Posted on 08/29/2007 12:30:22 AM PDT by neverdem
Two years ago, when Malcolm Gladwell published his best-selling “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” readers throughout the world were introduced to the ideas of Gerd Gigerenzer, a German social psychologist.
Dr. Gigerenzer, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, is known in social science circles for his breakthrough studies on the nature of intuitive thinking. Before his research, this was a topic often dismissed as crazed superstition. Dr. Gigerenzer, 59, was able to show how aspects of intuition work and how ordinary people successfully use it in modern life.
And now he has written his own book, “Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious,” which he hopes will sell as well as “Blink.” “I liked Gladwell’s book,” Dr. Gigerenzer said during a visit to New York City last month. “He’s popularized the issue, including my research.”
Q: O.K., let’s start with basics: what is a gut feeling?
A: It’s a judgment that is fast. It comes quickly into a person’s consciousness. The person doesn’t know why they have this feeling. Yet, this is strong enough to make an individual act on it. What a gut instinct is not is a calculation. You do not fully know where it comes from.
My research indicates that gut feelings are based on simple rules of thumb, what we psychologists term “heuristics.” These take advantage of certain capacities of the brain that have come down to us through time, experience and evolution. Gut instincts often rely on simple cues in the environment. In most situations, when people use their instincts, they are heeding these cues and ignoring other unnecessary information.
Q: In modern society, gut thinking has a bad reputation. Why is that?
A: It is not thought to be rational...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Well I hate to say this, but my gut feeling says that 1,000 social psychologists would only be a little more credible than the first 1,000 work at home opportunities that could be found on the internet.
This is just women’s intuition!
Girl-think, LOL!
Men have gut feelings and women have intuition.
It takes women about thirty seconds to read other women.
It takes men about thirty seconds to read other men.
Unfortunately, it takes years for each sex to read the other.
You take care...
He seemed pretty smart to me.
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It takes men about thirty seconds to read other men.
Unfortunately, it takes years for each sex to read the other.
LOL, classic!
Thanks. You take care...
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