During the course of our lives we have to make very complicated decisions. Some decisions are made after weeks of deliberation e.g. what university to attend, whereas others have to be made on the spot e.g. how we react when if someone starts shouting at us. Some people have to make on-the-spot decisions much more often. Surgeons have to make potentially life-saving decisions in seconds and fire fighters have to decide which route is the safest option. Less dramatically, we all have to decide what to do at the weekend and what deals are best for us at the supermarket.
When time is in short supply and decisions have to be made, is it better to go with your gut feeling or to use whatever time you do have to try and reason it out?
A new study by Mikels et al. (2011) tried to figure out the answer to this question, and claims to have found that following your gut instinct creates the best outcome. However, the validity of this study is something to be questioned.
In the experiment, participants (a low number of 76) who were all undergraduates (making it impossible to generalise results) were given information about four hypothetical cars. The information was presented one attribute at a time (serially) and in random order for 4 seconds per attribute. Each attribute was positive (e.g., “gets good gas mileage”) or negative (e.g., “gets poor gas mileage”). The options were designed such that one car (the “best” option) had 75% positive attributes, two cars had 50% positive attributes, and one car had 25% positive attributes. Before reading the information about the options, participants were instructed to attend to, and base their decision on, either their feelings about the options or the details about the options. The results showed that using the emotions led to much better outcomes. In one of the studies the number of participants getting the right answer went up from only 26% in the detail-focused condition to 68% in the feeling-focused condition.
However, just because the participant was instructed to use their feelings or reasoning to select the best car, it does not mean that they did. If an individual is naturally a reasoning person who does not generally involve feelings in making decisions they are not going to change just because a researcher is telling them to. There is a higher correct result for those told to base their decision on feelings, but this could just be because they are not trying to figure it out so much. The participants told to use reasoning may have felt under more pressure to come up with the correct answer causing them to try and absorb more information and becoming stressed which can inhibit memory (JW Newcomer, 1999).
Mikels claims to have found evidence that it is better to use your gut instinct when making decisions, but the method is flawed and the results can not be generalised therefore more research in this area needs to be done.
libbyayres 
Really interesting blog, I always believe that going with your gut instinct, or “following your heart” is one of the best ways to make a decision. When a hunch is there, I believe in that short period of time you have no other option but to go with what your body is telling you. Dunn (2011) found that the advice given by the body can vary, and when incorrect it could hinder their decision making. Dunn (2011) found a stronger link between gut feelings and intuitive decision making in people who were aware of their own heartbeat, this there links with the well-known saying “listen to your heart”. Furthermore Dunn (2011) found that what the body is saying does influence us, but we have to be careful as our body is not always right, so we should be careful when using our gut instinct.
I therefore agree with you that further research is needed in this area, but until then I will continue to use my gut instinct, it is yet to do me wrong!
Association for Psychological Science (2011, January 4). Trust your gut … but only sometimes. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 7,
More research definitely needs to be done on this subject as this is a very interesting subject. Mikels research definitely has to many flaws with it for it to be used as evidence supporting the claim that using your gut instinct is better for decision making. I often go against my gut instinct when having to decision make because i feel as though ive rushed into a decision to quickly and i dont think that it would be as effective. However as you have wrote many people have to use their gut instinct in daily tasks such as surgeons and fire fighters. It is these decision that lead me to think that maybe using our gut instinct does help us as it obviously what we thought would be the best thing to do at the time and we didnt have to stop and ponder over it. However i would definitely like to see further research into this topic as i would like to see whether gut instinct actually is the best way to make decisions.
I completely agree with you on the fact that the study was not valid. As someone who prefers reasoning to instinct choosing the sensible option has become second nature in a way. For example when asked “Which car gets the best gas mileage?” then the smallest piece of information about the cars, such as it’s weight or size or even a picture of the car would change the answers of the participants who prefer reasoning. They would know that the smaller the car the less petrol it would need to drive forward, and this reasoning may only take a second and would be extremely difficult for the participant to stop. If the participants use reasoning to decide, then the study is not valid.
I also agree that the this study was not very generalisable due to the low number of participants but also due to the method, as you stated. The gut feeling, can possibly be defined differently by varying individuals hence some participants might think it is connected to intuition, others might think it is the first thing you thought, here the first car. Therefore the emotions that are considered to be the gut feeling need to be clearly defined first in order to have enough control to test the subjects proberly.