he believed that it excludes the most interesting aspects of intuition, such as its use of imagery, its emphasis on case histories, and its contribution to creativity. Although some regard learning from experience as a most fundamental aspect of intuition, others do not consider it as sufficiently important to be worth mentioning.

In the 20 definitions of intuition listed by Abernathy and Hamm (1995)1. Abernathy, C. M. and Hamm, R. M. 1995. Surgical intuition: What it is and how to get it , Philadelphia, PA: Hanley & Belfus. View all references, not one refers directly to experience, and only 1 does so indirectly by referring to pattern recognition.It is noteworthy that a distinction between experience and deliberative reasoning go back as far as the following statement by Aristotle: While young men become geometricians and mathematicians and wise in matters like these, it is thought that a young man of practical wisdom cannot be found.

The cause is that such wisdom is concerned not only with universals but with particulars, which become familiar with experience, but a young man has no experience. (as cited in McKeon, 194759. McKeon, R. A. 1947. Introduction to Aristotle , New York, NY: Modern Library. View all references)Given the disagreement on the importance of experience regarding intuition, the role of experience in intuition requires resolution.Problem 7: How Important Is the Role of Affect/Emotion in Intuition?Many definitions of intuition are completely cognitive and make no mention of emotions or feelings.

Among the 20 definitions of intuition in the survey by Abernathy and Hamm (1995)1. Abernathy, C. M. and Hamm, R. M. 1995. Surgical intuition: What it is and how to get it , Philadelphia, PA: Hanley & Belfus. View all references, only 1 mentions feelings. In contrast, there are others who consider affect to be a fundamental aspect of intuition. Slovic, Finucane, Peters, and MacGregor (2002) identified what they refer to as an affect heuristic, according to which affect is a direct and important influence on intuitive thinking.

According to Chen and Chaiken (1999)12. Chen, S. and Chaiken, S. 1999. “The heuristic–systematic model in its broader context”. In Dual-process theories in social psychology , Edited by: Chaiken, S. and Trobe, Y. 73–96. New York, NY: Guilford. View all references, the operation of intuitive processes may be revealed by emotions. Others (e.g., Agor, 19892. Agor, W. A. 1989. Intuition in organizations: Leading and managing productivity , Newbury Park, CA: Sage. View all references; Barnard, 19384.

Barnard, C. I. 1938. The functions of the executive , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. View all references; Hayashi, 200146. Hayashi, A. M. 2001. When to trust your gut.. Harvard Business Review , 79: 59–65. [Web of Science ®]View all references; Shapiro & Spence, 199776. Shapiro, S. and Spence, M. T. 1997. Managerial intuition: A conceptual and operational framework. Business Horizons. , 40: 63–68. [CrossRef]View all references) use terms such as “gut feelings,” “gut instincts,” and “feeling in our marrow” in describing intuitive thinking.

Bastick (1982)5. Bastick, T. 1982. Intuition: How we think and act , New York, NY: Wiley. View all references regards intuition as “feelings which guide our common actions” (p. 2). Others who emphasize feelings as an important aspect of intuition are deGroot, Gobet, and Jongman (1996); Schwartz (1990); and Westcott and Ranzoni (1963)86. Westcott, M. R. and Ranzoni, J. H. 1963. Correlates of intuitive thinking. Psychological Reports. , 12: 595–613. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references.

In summary, there is considerable disagreement about whether feelings are an important aspect of intuition. Accordingly, an important issue to be resolved is the place of affect in intuition.Problem 8: What Are the Relative Advantages and Disadvantages of Expriential/Intuitive and Rational/Analytic Processing?Last, and perhaps most controversial, is the relative evaluation of the two systems. Among the 20 definitions in the Abernathy and Hamm (1995)1. Abernathy, C. M. and Hamm, R. M. 1995. Surgical intuition: What it is and how to get it , Philadelphia, PA: Hanley & Belfus.

View all references survey, intuition is viewed favorably by some and unfavorably by others. Included among the former are extreme statements such as “intuition is infallible” and more modest views that “intuitive cognition can outperform analysis.” Included among the latter are statements that “intuition is just lazy thinking” and “intuition is the use of fallible heuristic strategies.” Most authors (e.g., Chen & Chaiken, 199912. Chen, S. and Chaiken, S. 1999. “The heuristic–systematic model in its broader context”.

In Dual-process theories in social psychology , Edited by: Chaiken, S. and Trobe, Y. 73–96. New York, NY: Guilford. View all references; Hogarth, 200147. Hogarth, R. M. 2001. Educating intuition , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. View all references; Kahneman et al., 198252. Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. and Tversky, A. 1982. Judgment under uncertainty , Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. View all references; Myers, 200262. Myers, D. G. 2002. Intuition, its powers and perils , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

View all references; Nisbett & Ross, 198064. Nisbett, R. and Ross, L. 1980. Human inference: strategies and shortcoming of social judgment , Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. View all references; Petty & Wegener, 199970. Petty, R. E. and Wegener, D. T. 1999. “The elaboration-likelihood model: Current status and controversies”. In Dual-process theories in social psychology , Edited by: Chaiken, S. and Trope, Y. 41–72. New York, NY: Guilford. View all references) acknowledge that intuition has important positive features, such as being rapid and effortless but on balance consider it to be often inaccurate and inferior to analytical reasoning.

However, as is shown later, there are a variety of desirable attributes not considered by these authors in which intuitive processing plays a greater role than analytical processing. For now, it will suffice to identify the relative advantages and disadvantages of experiential/intuitive and rational/analytic processing as an important issue that warrants further consideration.CEST: A Dual-Process Theory That Provides an Explanation of IntuitionJump to sectionWhat Is Intuition? How Should It Be Defined?

Eight Unresolved Problems Regarding.CEST: A Dual-Process Theory That Provides.Conclusions Regarding Intuition and the.Resolving the Eight Unresolved Problems.Summary and ConclusionsAccording to CEST, humans operate with two information-processing systems: an experiential system, which is an automatic, associative learning system, and a rational/analytic system, which is a verbal reasoning system. The systems operate by different rules and have different attributes. Although the experiential system encompasses a domain more extensive than intuition (i.e., it also accounts for a variety of other kinds of nonanalytical thinking and beliefs, including superstitious thinking, irrational fears, unusual beliefs, and fundamentalist religious beliefs), the operating rules and attributes of intuitive processing are identical according to CEST.

However, to draw attention to the focus in this article on intuition, I will refer in this article to the processing system as the experiential/ intuitive system, which elsewhere when considering its broader domain I refer to as the experiential system. The important point is that no matter which way I refer to it, the operating principles and attributes are identical and the only difference is in the boundary conditions.The experiential/intuitive system is the same system with which nonhuman animals have successfully adapted to their environments over millions of years of evolution.

It is very likely more advanced in humans, with their larger brains, than in other primates, just as other primate's experiential intuitive systems is more advanced than that of other animals. I named the system as an experiential system because its primary function is to learn from experience. It operates in a manner that is associative, preconscious, automatic, nonverbal, imagistic, rapid, effortless, concrete, holistic, intimately associated with affect, intrinsically highly compelling, and minimally demanding of cognitive resources.

Most of these characteristics have been validated in a research program for testing the assumptions in CEST (see reviews in Epstein, 200329. Epstein, S. 2003. “Cognitive-experiential self-theory of personality”. In Comprehensive handbook of psychology Vol. 5, Personality and social psychology , Edited by: Millon, T. and Lerner, M. J. 159–184. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. View all references, and in Epstein & Pacini, 199927. Epstein, S. 1999. “The interpretation of dreams from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory”.

In At play in the fields of consciousness: Essays in honor of Jerome L. Singer , Edited by: Singer, J. A. and Salovey, P. 59–82. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. View all references).The content of the experiential/intuitive system consists primarily of generalizations from experience, and its major motive is to behave according to the hedonic principle, that is, to pursue positive affect and avoid negative affect. This makes the experiential system an affect-driven cognitive system. Given a cognitive system that can associate behavior with outcomes and the motivation to feel good and to avoid feeling bad, it follows that the cognitive system will be used in the service of obtaining good feelings and avoiding bad feelings.

An important result of such behavior is that it transforms the “kinder, gentler” unconscious of cognitive science into a full-blooded, three-dimensional unconscious similar in this respect to the unconscious of psychoanalysis. However, in contrast to the unconscious of psychoanalysis, the unconscious of CEST is an adaptive learning system rather than Freud's maladaptive, psychotic-like system inferred from dreams (for further discussion of this issue, see Epstein, 199425. Epstein, S. 1994.

Integration of the cognitive and the psychodynamic unconscious.. American Psychologist , 49: 709–724. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references, 200329. Epstein, S. 2003. “Cognitive-experiential self-theory of personality”. In Comprehensive handbook of psychology Vol. 5, Personality and social psychology , Edited by: Millon, T. and Lerner, M. J. 159–184. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. View all references).Although it is beyond the capacity of the experiential/intuitive system to understand cause-and-effect relations, it achieves similar adaptive results by automatically associating stimuli and responses with outcomes.

This view is consistent with modern learning theory according to which conditioning is no longer considered to be just a mechanical connection of stimuli with each other and with responses and outcomes but involves the construction of a model of the world that allows animals (including humans) to negotiate their environments adaptively (e.g., Hollis, 199748. Hollis, K. L. 1997. Contemporary research on Pavlovian conditioning. American Psychologist. , 52: 956–965. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Rescorla, 198872.

Rescorla, R. A. 1988. Pavlovian conditioning: It's not what you think it is. American Psychologist. , 43: 151–160. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references). The essence of the operation of the experiential/intuitive system is that it is an associative learning system that includes classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning. Despite the differences in these processes they are part an overall system because they operate by the same rules, have the same processing attributes (see Table 1), and contribute to accomplishing the same purpose, namely, establishing a working model of the environment.

The implications of such automatic, implicit learning from experience is that the information acquired from all three learning processes is the primary source of intuitive “knowing without knowing how one knows.”Although the experiential/intuitive system encodes experience primarily in the form of context-specific concrete representations (e.g., images, scenarios, affect, and physical sensations) it can generalize in the form of individual generalization gradients and their confluence. The height and breadth of the generalization gradients are assumed to be a direct function of the emotional intensity of the initial experiences that were the sources of the generalizations (e.g., Dollard & Miller, 195020.

Dollard, J. and Miller, N. E. 1950. Personality and psychotherapy , New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. View all references; Hull, 194349. Hull, C. L. 1943. Principles of behavior , New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts. View all references). The experiential/ intuitive system in combination with the rational/ analytic system also generalizes in more complex ways through the use and comprehension of metaphors, scripts, narratives, and myths.There are undoubtedly anatomical and physiological correspondences with the two processing systems.

Very likely multiple locations are involved, possibly related to hemispheric asymmetry and cortical and subcortical levels. However, this is not a critical issue for CEST, as CEST is concerned with the behavioral operating rules and attributes of the experiential/intuitive and the rational/analytic systems no matter how they are localized.In contrast to the outcome-orientation of the experiential/intuitive system, the rational/analytic system is a verbal reasoning system that operates according to a person's understanding of logical inference.

The system operates in a manner that is conscious, abstract, analytic, affect-free, effortful, and highly demanding of cognitive resources. It acquires its beliefs by logical inference. Although, like the experiential/intuitive system, it learns from experience, and it does so by reasoning and not by automatic associative learning. (For a more complete comparison of the two systems, see Table 1.)Compared to the experiential/intuitive system, the rational/analytic system has a very brief evolutionary history, and its long-term adaptive value remains to be demonstrated.

Combining the two systems in a single organism may yet turn out to be a failed experiment of evolution that will result in the demise of the species. However, there remains the hope that the rational/analytic system will solve the problems created by the interaction of the two systems.The two systems are assumed to operate in parallel and to be interactive. Their interaction is discussed in greater detail later. For now, it will suffice to note that all behavior is considered in CEST to be influenced by both systems.

Their relative influence varies along a dimension of complete dominance by one system to complete dominance by the other system (Epstein, 199425. Epstein, S. 1994. Integration of the cognitive and the psychodynamic unconscious.. American Psychologist , 49: 709–724. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Hammond, 199643. Hammond, K. 1996. Human judgment and social policy: Incredible uncertainty, inevitable error, unavoidable justice , New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

View all references). However, for convenience I refer to behavior as experientially or rationally determined if it is primarily determined by one system or the other. The extent to which people think or behave primarily according to one of the systems is considered to be a function of the situation and the person.The Content and Boundary Conditions of the Experiential/Intuitive SystemThe domain of the experiential system includes all phenomena that are based on non analytic information processing.

Included in this domain are everyday automatic information processing, irrational fears, religious beliefs, superstitions, esoteric beliefs such as a belief in extrasensory perception, heuristic responses based on nonanalytic processing (e.g., visualization, holistic representations, heuristic responses excluding those based on reduced or degraded rational/analytic processing), and learned perceptual-motor coordination as in sport activities. This domain is obviously much larger than the domain of intuition.

As the operating principles and attributes regarding the two domains are identical, the experiential/intuitive system can be regarded as a subset of the experiential system.The Interaction of the Two SystemsAccording to CEST, the two systems interact bidirectionally simultaneously and sequentially.Sequential interaction. As the experiential/ intuitive system is the more rapidly reacting system, people's initial reaction to a situation is usually experiential/intuitive. If the initial response tendency is identified as unacceptable, the rational/analytic system is often able to modify or suppress its expression.

If the experiential/intuitive response tendency is considered appropriate, it will be expressed. When the experiential/intuitive system, reacting automatically outside of awareness, is unidentified the sequence of responses is likely to be as follows: The experiential/intuitive system reacts first with an automatic favorable or unfavorable interpretation and response tendency based on past experience. The person then expresses the prompting from the experiential/intuitive system by behaving accordingly.

Unaware of the unconscious determinants of the behavior and conscious thoughts the person seeks a rational explanation. The result is that under the combined influence of the hedonic principle of the experiential/intuitive system and the reality principle of the rational/analytic system the person arrives at the most favorable interpretation the person can think of within acceptable reality considerations. In other words the person rationalizes in a self-enhancing manner. According to CEST this sequence is extremely important in understanding why a species as uniquely intelligent in solving impersonal problems (in the domain of the rational/analytic system) often solves interpersonal problems (in the domain of the experiential/intuitive system) regarding both individuals and societies in irrational and destructive ways.

Now consider the opposite direction of influence, in which a response determined primarily by the rational/analytic system produces an association in the experiential/intuitive system that then influences a person's subsequent conscious thoughts and behavior. Moreover, any response (including a conscious thought) in the rational/analytic system can evoke an association in the experiential/intuitive system, which can then influence conscious thoughts and behavior in the rational/analytic system, which can produce further associations in the experiential system, and so on.

Thus, rather than just an interaction between single responses in the two systems, the two systems can interact in the manner of a dance, in which a step in one of the systems elicits a step in the other system.What is the relation of intelligence and the degree to which people rationalize? Are intelligent people more objective and logical and therefore less likely to rationalize? Whether this is generally true or not, highly intelligent people are not exempt from the distorting influence of their experiential/intuitive system on their reasoning, as demonstrated in the following quotation from the German physicist and Nobel laureate Philip Lenard in his book German Physics: Jewish physics can best and most justly be characterized by recalling the activity of one who is probably its most prominent representative, the pure-blooded Jew, Albert Einstein.

His relativity theory was supposed to transform all physics, but when faced with reality, it did not have a leg to stand on. In contrast to the intractable and solicitous desire for truth in the Aryan scientist, the Jew lacks to a striking degree any comprehension of truth. (as cited in Calaprice, 19969. Calaprice, A. 1996. The quotable Einstein , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. View all references, p. 236)An important lesson from this passage is that one should never underestimate the vulnerability of the rational/analytic system to the distorting influence of the experiential/intuitive system.

The simultaneous interaction of the two systems. As previously noted, the two processing systems can interact simultaneously as well as sequentially. This is well illustrated in the research on the ratio-bias (RB) phenomenon, which places the two systems in opposition to each other at the same time. The RB phenomenon refers to people behaving nonoptimally by preferring frequency information when probability information is more informative. In its most popular form, it consists of a game of chance in which participants choose between drawing blindly from one of two trays.

One of the trays offers a higher probability of drawing a winning red jelly bean (e.g., 1 red jelly bean out of 10 jelly beans) and the other offers a greater number of red jelly beans but a lower probability of obtaining one (e.g., 5–9 red jelly beans out of 100 jelly beans). The information about the number and probability of drawing a red jelly bean are explicitly and simultaneously made available, so both are equally accessible and neither requires more cognitive effort than the other. Yet, surprising as it may seem, in repeated experiments most participants prefer to draw from the tray that is frequency advantaged and slightly probability disadvantaged (e.g., 9 in 100 vs. 1 in 10).The RB phenomenon can be explained by the experiential/intuitive system better comprehending concrete information, such as frequencies, than abstract information, such as relations between numbers, or probabilities.

That a comprehension of frequency is an extremely fundamental reaction in the domain of the experiential/intuitive system is indicated by the sensitivity to frequency in nonhuman animals and in preverbal children (Gallistel, 198940. Gallistel, C. R. 1989. Animal cognition: The representation of space, time, and number.. Annual Review of Psychology , 40: 155–189. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Gallistel & Gelman, 199241. Gallistel, C. R. and Gelman, R. 1992. Preverbal and verbal counting and computation.. Cognition , 44: 43–74.

[CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Hasher & Zacks, 198445. Hasher, L. and Zacks, R. T. 1984. Automatic processing of fundamental information: The case of frequency of occurrence.. American Psychologist , 39: 1372–1388. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references). There are several important lessons that can be learned from the RB phenomenon, the most important of which is that people often establish compromises between the two processing systems.

Thus most people are willing to respond slightly nonoptimally in favor of frequency information, but most are not willing to make frequency-advantaged responses that are more nonoptimal. However there are a substantial number of people who make extreme nonoptimal responses, preferring to draw from a tray that more than 5 in 100 winning items rather than from one that offers 1 in 10 winning items. The RB phenomenon also indicates that people often experience a conflict between the two systems, which participants often spontaneously report.

The phenomenon also demonstrates the compelling influence of experiential/intuitive processing and how it can co-opt the rational/analytic system into supporting its processing by extreme rationalization, as indicated by the following example: One of my undergraduate research assistant came to my office one day and said, “Professor Epstein, I hate to tell you this, but I think it is important for you to know it. I don't think you should count the preference for the tray with more winners as a nonoptimal response.

If I were in a statistics class of course I would say I would go for the better probability. However, in real life, it is far better to go for the greater number of winners.” I asked her what she would do if a million dollars were at stake. She said, “I then would definitely pick from the tray with more winners because I would really want to win.”The Relative Strengths and Limitations of the Two Processing SystemsOn the positive side, the rational/analytic system is the source of humankind's remarkable accomplishments.

It is able to think at high and complex levels of abstraction with the aid of verbal symbols and to accumulate knowledge across cultures and generations through written language. It is capable of understanding cause and effect relations, of planning for the future, of applying broad abstract principles across situations, and of taking long-term consideration into account. On the basis of such thinking it has been the source of humankind's remarkable achievements in science, technology, mathematics, medicine, and other disciplines that no other species comes close to emulating.

On the negative side, the rational system is too effortful and slow for efficiently directing everyday behavior. People do not deliberate over their everyday behavior, they simply behave. A further limitation of the rational system is that it is an affect-free verbal reasoning system. Its lack of affect-driven motivation leaves it with its only direct source of motivation being cognitions about how one should behave, which may be a weak and easily biased source of influence when in conflict with strong, emotion-based motives in the experiential system.

An example of this is the occurrence of phobias. People may desperately wish to get rid of them to no avail. Willpower (in the domain of the rational system) is rarely up to the task of vanquishing phobias. In psychotherapy people often find that intellectual insight makes little difference but that what is successful is the use of procedures that produce changes in the experiential system, as in systematic desensitization, which is a deconditioning procedure.Before proceeding with further advantages and disadvantages of the two systems, a caveat is in order regarding the statement that the rational system is an affect-free system.

The statement does not mean that people cannot be intensely emotionally involved in intellectual pursuits. It means that the rational system by itself is a verbal reasoning system that does not have its own source of affect. It simply consists of rules of reasoning. However, as all behavior according to CEST is influenced by both systems, the emotional involvement in intellectual endeavors is assumed to be the result of infused affect from the experiential/intuitive system. The source of such affect is likely to be a person's reinforcement history regarding intellectual behavior.

A problem with the rational/analytic system is that it has made it possible to develop highly sophisticated and effective implements of mass destruction, as in chemical warfare, germ warfare, and hydrogen bombs, with the latter already having the capacity to destroy the human species. However, the rational/analytic system that can construct such destructive weaponry can also be the source of preventing its use by understanding the influence of the experiential/intuitive system on the rational/analytic system.

Through such understanding, people's ability to reason objectively and logically can be improved, which could result in directing the behavior promoted by the interaction of the two systems into more constructive channels.The strengths of the experiential/intuitive system are that it rapidly and effortlessly directs everyday behavior, it is a source of affect-driven compelling motivation, it can establish a sufficiently accurate model of the environment that allows for effective adaptation to the environment by empirically learning from experience, it provides an alternative source of decision making that is sometimes more effective than decisions made by deliberative reasoning, and by relying on “multiple fallible indicators” it can avoid the catastrophic consequences that can occur from small errors in linear-reasoning (Brunswik, 19568.

Brunswik, E. 1956. Perception and the representative design of psychological experiments , (2nd ed.), Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. View all references; Hammond, 199643. Hammond, K. 1996. Human judgment and social policy: Incredible uncertainty, inevitable error, unavoidable justice , New York, NY: Oxford University Press. View all references). Because of its different manner of information processing from conscious reasoning (see Table 1) it can better solve some kinds of problems than analytical reasoning can.

For example, there are problems that cannot be reduced by analysis to their components and therefore are not amenable to analytical solutions.Some examples of research that demonstrated an advantage of experiential/intuitive over rational/analytic processing in certain circumstances are as follows. Hammond, Hamm, Grassia, and Pearson (1987) found that expert engineers who used an intuitive approach performed more effectively in a highway-design task in which esthetics was an important consideration than when they used an analytical approach.

Wilson, Dunn, Kraft, and Lisle (1989) reported that participants who analyzed the reasons for their attitudes were less able to predict their later behavior than those who responded more spontaneously. In another study Wilson and his coworkers found that students who analyzed their preferences for posters before bringing one home were less satisfied with it after two weeks than those who selected a poster based on their feelings (Wilson et al., 199388. Wilson, T. D., Lisle, D. J., Schooler, J. W., Hodges, S. D., Klaaren, D. J. and LaFleur, S. J. 1993.

Introspecting about reasons can reduce post-choice satisfaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. , 19: 331–339. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references). Wilson and Schooler (1991)89. Wilson, T. D. and Schooler, J. W. 1991. Thinking too much: Introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 60: 181–192. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references reported that students who thought carefully about their preference for various jams performed more poorly when judged against expert opinion than students who made more holistic judgments.

They also found that spontaneous preferences for college courses better predicted the judgments of experts than preferences based on detailed, analytic evaluations. In a study by Epstein and Yanko (1999)27. Epstein, S. 1999. “The interpretation of dreams from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory”. In At play in the fields of consciousness: Essays in honor of Jerome L. Singer , Edited by: Singer, J. A. and Salovey, P. 59–82. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. View all references, young children exhibited an intuitive understanding of ratios expressed in small numbers in a game of chance but lost this ability when they were asked to give the reasons for their choices.

Dijksterhuis (2004)19. Dijksterhuis, A. 2004. Think different: The merits of unconscious thought in preference development and decision-making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 87: 586–598. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references and Reber (1993)71. Reber, A. S. 1993. Implicit learning and tacit knowledge: An essay on the cognitive unconscious , New York, NY: Oxford University Press. View all references found that experiential/intuitive processing can more effectively solve some kinds of complex problems than rational/analytic processing.

Norris and Epstein (in press) found a variety of previously unrecognized desirable abilities and attributes of an experiential/intuitive thinking style that are discussed in a section on individual differences.On the negative side, the nonrational thinking of the experiential/intuitive system can be a source of irrational and destructive thinking and behavior, as evidenced in superstitious beliefs, irrational fears such as phobias, and aggression toward people who are different from oneself. Attributes of the experiential system, such as associative, concrete, and categorical thinking; a tendency to seek targets for emotional expression; and the influence of the experiential system on promoting rationalization have been a source of atrocities throughout the course of history.

Among the more irrationally destructive examples are the massacre of people of other faiths in the service of a loving God, the burning of people accused of witchcraft after forcing them to admit under torture that they consorted with the devil, the “honorable” position of the clergy during the Inquisition of disapproving of the drawing blood but condoning every other kind of torture including burning at the stake, the proof obtained that Jews caused the bubonic plague by forcing them to confess under torture that they poisoned wells, the slaughtering of Christian civilians as well as infidels during the Crusades with the rationalization that God will know his own, and the trial by jury and hanging at the gallows in the 15th and 16th centuries of animals convicted of having behaved in unnatural or harmful ways to humans (Evans, 198739. Evans, E. P. 1987. The criminal prosecution and capital punishment of animals , London, , UK: Faber & Faber.

View all references).Each system has an interesting advantage and disadvantage with respect to influencing the other system. With an apology for reifying the systems for the sake of simplicity, an important advantage of the rational/analytic system is that it can understand the experiential/intuitive system, whereas the experiential/intuitive system cannot understand anything; it can simply automatically react based on past experience.An important advantage of the experiential system is that it can influence the rational system without the rational system knowing it is being influenced.

The experiential/intuitive system can accomplish this not only because of its initial operation outside of awareness but also because of its ability to co-op the rational/analytic system to rationalize in a self-serving manner.Can the Experiential/Intuitive System Reason?An interesting question with important implications for intuitive thinking is whether the experiential system can reason. The answer depends on one's definition of reasoning. If reasoning is restricted to the application of rules of logic with the use of verbal symbols, the experiential system as a nonverbal system can not reason by definition.

However, with a broader definition of reasoning, such as that it consists of solving problems through the use of mental operations in the absence of overt behavior, then the experiential system can reason. It can do so by the use of its capacity for visualization and feeling. Although learning by overt trial and error does not qualify as reasoning, if the trial and error is carried out by visualization, it does qualify by this definition. The way the experiential system reasons in this manner is that when higher order animals including people imagine alternatives, the alternatives are often accompanied by “vibes” if not by stronger, more definitive emotions.

Vibes are defined as vague feelings, such as disquietude and agitation that are less articulated than emotions. The feelings then influence the selection among the imagined alternatives, with the alternative that feels best or least bad being selected. Such reasoning by visualization has significant implications for intuition because it indicates that people's experiential/intuitive systems can use a kind of reasoning different from their conscious, deliberative verbal reasoning and that it therefore may be able to solve problems or assist the rational system in solving problems that the rational system could not otherwise solve.

Individual Differences in Experiential/Intuitive Information ProcessingIt may be recalled that individual differences were observed in the research on the RB phenomenon, with some people always making optimal responses and most people making nonoptimal responses to various degrees. More extensive research on individual differences was conducted with two specially constructed instruments, the Constructive Thinking Inventory (CTI) for measuring the intelligence or efficacy of the experiential/intuitive system and the Experiential/Intuitive Inventory (REI) for measuring the degree to which people engage in experiential/intuitive and rational/analytic information processing.

The Constructive Thinking Inventory (CTI). Not all intuitive/experiential systems are equal. Some are more “intelligent” than others as indicated by how effectively they automatically direct people's behavior in everyday life. The CTI (Epstein, 199826. Epstein, S. 1998. Constructive thinking: The key to emotional intelligence , Westport, CT: Greenwood. View all references, 200128. Epstein, S. 2001. Manual for the Constructive Thinking Inventory , Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

View all references; Epstein & Meier, 198934. Epstein, S. and Meier, P. 1989. Constructive thinking: A broad coping variable with specific components. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 57: 332–349. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references) was constructed to measure such individual differences. The CTI is not a pure measure of experiential/intuitive processing because it includes a component of rational/analytic processing. This follows from the consideration that all behavior is determined by both systems.

The CTI was constructed using items mainly based on a sample of daily reports of people's thoughts and interpretations immediately preceding their strongest emotional responses to daily events. Addition items were included that were based on the automatic constructive and destructive thoughts and beliefs described in the literature on cognitive-behavioral therapy. Following are examples of some typical items: “I spend much more time mentally rehearsing my failures than remembering my successes” (reverse scored).

“When doing unpleasant chores, I make the best of it by thinking pleasant or interesting thoughts.” “I look at challenges not as something to fear, but as an opportunity to test myself and learn.”The CTI includes a global scale and the following six main scales, all but one of which contains subscales: Emotional Coping, Behavioral Coping, Categorical Thinking, Esoteric Thinking, Personal Superstitious Thinking, and Naïve Optimism.Scores on the CTI have consistently been found to be independent of intellectual intelligence.

They are significantly positively correlated with a variety of criteria of success in living, including social competence, work success, mental adjustment, and physical well-being (e.g., Epstein, 1992a23. Epstein, S. 1992a. “Constructive thinking and mental and physical well-being”. In Life crises and experiences of loss in adulthood , Edited by: Montada, L., Filipp, S. H. and Lerner, M. J. 385–409. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. View all references, 1992b24. Epstein, S. 1992b. Coping ability, negative self-evaluation, and overgeneralization: Experiment and Theory.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 62: 826–836.

[CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references, 200128. Epstein, S. 2001. Manual for the Constructive Thinking Inventory , Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. View all references; Epstein & Katz, 199232. Epstein, S. and Katz, L. 1992. Coping ability, stress, productive load, and symptoms.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 62: 813–825. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Epstein & Meier, 198934. Epstein, S. and Meier, P. 1989. Constructive thinking: A broad coping variable with specific components.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 57: 332–349. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references, Katz & Epstein, 199153. Katz, L. and Epstein, S. 1991. Constructive thinking and coping with laboratory-induced stress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 61: 789–800. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Scheuer & Epstein, 199774. Scheuer, E. and Epstein, S. 1997. Coping ability, reactions to a laboratory stressor, and symptoms in everyday life.

Anxiety, Stress, and Coping. , 10: 269–303. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®]View all references). The only criteria with which intelligence-test scores are more strongly associated than CTI scores are measures of intellectual performance. Of interest, although IQ is more strongly associated with intellectual performance, such as grade point average, CTI scores contribute significantly to the prediction of classroom performance beyond the prediction of intelligence and achievement tests.

Apparently, students with high CTI scores are better able to translate their intellectual ability into favorable outcomes in real life than others.The question may be raised as to how a single instrument like the CTI can be positively correlated with so wide an array of criteria of success in living. The answer is that people who automatically think and interpret events in more constructive ways than others fare better in life in general. More specifically, people who spontaneously view challenges as learning opportunities rather than threats; who think about chores in a positive rather than in a distressing manner; who think in ways that promote effective action; who are trusting of others but not naively so; who live in the present, plan for the future, and do not dwell on the past; who are realistically but not unreasonably optimistic; and who automatically think in a wide variety of more constructive ways than others tend to be more successful than others in all aspects of living.

The Rational/Experiential Inventory (REI). What are the advantages and disadvantages of experiential/intuitive and rational/analytic thinking styles? The REI was constructed to answer this question. The REI is a self-report instrument that measures individual differences in the two thinking styles (Epstein, Pacini, Denes-Raj, & Heier., 199637. Epstein, S., Pacini, R., Denes-Raj, V. and Heier, H. 1996. Individual differences in intuitive-experiential and analytical-rational thinking styles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

, 71: 390–405. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Norris & Epstein, in press; Pacini & Epstein, 1999b; Pacini, Muir, & Epstein, 199868. Pacini, R, Muir, F. and Epstein, S. 1998. Depressive realism from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 74: 1056–1068. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references). It differs from the CTI as it measures the degree to which people report they engage in experiential/intuitive and rational/analytical thinking styles rather than the efficacy of their experiential/intuitive processing, as in the CTI.

Initially we expected the experiential/intuitive and rational/analytic thinking styles would represent opposite ends of a dimension. Instead, they were repeatedly found to be independent.With the use of the REI we found completely new relations of an experiential/intuitive thinking style with a variety of desirable abilities and attributes. Table 2 summarizes the relations found in several studies between scores on the REI scales and a variety of criterion variables (Epstein et al., 199637. Epstein, S.

, Pacini, R., Denes-Raj, V. and Heier, H. 1996. Individual differences in intuitive-experiential and analytical-rational thinking styles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 71: 390–405. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Norris & Epstein, in press; Pacini & Epstein, 1999a; Pacini et al., 199868. Pacini, R, Muir, F. and Epstein, S. 1998. Depressive realism from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

, 74: 1056–1068. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references). Some of the attributes and abilities that are significantly correlated with the REI are based on self-reported information, but others are based on objective performance measures. The objective measures include performance in experimental situations, intelligence test scores, and performance on tasks that measure creativity, sense of humor, intuitive ability, and aesthetic judgment.It can be seen in Table 2 that a rational/analytic thinking style is more strongly positively related than an experiential/intuitive thinking style to intellectual performance and to a variety of measures related to good adjustment, including low anxiety, low depression, low stress, low neuroticism, high self-esteem, and high meaningfulness of life.

An experiential/intuitive thinking is positively associated with measures of creativity, empathy, aesthetic judgment, and intuitive ability and with establishing satisfactory interpersonal relationships. It is also associated with several unfavorable attributes, including naïve optimism, Pollyannaish thinking, stereotyped beliefs, superstitious beliefs, and unrealistic beliefs. It is obvious from the relations in Table 2 that no general statement can be made about the superiority of either thinking style, as each is superior in some important ways and inferior in other important ways.

In interpreting the information in Table 2 to recognize that a high score on an experiential/intuitive thinking style can be obtained with different patterns of responses. For example, an experiential/intuitive thinking style in a particular individual could be associated with all of the desirable and none of the undesirable criterion variables, or it could be associated with all of the undesirable criterion variables and few of the desirable ones. It is also important to recognize that, as the two thinking styles are independent (e.g., Epstein et al., 199637. Epstein, S.

, Pacini, R., Denes-Raj, V. and Heier, H. 1996. Individual differences in intuitive-experiential and analytical-rational thinking styles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 71: 390–405. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Norris & Epstein, in press; Pacini & Epstein, 1999a; Pacini et al., 199868. Pacini, R, Muir, F. and Epstein, S. 1998. Depressive realism from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

, 74: 1056–1068. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references), it is possible for a person to be high on both thinking styles, high on either thinking style and low on the other thinking style, or low on both thinking styles.Another interesting way to compare the two systems is by the role they play in establishing a sufficiently accurate working model of the environment to allow for effective adaptation. The experiential/intuitive system does so empirically by learning from experience, whereas the rational/analytic system does so by reasoning.

Each of these manners of adaptation has its advantages and disadvantages. Humans could not exist as viable organisms if they did not have an experiential/intuitive system, and they could not make their unique accomplishments if they did not have a rational/analytic system.Conclusions Regarding Intuition and the Experiential/Intuitive SystemJump to sectionWhat Is Intuition? How Should It Be Defined?Eight Unresolved Problems Regarding.CEST: A Dual-Process Theory That Provides.Conclusions Regarding Intuition and the.

Resolving the Eight Unresolved Problems.Summary and ConclusionsHaving reviewed some of the more fundamental aspects of CEST, the question may be raised as to how much of the material is relevant to an understanding of intuition in the sense of knowing without knowing how one knows. The answer is that according to CEST it is all relevant, as intuition is nothing more and somewhat less than the experiential system of CEST. Thus, to understand intuition it is necessary to understand the rules and attributes of the experiential/intuitive processing system.

It is also important to recognize that intuition is not an isolated phenomenon different essentially from other phenomena related to automatically learning from experience. Intuition is neither magical nor mystical. It is simply the recovery outside of awareness primarily of tacit information acquired from experience or, less often, responding to entirely new situations according to the principles and attributes of the experiential/intuitive system.Having an understanding of the operating rules and attributes of the experiential/intuitive system and a perspective on its place within a broader adaptive system, we are now in a position to attempt to resolve the eight problems concerning intuition.

Resolving the Eight Unresolved Problems Concerning IntuitionJump to sectionWhat Is Intuition? How Should It Be Defined?Eight Unresolved Problems Regarding.CEST: A Dual-Process Theory That Provides.Conclusions Regarding Intuition and the.Resolving the Eight Unresolved Problems.Summary and ConclusionsResolving Problem 1: The Boundary Conditions of IntuitionIntuition is regarded in CEST as a subset of the experiential system, as it operates with the same principles and attributes but has narrower boundary conditions.

The question may raised as to whether intuition should be assigned such narrower boundaries, or should the intuitive and experiential systems be equivalent in all ways? As previously noted, Hogarth (2001)47. Hogarth, R. M. 2001. Educating intuition , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. View all references and Myers (2002)62. Myers, D. G. 2002. Intuition, its powers and perils , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. View all references equate intuition with the entire experiential system.

For them intuition encompasses all nonrational beliefs, which would therefore have to include superstitious beliefs, irrational fears, religious beliefs, esoteric beliefs, and learned perceptual-motor coordination. As such a position is far removed from the way intuition is normally used and understood, CEST takes the more popular position of omitting such beliefs and processes from the domain of intuition. What remains within the domain of intuition then are all the other kinds of information and beliefs primarily determined by the operating principles and attributes of the experiential/intuitive system, which include implicit beliefs and information automatically learned from experience (the main body of intuition) as well as beliefs and impressions based on the operation of the same principles and having the same attributes of processing but unrelated to past experience.

The operation of this latter kind of intuitive processing was exhibited in the research on the RB phenomenon previously presented in which most people found the frequency of winning items more compelling than the probability of drawing one, which influenced them to make nonoptimal responses despite knowing that it was nonoptimal in their rational mind. Of course, according to the phenomenological definition of intuition provided earlier such thought and behavior would not qualify as intuitive processing as its source is known, namely, the frequency of winning items.

However, from the perspective of CEST such thought and behavior does qualify as intuitive because it is based on the principles and attributes of experiential/intuitive processing, and whether one is conscious of the source is not critical. Moreover, in other situations the same kinds of influence can occur outside of awareness, which would then qualify the processing as intuitive according to the phenomenological definition of intuition.Other kinds of thinking and beliefs that fall under the rubric of intuition according to the boundary conditions previously proposed are judgments and decisions based on feelings rather than on reasoning, creative thinking that is based on associative connections and imagistic representations, heuristics that are based on experiential processing but not on reduced cognitive effort, and knowledge that is based mainly on learning from experience.

A comment is warranted on whether the domain of the experiential system includes more than implicit information acquired from past experience. That the domain of intuition includes such thought and behavior is suggested by the concept of preadaptation (Mayr, 196058. Mayr, E. 1960. “The emergence of evolutionary novelties”. In Evolution after Darwin: Vol. 1. The evolution of life , Edited by: Tax, S. 349–380. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. View all references; Rozin, 200773. Rozin, P. 2007. Exploring the landscape of modern academic psychology: Finding and filling in the holes.. American Psychologist , 62: 754–766.

[CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references) or neural reuse (Anderson, in press). According to this concept, once a process has evolved for one purpose it can be used for other purposes. An example is wolves baring their teeth originally in preparation for attack, but then using the same response for communication, which may avoid the need for a potentially damaging attack. Although the experiential system evolved to serve the purpose of learning from experience, once in place its principles of operation and attributes, such as holistic and visual processing, can be used in reacting to completely new situations.

As a result of such processing, people can gain intuitive impressions that are intuitive unrelated to past experience.Resolving Problem 2: Should Intuition be Restricted to Valid Beliefs?As previously noted, definitions cannot be considered valid or invalid, as they simply are a means of indicating the meaning that someone wishes to attribute to the use of a term. However, definitions in science can be evaluated for how useful they are for promoting understanding. It is on that basis that I believe that defining intuition as consisting only of valid beliefs is too restrictive to be useful, which is not to deny that with its restricted meaning it can serve a useful function, such as by promoting research on the conditions that can establish whether intuition is valid.

As the intuitive-experiential system according to CEST is an automatic learning system that primarily reacts to present situations based on past experience, it follows that the validity of intuitive beliefs will be influenced by the correspondence between present and past experience. A woman who was sexually abused as a child may view the behavior of a man who places his arms around her with the intention of being comforting as an unwanted sexual advance. In such a case the person's intuitive judgment is obviously invalid.

Now consider a slightly different scenario. A man wishes to take advantage of a woman's distressed state by acting sympathetic as part of his plan to seduce her. Something about the way he puts his arm around her triggers a memory of another man who abused her as a child, which alerts her to the intentions of the man in the current situation. In this case, the intuition is valid and allows the woman to detect a potentially dangerous situation.A second important consideration of whether experience will be a source of valid or invalid intuition is the kind of feedback the experience provides.

Hogarth (2001)47. Hogarth, R. M. 2001. Educating intuition , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. View all references referred to what he called kindly and wicked environments. Kindly environments provide accurate feedback, whereas wicked environments provide inconsistent or invalid feedback or no feedback at all. The result is that experience in kindly environments is likely to generate accurate intuitions and experience in wicked environments is likely to generate inaccurate intuitions such as unwarranted confidence in false beliefs.

There are several problems with restricting the definition of intuition to valid beliefs. First, as in the example, exactly the same process was involved in the valid and invalid interpretation, so if one wishes to understand the process underlying intuition it is unreasonable to restrict it only to valid implicit beliefs. Second, it is often impossible to determine whether an implicit belief is valid, particularly at the time it is experienced, so if validity were made a criterion for intuition, none of such beliefs could be considered intuitive when experienced.

Third, it is awkward to have the label intuition refer only to valid implicit beliefs and to have no corresponding label for invalid implicit beliefs.As a result of such considerations, the position that intuition should be restricted to valid implicit beliefs is undesirable.Resolving Problem 3: The Rules and Attributes of Experiential/Intuitive ProcessingAccording to CEST, intuition is a subsystem of the experiential system as it operates by the same rules and has the same attributes as those summarized in Table 1.

This raises the question of how appropriate the rules and attributes of experiential processing actually are and how they compare in this respect to the principles and attributes of intuitive processing proposed by others. Table 1 Comparison of the Operating Principles and Attributes of the Experiential/Intuitive and Rational/Analytic Systems.Table 2 Correlates of Experiential/Intuitive and Rational/Analytic Thinking Styles.In all other dual-process theories only a very limited number of operating principles and attributes of intuitive processing are proposed, such as that the information in the intuitive system is tacit and that the system operates in a manner that is associative, rapid, and relatively undemanding of cognitive resources.

In contrast, CEST lists several operating rules and 14 attributes of experiential/intuitive processing. The operating rules, which correspond to the rules of associative learning, include congruity, affective reinforcement, repetition, extinction, similarity, and generalization. These rules are operative in all three forms of associative learning, namely classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning. The operating rules and 14 attributes of experiential/intuitive processing in Table 1 provide a detailed description of the operation of the of experiential/intuitive system, such as that it is rapid, preconscious, automatic, effortless, holistic, associative, concrete, imagistic, affective, intrinsically compelling, and self-evidently valid and that its operation is experienced passively.

Although other attributes, such as encoding information in the form of metaphors, scenarios, and narratives, include a greater component of rational/analytic processing than the other attributes, the rational/analytic component is considered subordinate to the experiential/intuitive component. The principles of associative learning have been well established in a long history of experimental research. With the exception of the few attributes that include a relatively strong rational/analytic component, almost all of the 14 attributes in Table 1 either follow logically from the assumption that the experiential/intuitive system is a nonverbal associative learning system that humans share with other animals or have been supported in a research program testing the assumptions in CEST (for reviews of the research, see Epstein, 200329.

Epstein, S. 2003. “Cognitive-experiential self-theory of personality”. In Comprehensive handbook of psychology Vol. 5, Personality and social psychology , Edited by: Millon, T. and Lerner, M. J. 159–184. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. View all references; Epstein & Pacini, 199927. Epstein, S. 1999. “The interpretation of dreams from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory”. In At play in the fields of consciousness: Essays in honor of Jerome L. Singer , Edited by: Singer, J. A. and Salovey, P. 59–82. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

View all references).In conclusion, the principles and attributes of experiential/intuitive processing proposed in CEST provide a much more thorough, integrated, and differentiated description of the operational features of an experiential/intuitive system than any other dual-process theory.Resolving Problem 4: Is There a Single Principle That Represents the Essence of Experiential/Intuitive Processing and That Can Account for Almost All of Its Attributes?Almost all of the attributes of an experiential/intuitive system in Table 1 can be derived from the assumption that the system is an associative learning system that humans share with other animals.

As previously noted, although there are a few exceptions, such as representations in the form of narratives, scripts, and metaphors that include a considerable but subordinate verbal contribution by the rational/analytic system, the predominant experiential/intuitive component can be explained by other attributes, such as associative, concretive, and affective processing under the motivation of the hedonic principle. The assumption that the experiential/intuitive system is an associative learning system that humans share with other animals can account for the experiential/intuitive system operating in a manner that is associative, automatic, effortless, unconscious, rapid, motivated by the hedonic principle, affectively/emotionally reinforced, resistant to change, intrinsically compelling, and experienced passively.

As the associative learning system is a nonverbal system, it accounts for the imagistic and holistic attributes in Table 1. As it normally operates outside of awareness it explains why the influence of the experiential/intuitive system is experienced passively, with people not feeling in control of it in the way they feel in control of their conscious reasoning. As the associative learning system is intimately related to emotions, it explains why it is inherently compelling. In sum, almost all of the attributes of the experiential system in Table 1 can be derived from the assumption that the experiential/intuitive system is a nonverbal associative learning system that humans share with other animals.

Although most modern dual-process theories describe several attributes of their intuitive-like systems, it is not clear whether they regard the attributes they list as equally important or they believe that some are more fundamental than others, or, as in CEST, that an associative learning system can account for all or almost all of the attributes they propose or that some other fundamental system can do so. In the latter case, a reasonable assumption is that if there is a single, most fundamental processing principle or attribute it is the one they selected to represent their intuitive-like system.

Among such systems are a “heuristic system” (Chaiken, 198010. Chaiken, S. 1980. Heuristic versus systematic information processing and the use of source versus message cues in persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 39: 752–766. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Chen & Chaiken, 199912. Chen, S. and Chaiken, S. 1999. “The heuristic–systematic model in its broader context”. In Dual-process theories in social psychology , Edited by: Chaiken, S. and Trobe, Y. 73–96. New York, NY: Guilford.

View all references), a “peripheral system” (Petty & Cacioppo, 198669. Petty, R. E. and Cacioppo, J. T. 1986. Comunication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change , New York, NY: Springer-Verlag. View all references; Petty & Wegener, 199970. Petty, R. E. and Wegener, D. T. 1999. “The elaboration-likelihood model: Current status and controversies”. In Dual-process theories in social psychology , Edited by: Chaiken, S. and Trope, Y. 41–72. New York, NY: Guilford.

View all references), an “associative system” (Sloman, 199680. Sloman, S. A. 1996. The empirical case for two systems of reasoning.. Psychological Bulletin , 119: 3–22. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Smith & DeCoster, 200082. Smith, E. R. and DeCoster, J. 2000. Dual-process models in social and cognitive psychology: Conceptual integration and links to underlying memory systems. Personality and Social Psychology Review , 4: 108–131. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references), an “implicit system” (Johnson-Laird, 198350.

Johnson-Laird, P. N. 1983. Mental models , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. View all references; Reber, 199371. Reber, A. S. 1993. Implicit learning and tacit knowledge: An essay on the cognitive unconscious , New York, NY: Oxford University Press. View all references), an “impulsive system” (Strack & Deutsch, 200484. Strack, F. and Deutch, R. 2004. Reflective and impulsive determinants of social behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review. , 8: 220–247. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references), a “tacit system” (Hogarth, 200147.

Hogarth, R. M. 2001. Educating intuition , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. View all references), and a completely noncommittal “System 1” (Kahneman, 200351. Kahneman, D. 2003. A perspective on judgment and choice. Mapping bounded rationality.. American Psychologist , 58: 697–720. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Stanovich & West, 200083. Stanovich, K. E. and West, R. F. 2000. Individual differences in reasoning: Implications for the rationality debate.

Behavioral and Brain Sciences. , 23: 645–665. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references). None of these can be considered to identify the very essence of intuitive processing in a manner that can account for almost all of its operating principles and attributes.In conclusion, a strong case can be made for a nonverbal associative learning system that humans share with other animals being the very essence of experiential/intuitive processing from which almost all the principles and attributes of experiential/intuitive processing can be derived.

Resolving Problem 5: Two Information Processing Systems or One?To provide support for two systems it is necessary to demonstrate that they operate by different rules and/or have different attributes. In much of the research on heuristics by Tversky and Kahneman and their associates as well as by others, the results are indecisive regarding two systems because no distinction is made between heuristics that are the result of experiential/intuitive processing and heuristics that are the result of reduced cognitive effort (e.g., Kahneman et al., 198252. Kahneman, D.

, Slovic, P. and Tversky, A. 1982. Judgment under uncertainty , Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. View all references). The picture is further clouded by both kinds of heuristics being referred to as “cognitive shortcuts.”In contrast to the research on cognitive shortcuts, a series of studies on the RB phenomenon provides strong support for the existence of two different processing system that operate by different rules and have different attributes (Denes-Raj & Epstein, 199417. Denes-Raj, V.

and Epstein, S. 1994. Conflict between experiential and rational processing: When people behave against their better judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 66: 819–829. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Denes-Raj, Epstein, & Cole, 199518. Denes-Raj, V., Epstein, S. and Cole, J. 1995. The generality of the ratio-bias phenomenon. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. , 10: 1083–1092. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Kirkpatric & Epstein, 1992; Pacini & Epstein, 1999b67.

Pacini, R. and Epstein, S. 1999b. The relation of rational and experiential information processing styles to personality, basic beliefs, and the ratio-bias phenomenon.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 76: 972–987. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references; Pacini et al., 199868. Pacini, R, Muir, F. and Epstein, S. 1998. Depressive realism from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 74: 1056–1068.

[CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references). Other support is provided by research on conjunction problems (Donovan & Epstein, 199721. Donovan, S. and Epstein, S. 1997. The difficulty of the Linda conjunction problem can be attributed to its simultaneous concrete and unnatural representation, and not to conversational implicature. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. , 33: 1–20. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Epstein, 199927. Epstein, S. 1999.

“The interpretation of dreams from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory”. In At play in the fields of consciousness: Essays in honor of Jerome L. Singer , Edited by: Singer, J. A. and Salovey, P. 59–82. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. View all references; Epstein, Denes-Raj, & Pacini, 199530. Epstein, S., Denes-Raj, V. and Pacini, R. 1995. The Linda problem revisited from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 11: 1124–1138.

[CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Epstein, Donovan, & Denes-Raj, 199927. Epstein, S. 1999. “The interpretation of dreams from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory”. In At play in the fields of consciousness: Essays in honor of Jerome L. Singer , Edited by: Singer, J. A. and Salovey, P. 59–82. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. View all references), on irrational responses to arbitrary outcomes (Epstein, Lipson, Holstein, & Huh, 199232. Epstein, S. and Katz, L. 1992.

Coping ability, stress, productive load, and symptoms.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 62: 813–825. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references) and by research on conflicts between needs (Epstein & Morling, 199530. Epstein, S., Denes-Raj, V. and Pacini, R. 1995. The Linda problem revisited from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 11: 1124–1138. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references; Morling & Epstein, 199761.

Morling, B. and Epstein, S. 1997. Compromises produced by the dialectic between self-verification and self-enhancement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. , 73: 1268–1283. [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references). It was found in this research that people spontaneously refer to the two systems, often identifying them with the heart and the head. Evidence of two systems is also obtained when participants are asked to respond to vignettes from two perspectives, once according to how they or most others would behave in real life and again from how a completely logical person would behave.

Similar results are obtained when participants are asked to respond according to their immediate thoughts and feelings and according to their deliberative reasoning. Evidence for two systems is also obtained when people are asked to list the first three responses that occur to them after reading various vignettes. Their first response is usually indicative of processing in the mode of the experiential/intuitive system and the third response of processing according to the rational/analytic system.

Finally, the existence of two processing systems can be inferred on purely logical grounds. It can be assumed according to a fundamental principle in evolutionary theory (Darwin, 1859/1936, 1872/1955) that an adaptive system based on automatic, associative learning from experience that has been successful in the adaptation of all other species throughout the course of evolution was not simply abandoned by humans once they acquired speech. Nature does not give up its hard-won gains so easily. Moreover, there is abundant evidence that humans associatively learn from experience by the same rules that govern associative learning in other species and that these rules are different from the rules that govern verbal reasoning.

Resolving Problem 6: The Role of Experience in IntuitionThe very essence of intuitive-experiential processing according to CEST is that it operates according to the principles and attributes of associative learning from experience, which is the source of the tacit information that constitutes the main body of intuitive information.There are two ways in which learning from experience is or becomes a source of intuition. The more usual way is by the learning being tacit as its source is not identified.

The other way is that procedural information initially acquired by deliberative processing in the rational/analytic system becomes automatic, or “experientialized,” through practice. Chess masters who at first had to consciously consider each move have acquired, after a great deal of practice, the tacit information in their experiential/intuitive system that allows them at a glance to identify significant patterns (Chase & Simon, 197311. Chase, W. G. and Simon, H. A. 1973. Perception in chess.

Cognitive Psychology. , 4: 55–81. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references). The superiority of experts over novices as a result of such automatic learning from experience has also been observed in nurses, firefighters, and military commanders (Klein, 199855. Klein, G. 1998. Sources of power: How people make decisions , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. View all references).As noted previously, the experiential/intuitive system does not only respond to present situations based on what was learned from past experience, although this is the major source of intuitive beliefs.

It also operates according to the principles and attributes of experiential/intuitive processing when responding to entirely new situations, a process that has been referred to as preadaptation (Mayr, 196058. Mayr, E. 1960. “The emergence of evolutionary novelties”. In Evolution after Darwin: Vol. 1. The evolution of life , Edited by: Tax, S. 349–380. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. View all references; Rozin, 200773. Rozin, P. 2007. Exploring the landscape of modern academic psychology: Finding and filling in the holes.. American Psychologist , 62: 754–766.

[CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references) and neural reuse (Anderson, in press) in which the principles of operation of a previous adaptive process are used for a new adaptation.Resolving Problem 7: The Role of Affect/Emotion in IntuitionAccording to CEST, affect and emotions are critically important in the operation of the experiential/intuitive system for three reasons. First, affect plays such an important role in the reinforcement of associative learning that without affect there would no or very little such learning and therefore no experiential/intuitive system or, at most, an extremely impoverished one.

Second, affect is the most important source of motivation in the experiential/intuitive system. According to CEST, the superordinate motive in the experiential/intuitive system is to behave according to the hedonic principle, the pursuit of positive affect and the avoidance of negative affect. Third, emotions are regarded in CEST as the royal road to the schemas in the experiential system. It is assumed that the stronger an emotional reaction is to a situation activated by a situation, the more important the schema representing the situation is in the person's experiential system, the more important the schema is that is the proximal cause of the emotion.

For example, if a woman says her intelligence is more important to her than her beauty but exhibits a stronger emotional reaction when her beauty is slighted than when her intelligence is slighted, it can be assumed that in her intuitive/experiential system her beauty is more important to her than her intelligence.In sum, there are strong reasons for concluding that affect and emotions are intimately associated with intuition.Resolving Problem 8: The Advantages and Disadvantages of Experiential/Intuitive and Rational/Analytic Information ProcessingThe evaluation of the two systems is arguably the source of the greatest bias by parties on both sides of the debate.

To provide a balanced perspective, I first discuss some influential research on heuristics and decision making commonly interpreted as demonstratingthe superiority of analytic over intuitive information processing. I next review selected research from a program that provides some important new information on the relative contribution of the two systems.Which Would You Choose?If you had to choose between the intuitive-experiential system and the rational-analytical system, which would you choose?

On first consideration, you might choose the rational/analytic system, as it is the source of humankind's unique accomplishments. On second thought, however, you might realize that without an experiential system you would be seriously impoverished in very important ways, including not being able to make decisions in the absence of guiding feelings. Damasio (1994)13. Damasio, A. R. 1994. Descartes error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain , New York, NY: Avon. View all references has found that people whose ability to have emotions is impaired are unable to make value judgments and to act accordingly.

So now which system would you choose? Before doing so, some information supportive of both sides of the debate are presented for your consideration.Research on HeuristicsIn the past few decades, a great deal of influential research has been conducted on faulty decision making as a result of heuristic processing. Heuristic processing refers to the use of cognitive shortcuts that require reduced effort and time compared to deliberative, analytical reasoning. It is regarded as the default option that people rely on in making most decisions in everyday life.

Research on heuristics has greatly influenced how social scientists’ currently view decision making. Previously economists had assumed that people think in ways rationally designed to maximize gains and minimize losses. It is now widely accepted that humans are not as logical as previously believed and that people often make decisions heuristically, in a nonlogical, effort-saving way that, although generally adaptive, is prone to certain kinds of errorsErrors that commonly result from heuristic processing when judged against normative standards have often been interpreted as indicating that analytical processing is superior to intuitive, heuristic processing (e.g., Kahneman et al., 198252. Kahneman, D.

, Slovic, P. and Tversky, A. 1982. Judgment under uncertainty , Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. View all references; Myers, 200262. Myers, D. G. 2002. Intuition, its powers and perils , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. View all references; Nisbett & Ross, 198064. Nisbett, R. and Ross, L. 1980. Human inference: strategies and shortcoming of social judgment , Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. View all references; Shermer, 199777. Shermer, M. 1997. Why people believe weird things , New York, NY: MJF Books.

View all references) and that it is therefore important to teach people to be more prone to engage in deliberative analytical reasoning and to be more adept at it (e.g., Hogarth, 200147. Hogarth, R. M. 2001. Educating intuition , Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. View all references; Kahneman et al., 198252. Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. and Tversky, A. 1982. Judgment under uncertainty , Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. View all references; Langer, 198957. Langer, E. J. 1989. Mindfulness , Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

View all references; Myers, 200262. Myers, D. G. 2002. Intuition, its powers and perils , New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. View all references; Nisbett, 199363. Nisbett, R. 1993. Rules of reasoning , Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. View all references).One problem with this conclusion is that there has not been sufficient research on failures in analytic reasoning to make a proper comparison with errors produced by heuristic thinking. It remains to be seen whether, if an equal amount of such research were done, it might be found that people are just as prone to make errors in their analytical reasoning as they make when responding by heuristic processing.

Another problem is with the use of normative standards as the only acceptable criterion for desirable performance. It is quite possible that many of the errors people make based on normative criteria are adaptive if judged by practical real-life behavior (see Gigerenzer, Todd, & the ABC Research Group, 199942. Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P. M. and ABC Research Group. 1999. Simple heuristics that make us smart , New York, NY: Oxford University Press. View all references, for a similar view and supporting research).

The Linda conjunction problem provides an interesting example of such responses. In responding to the Linda problem, participants typically rank the likelihood that Linda is a feminist and a bank teller as greater than the likelihood that she is just a feminist, thereby making a conjunction error, as two things can not be more likely than one of them. When we have pointed this out to such participants, some have defended their responses by stating that Linda has to make a living, so she cannot just be a feminist.

How serious an error is this? If one considers the practical implications of such thinking, it may actually be adaptive to take into account the importance of making a living. A person who is good at solving abstract problems but whose mind does not turn to practical concerns such as making a living may fare worse in real life than a person who illogically behaves in the opposite manner. Remember that the experiential/intuitive system developed in the course of evolution for its adaptive value, not for its ability to produce high scores on intelligence tests.

A further consideration is that the wording of a heuristic problem like the Linda problem makes it highly likely that people will view it as a personality problem on the basis of past experience with similarly worded problems. In other words, the problem is presented in a context in which people consider it to be a personality problem rather than a probability problem. The conclusion usually derived from such research is that a surprising number of people do not know the conjunction rule, one of the simplest rules in probability theory.

Yet, when we present the problem in a more realistic context, such as whether one is more likely to win two lotteries, one with much more favorable odds than the other, suddenly almost everyone knows the conjunction rule and states that it is less likely to win two lotteries than just one of them (Epstein et al., 199530. Epstein, S., Denes-Raj, V. and Pacini, R. 1995. The Linda problem revisited from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 11: 1124–1138.

[CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references).Another important problem concerning the conclusion that research on heuristic processing indicates a general superiority of the rational/analytic system over the intuitive/experiential system is that the research is very narrow in scope. As shown in the section on CEST, the experiential/intuitive system is superior to the rational/analytic system in several ways that do not require normative responses.In sum, although the research on heuristics has been important in making people aware of the nonrational processing in much of human decision making, the conclusion that it demonstrates a general superiority of analytical over intuitive processing is unwarranted.

An overview of the Advantages and Disadvantages of the Two SystemsAs the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems were previously discussed in the section on CEST it is necessary here only to briefly review the information that was presented. Among the advantages of the rational/analytic system it is the source of humankind's remarkable accomplishments that far surpass those of any other species, it allows people to think at high and complex levels of abstraction, to delay gratification for long periods, and to plan for the future.

As a result of the rational/analytic system's use of oral and written grammatical language information can be rapidly shared with people all over the world. Most important, by each generation builds on the discoveries of previous generations in an unending progression of knowledge, transmitting written information across generations, which is known as the ratchet effect.It was found with research on the REI that a rational/analytic thinking style is associated with a high level of intellectual performance and a variety of measures of good adjustment, including realistic thinking, high levels of self-esteem, a positive world view, and meaningfulness in one's life and with low levels of stress, depression, and anxiety.

It was also associated with conscientiousness, open-mindedness, and personal growth. On the negative side a rational/analytic thinking was significantly, albeit weakly, associated with a dismissive attachment style.Following are the advantages of experiential/intuitive processing: As a self-contained adaptive system it is a viable adaptive system by automatically learning from experience. It can solve problems with a level of intelligence probably slightly more advanced than that of a chimpanzee.

It can direct everyday behavior automatically and efficiently with minimal cognitive effort. In addition, an experiential/thinking style is associated with favorable interpersonal relationships, social popularity, agreeableness, empathy, spontaneity, emotional expressiveness, a good sense of esthetics, a good sense of humor, creativity, open-mindedness, and personal growth. On the negative side, although the experiential/intuitive system could, by itself, sustain life, it would do so in a manner that would fall far short of providing normal human behavior.

Also, an experiential/intuitive thinking style, if uncorrected by the rational/analytic system, is associated with naïve optimism, Polyannaish thinking, stereotyped thinking, unusual and unrealistic beliefs, and superstitious beliefs.Now, considering the preceding information, which system would you choose if you could choose only one? Not an easy decision, for how does one weigh intelligence against empathy, adjustment against creativity, self-esteem against secure relationships? Fortunately, there is no need to choose between the two styles of thinking.

As they are independent, you can be high on both, low on both, or high on one and low on the other. The best resolution, of course, is to cultivate the best features of both.Summary and ConclusionsJump to sectionWhat Is Intuition? How Should It Be Defined?Eight Unresolved Problems Regarding.CEST: A Dual-Process Theory That Provides.Conclusions Regarding Intuition and the.Resolving the Eight Unresolved Problems.Summary and ConclusionsBy anchoring intuition within the framework of a global theory of personality referred to as CEST, it was demonstrated that eight controversial issues concerning intuition could be coherently resolved.

In doing so, CEST was able to demystify intuition by noting that it is nothing more and something less than the experiential system of CEST. This is so because although both systems operate in an identical manner the range of content in the experiential/intuitive system is narrower. Their operating system is an associative learning system that humans share with other animals that operates in a manner that is associative, intimately associated with affect, automatic, and nonverbal among its other rules of operation and processing attributes.

Its operation is the source of the intuition that is acquired by automatically learning from experience outside of awareness. Another source of intuition, referred to as preadaptation, uses the same principles and attributes of associatively learning from experience to arrive at impressions unrelated to past experience.Humans also process information with a verbal reasoning system, referred to in CEST as the rational/analytic system. Both systems are adaptive, but in different ways, and neither system is generally superior to the other as each has unique strengths and limitations.

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