{"id":821,"date":"2019-09-01T12:28:14","date_gmt":"2019-09-01T16:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=821"},"modified":"2022-03-04T16:38:58","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T20:38:58","slug":"intuitive-decision-making-adaptive-unconscious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/intuitive-decision-making-adaptive-unconscious\/","title":{"rendered":"Intuitive Decision Making: The Secret to Life Success?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is intuitive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/integrative-decision-making\/\">decision making<\/a>? What is the adaptive unconscious? How can I use the adaptive unconscious to make the best decisions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn why snap judgments and your adaptive unconscious may be the most useful tool in your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/methods-of-decision-making-crucial-conversations\/\">decision-making<\/a> toolbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Use the Adaptive Unconscious for Effective Intuitive Decision Making&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/intuitive-thinking-2\/\">Unconscious thinking<\/a> is variously known as the <strong>adaptive unconscious, intuition, <\/strong>and making <strong>snap judgments<\/strong>. When we think unconsciously, we make decisions without understanding why, or even realizing we\u2019ve made them. This is intuitive decision making, also known as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/unconscious-decision-making\/\">unconscious decision making<\/a>.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Pros of Intuitive Decision Making<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Intuitive decision making can lead to good decisions.<\/li><li>It\u2019s quick, taking mere seconds.<\/li><li>It\u2019s sophisticated, efficient, and filters irrelevant information for you.<\/li><li>It\u2019s generally more effective under stress than conscious thinking.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Cons of Intuitive Decision Making<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The process of intuitive decision making is mysterious. We often have no idea how we know what we know, or how we arrived at a decision. This can be frustrating and lead to unhelpful, or even detrimental, rationalizing.<\/li><li>It requires that we be aware of our feelings, since these are the unconscious mind\u2019s language of communication.<\/li><li>We have to learn to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/trust-your-intuition-trust-your-instincts-trust-your-gut\/\">trust our instincts<\/a>, and that\u2019s hard.<\/li><li>We also have to learn <em>when <\/em>to trust our instincts. Our unconscious minds can malfunction due to time pressures or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/implicit-gender-bias-gender-roles-in-society\/\">deeply held biases<\/a>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>We know when we\u2019re thinking consciously, developing a theory and weighing the pros and cons. But we often don\u2019t know when our adaptive unconscious is working in intuitive decision making, and it\u2019s working all the time. <strong>It\u2019s like a quiet computer processing all the information that keeps us functioning but that would take too long to process consciously.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While both conscious and intuitive decision making have benefits, we assume that conscious thinking is better. The following example shows that <strong>the adaptive unconscious and intuitive decision making can be just as good as, or better than, conscious thinking.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Example of Intuitive Decision Making: Rating a Professor<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes, the adaptive unconscious is just as good as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-subconscious\/\">the conscious mind<\/a> at assessing someone\u2019s competence.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A psychologist compared two sets of ratings of college professors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Set #1:<\/strong> These ratings came from students who took a <strong>full semester of classes<\/strong> with the professor. These students had the time and experience to use their conscious minds to rate the professor.<\/li><li><strong>Set #2: <\/strong>These ratings came from students who watched a <strong>two-second video clip of the professor, with the sound off<\/strong>. They had no other experience with the professor. These students didn\u2019t have the time or experience to use their conscious minds to rate the professor. Consequently, they had to use their unconscious minds, or intuitions.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Results:<\/strong> The ratings from both sets were astonishingly similar. We can make a judgment about a teacher\u2019s competence after two seconds, and that judgment will likely be very close to the judgment of someone who spends an entire semester in that teacher\u2019s class. One advantage of intuitive decision making, or unconscious decision making, is that it takes less time than conscious decision making.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Advantages of <\/strong>Intuitive Decision Making<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to being speedy, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snap-decisions\/\">snap decisions<\/a> are unconscious. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-unconscious-mind\/\">unconscious mind<\/a> handles all the minor bits of information thrown at us every day. <strong>This frees up the conscious mind to focus on problems that need our deliberate attention.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Ventromedial Damage<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Scientists can see how much work the adaptive unconscious does by observing people with brain damage to the ventromedial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-does-the-prefrontal-cortex-do-in-the-brain\/\">prefrontal cortex<\/a>. This is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-are-the-regions-of-the-brain\/\">area of the brain<\/a> used for intuitive decision making, or unconscious decision making.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People with ventromedial damage can\u2019t make snap judgments. Their unconscious minds don\u2019t prioritize information for them. They give equal weight to minor and major details when making a decision. Consequently, they can make decisions, but they do it extremely slowly, due to the inability to tune out distracting information. They&#8217;re unable to utilize intuitive decision making.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, people with ventromedial damage have trouble turning decisions into actions. Without the aid of the adaptive unconscious, they\u2019re highly rational thinkers and don\u2019t involve their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/emotions-in-decision-making\/\">emotions in decision making<\/a>. This seems like a good thing. We\u2019re often told to leave our emotions out of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/rational-decision-making-process\/\">decision-making process<\/a>. But <strong>we need an emotional push to get from decisions to actions.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without emotion, we may know something is bad for us, but we\u2019ll keep doing it anyway. Especially in stressful situations, emotion (which often comes from the unconscious) gives us the nudge we need to act on decisions.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In summary, <strong>if we didn\u2019t have an unconscious mind to prioritize information for us, we\u2019d weigh <em>every<\/em> detail<\/strong>, relevant or not, before coming to a decision. Further, the resulting decision may not be the best decision, because it likely wouldn\u2019t be based on the most important information. We <em>need<\/em> the process of intuitive decision making.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just as critical, if we didn\u2019t have an unconscious mind, we may not have the emotional push to act on a decision once we\u2019d made it. <strong>The adaptive unconscious does a lot of heavy lifting to make smart, actionable decisions.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is intuitive decision making? What is the adaptive unconscious? How can I use the adaptive unconscious to make the best decisions? Learn why snap judgments and your adaptive unconscious may be the most useful tool in your decision-making toolbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","tag-blink","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Intuitive Decision Making: The Secret to Life Success? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Intuitive decision making is making decisions through snap judgments. 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