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The problem, however, is that it is very difficult for an unconscious guess to become part of consciousness. Our entire culture is built on the priority of conscious perception over the unconscious. “Measure seven times - cut once”, “In a hurry, you will make people laugh”, “They meet by their clothes - they see them off by their minds,” they teach the proverbs. We are used to trusting balanced, deliberate, well-grounded judgments, and not intuition and vague inner forebodings. To listen to your inner voice in a critical situation requires a certain amount of courage. Nevertheless, we regularly find that instant judgments and impressions “at first sight” are as accurate as inferences based on careful and thoughtful analysis. The main problem with intuition is how to distinguish situations in which it is better to listen to the inner voice,
The relationship of each married couple is as individual as a person's handwriting. We can distinguish the handwritings of different people at first glance, but it would take a long time to rigorously describe these differences. When we observe the communication of two people from the outside, our unconscious makes a thin cut of their emotional state and instantly determines what is more in this communication - sincere sympathy for each other or contempt.
The unconscious knows how to remarkably tenaciously notice important little things that elude consciousness. In the 1980s, a remarkable incident occurred at the Getty Museum, California's largest art museum. The museum acquired an ancient Greek statue of a youth athlete from the 6th century BC. Some of the experts immediately expressed doubts about its authenticity, but they did not manage to substantiate this doubt. Something elusive distinguished this statue from analogs known to scientists. The controversy escalated further when further scientific research suggested that the statue might be an artificially aged modern fake. As a result, the scientific community recognized that the intuition of art historians and archaeologists turned out to be more reliable than the data of X-ray and spectrometry.
The astounding effectiveness of the psychological mechanism of thin slices can also manifest itself in a situation where a company is hiring a new employee. How to determine how disciplined and responsible this person is, can you trust him, is he ready to work in a team? Finding answers to these questions would be helped by a long-term close observation of the candidate's behavior. However, scientists have found that no less accurate conclusions can be made by casting a glance at the room in which this person lives. It turns out that the first person we meet is often personality to grasp the peculiarities of our better than the friends and relatives with whom we have been in contact for many years.
In another series of experiments, the priming effect was demonstrated using the example of the ability of people to solve a quiz. Before participating in a game, one group of subjects was asked to reflect on what it means to be a professor, and another - a football fan. As a result, the participants of the first answered correctly 55.6% of the questions, the participants of the second - by 42.6%. A similar sharp decline in intellectual ability was noted in an experiment with black students who were reminded of their race before taking the test. It is curious that none of the subjects in this experiment was able to understand why they coped with the task much worse than usual. However, if racial and social stereotypes are able to influence our consciousness so strongly, then suspicion inevitably arises,
An illustrative example of how intuition failed not an individual, but a multi-million dollar country is the story of how Warren Harding was elected president of the United States in 1921. He was a tall, attractive man with an aristocratic appearance and noble manners. At the sight of him, the image of Julius Caesar at the zenith of fame appeared in the head of many. For his good looks, Harding, a former provincial newspaper editor, first became a senator and later won the Republican presidential election. However, in countries such as the United States, the first thing a politician is required is not an imposing appearance, but intellectual abilities. With them, as it turned out later, Harding had problems. Before becoming president, he was only interested in playing golf and women: this was clearly not enough, to shape America ' s foreign and domestic policy. According to historians, Harding was one of the worst presidents in the history of the country. This incident clearly laid bare the reason why ordinary mediocrities sometimes find themselves in high positions in the state.
The peculiarities of instant conclusions can sometimes lead to consequences much more tragic than the choice of an unsuccessful president. In 1999, in one of the poorest neighborhoods of New York, late at night, a patrol of four police officers spotted a 22-year-old black boy standing on his doorstep. His behavior looked suspicious, and they came closer. The young man decided that they were robbers and ran into the house, and the police, who were wearing civilian clothes, chased after. When it seemed to them that he was taking a pistol out of his pocket (it was later revealed that it was a wallet that he intended to give to the alleged robbers), they opened fire and shot him. These cops were not racist. Late night, poor neighborhood, running black man - it all came together in the perception of the police in this way,
Specific biases associated with intuitive cognition go far beyond the usual stereotypes of perception. For example, how can one explain the fact that most directors of large American corporations are white men, on average 180 cm tall? The proportion of men of this growth in the US population is 14.5%, and among directors of Fortune 500 companies - 58%. High growth most often causes a number of positive unconscious associations in others, and tall men often get an advantage over short ones. Studying the personal incomes of Americans, scientists found that men with a height of 182 cm on average earn $ 5287 more per year than those with a height of 162 cm growth!
Professional trained intuition chooses only the main thing from what you need to know about a particular situation. There is a known case when the commander of the crew who arrived at the fire entered a burning house and, sensing something was wrong, ordered the firefighters to urgently go out into the street. A few seconds later, the floor in the house collapsed - it turned out that a fire was raging in the basement as well. If the firefighter began to rationally analyze what exactly caused him anxiety, then he and all his subordinates would die. The work of intuition can be illustrated by the well-known analogy with a centipede, which could not move after thinking about the order in which to rearrange its legs.
Marketers have also found that if you make the color of the 7 Up soda label a little more yellow, customers begin to taste it as a lemon. Ice cream in round bars tastes better than the same ice cream in briquettes, and you can ask for a higher price for it. Modern marketing methods are largely aimed at creating a profitable first impression of customers on products for manufacturers.
The accuracy of instantaneous perception is based on all previous human experience. A professional taster is able to describe the taste of food or drink samples by several tens of parameters, and after that his perception will remain the same fresh and sharp. We can all easily distinguish the taste of apple from the taste of pear, but only an experienced taster can describe exactly what this difference is. Scientists have found that it is incredibly difficult for an unprepared person to distinguish even Coca-Cola from Pepsi-Cola by taste. To do this, it is necessary to be able to record instant impressions for their subsequent comparison. In order for the unconscious to make its instant and accurate verdict that the antique statue is a modern fake.
- Unconscious inferences are often much faster and more accurate than the conclusions of rational thinking.
- The information that people provide about themselves is often confusing and distracting from the main features of their personality.
- A person is not only unable to form his unconscious attitudes - in most cases he is not even aware of them.
- In some situations it is better to obey your intuition, in others - to the voices of reason.
- An uncritical perception of intuitive decisions can create serious problems, up to the choice of an ordinary person as president of a country.
- For a modern businessman, getting rid of the power of unconscious stereotypes is a vital necessity.
- The more options there are, the more difficult it is to make it.
- The ability to draw quick and correct conclusions based on the first impression lends itself to development no worse than logical thinking.
- Features of intuitive perception formed the basis of many methods of modern marketing.
- The accuracy of intuitive insight is based on the entire previous life and professional experience of a person.
Summary
The magic of illumination
Imagine a situation in which we need to very quickly analyze a huge array of important information. When the brain, unable to cope with the load, begins to work in a stress mode, a special kind of perception turns on. At some point, we are suddenly visited by a vague guess, and we begin to realize the meaning of everything that needs to be understood. This is how the “adaptive unconscious” works - the most powerful computer built into our psyche. Thanks to the work of this computer, we have the ability to instantly and without hesitation make decisions in critical situations, with very little information at our disposal. We do many of our actions in obedience to intuitive conclusions, which we come to at the first glance at a person, thing or situation.The problem, however, is that it is very difficult for an unconscious guess to become part of consciousness. Our entire culture is built on the priority of conscious perception over the unconscious. “Measure seven times - cut once”, “In a hurry, you will make people laugh”, “They meet by their clothes - they see them off by their minds,” they teach the proverbs. We are used to trusting balanced, deliberate, well-grounded judgments, and not intuition and vague inner forebodings. To listen to your inner voice in a critical situation requires a certain amount of courage. Nevertheless, we regularly find that instant judgments and impressions “at first sight” are as accurate as inferences based on careful and thoughtful analysis. The main problem with intuition is how to distinguish situations in which it is better to listen to the inner voice,
Thin slices of perception
It is difficult for an uninitiated person to believe how accurate the instant judgments of our unconscious can be. For example, physiological scientists from the University of Washington have shown empirically that observing a married couple discussing a routine problem can predict with surprising accuracy whether these people will be together in 15 years. To determine this, it turned out to be enough to observe the spouses for only three minutes. It is as if the human brain makes a thin slice of the situation, which it instantly analyzes based on the experience.The relationship of each married couple is as individual as a person's handwriting. We can distinguish the handwritings of different people at first glance, but it would take a long time to rigorously describe these differences. When we observe the communication of two people from the outside, our unconscious makes a thin cut of their emotional state and instantly determines what is more in this communication - sincere sympathy for each other or contempt.
The unconscious knows how to remarkably tenaciously notice important little things that elude consciousness. In the 1980s, a remarkable incident occurred at the Getty Museum, California's largest art museum. The museum acquired an ancient Greek statue of a youth athlete from the 6th century BC. Some of the experts immediately expressed doubts about its authenticity, but they did not manage to substantiate this doubt. Something elusive distinguished this statue from analogs known to scientists. The controversy escalated further when further scientific research suggested that the statue might be an artificially aged modern fake. As a result, the scientific community recognized that the intuition of art historians and archaeologists turned out to be more reliable than the data of X-ray and spectrometry.
The astounding effectiveness of the psychological mechanism of thin slices can also manifest itself in a situation where a company is hiring a new employee. How to determine how disciplined and responsible this person is, can you trust him, is he ready to work in a team? Finding answers to these questions would be helped by a long-term close observation of the candidate's behavior. However, scientists have found that no less accurate conclusions can be made by casting a glance at the room in which this person lives. It turns out that the first person we meet is often personality to grasp the peculiarities of our better than the friends and relatives with whom we have been in contact for many years.
Priming effect
The analogy with the computer is also suitable for describing the mechanism of momentary judgments also because this internal computer is easy to program. Psychologists from New York University have set up several experiments that clearly demonstrate the phenomenon of unconscious programming. In one of them, the subject was asked to study a text in which the words "decrepitude", "wilting", "gray hair" and "loneliness" were often repeated. After completing the task, the person's gait became slower and unstable: the subject's “internal computer” was immersed in thoughts about old age. In exactly the same way, it turned out to be possible to tune a person, completely without his knowledge, to aggression or, conversely, to politeness and tolerance. Unconscious programming of this kind is known as priming.In another series of experiments, the priming effect was demonstrated using the example of the ability of people to solve a quiz. Before participating in a game, one group of subjects was asked to reflect on what it means to be a professor, and another - a football fan. As a result, the participants of the first answered correctly 55.6% of the questions, the participants of the second - by 42.6%. A similar sharp decline in intellectual ability was noted in an experiment with black students who were reminded of their race before taking the test. It is curious that none of the subjects in this experiment was able to understand why they coped with the task much worse than usual. However, if racial and social stereotypes are able to influence our consciousness so strongly, then suspicion inevitably arises,
Captured by the unconscious
With all the effectiveness of the work of the "adaptive unconscious", which is able to make thin slices of perception and instantly capture the most important information, the peculiarities of the structure of this part of the psyche sometimes cause negative consequences for a person. The “internal computer” of intuition is easily reprogrammed under the influence of external influences, but often we are not able to recognize situations when we need to listen to the timid voice of reason and be critical of the persistent prompts of the internal “prompter” ... Sometimes this failure leads to fatal mistakes.An illustrative example of how intuition failed not an individual, but a multi-million dollar country is the story of how Warren Harding was elected president of the United States in 1921. He was a tall, attractive man with an aristocratic appearance and noble manners. At the sight of him, the image of Julius Caesar at the zenith of fame appeared in the head of many. For his good looks, Harding, a former provincial newspaper editor, first became a senator and later won the Republican presidential election. However, in countries such as the United States, the first thing a politician is required is not an imposing appearance, but intellectual abilities. With them, as it turned out later, Harding had problems. Before becoming president, he was only interested in playing golf and women: this was clearly not enough, to shape America ' s foreign and domestic policy. According to historians, Harding was one of the worst presidents in the history of the country. This incident clearly laid bare the reason why ordinary mediocrities sometimes find themselves in high positions in the state.
The peculiarities of instant conclusions can sometimes lead to consequences much more tragic than the choice of an unsuccessful president. In 1999, in one of the poorest neighborhoods of New York, late at night, a patrol of four police officers spotted a 22-year-old black boy standing on his doorstep. His behavior looked suspicious, and they came closer. The young man decided that they were robbers and ran into the house, and the police, who were wearing civilian clothes, chased after. When it seemed to them that he was taking a pistol out of his pocket (it was later revealed that it was a wallet that he intended to give to the alleged robbers), they opened fire and shot him. These cops were not racist. Late night, poor neighborhood, running black man - it all came together in the perception of the police in this way,
Specific biases associated with intuitive cognition go far beyond the usual stereotypes of perception. For example, how can one explain the fact that most directors of large American corporations are white men, on average 180 cm tall? The proportion of men of this growth in the US population is 14.5%, and among directors of Fortune 500 companies - 58%. High growth most often causes a number of positive unconscious associations in others, and tall men often get an advantage over short ones. Studying the personal incomes of Americans, scientists found that men with a height of 182 cm on average earn $ 5287 more per year than those with a height of 162 cm growth!
Intuition as an economy of thinking
How can you protect yourself from mistakes, but at the same time make full use of the power and speed of unconscious thinking? Freeing yourself from the power of subconscious bias and stereotypes is especially important in business. A client in dusty work clothes could be a billionaire, and a fragile blonde could be the head of an international corporation. The first thing to remember in order to make intuitive decisions quickly and accurately is the need to restrict the information going to the brain. Unconscious perception is easily distorted by information noise. An experiment was carried out in one of the California supermarkets: in the first tasting booth, visitors were exposed to six varieties of jam, and in the second - twenty-six. As a result, it turned out that the jam was purchased by 30% of visitors to the first booth and only 3% to the second. Turns out,Professional trained intuition chooses only the main thing from what you need to know about a particular situation. There is a known case when the commander of the crew who arrived at the fire entered a burning house and, sensing something was wrong, ordered the firefighters to urgently go out into the street. A few seconds later, the floor in the house collapsed - it turned out that a fire was raging in the basement as well. If the firefighter began to rationally analyze what exactly caused him anxiety, then he and all his subordinates would die. The work of intuition can be illustrated by the well-known analogy with a centipede, which could not move after thinking about the order in which to rearrange its legs.
Experience Marketing
A person's intuitive experience can be manipulated profitably. Outstanding marketing scientist Luis Cheskin has demonstrated how to do this. In the 1940s, he was involved in the marketing of margarine: it was thanks to him that margarine began to compete on an equal footing with butter in American supermarkets. Cheskin found that shoppers tend to transfer the experience of product packaging to the product itself. Margarine, tinted yellow and wrapped in foil with a large crown and the inscription “Imperial Margarine”, was perceived by consumers in a completely different way than the same product in its “natural” nondescript form. Customers even claimed that the first margarine tasted completely different!Marketers have also found that if you make the color of the 7 Up soda label a little more yellow, customers begin to taste it as a lemon. Ice cream in round bars tastes better than the same ice cream in briquettes, and you can ask for a higher price for it. Modern marketing methods are largely aimed at creating a profitable first impression of customers on products for manufacturers.
The accuracy of instantaneous perception is based on all previous human experience. A professional taster is able to describe the taste of food or drink samples by several tens of parameters, and after that his perception will remain the same fresh and sharp. We can all easily distinguish the taste of apple from the taste of pear, but only an experienced taster can describe exactly what this difference is. Scientists have found that it is incredibly difficult for an unprepared person to distinguish even Coca-Cola from Pepsi-Cola by taste. To do this, it is necessary to be able to record instant impressions for their subsequent comparison. In order for the unconscious to make its instant and accurate verdict that the antique statue is a modern fake.
