Professor Joel Pearson from the School of Psychology at the UNSW Sydney and his team discovered a way to measure and define what exactly intuition is, in a new, objective and reliable way.
Through a variety of techniques, participants of the study were shown images of a snake or a spider. The image was then hidden outside of their awareness so that they don’t see the image, yet the emotional part of the brain remained active, responding to the image. Participants would demonstrate this brain activity through physical reactions such as an increased heart rate and sweat, and other physiological phenomena. That ultimately means that even when you’re not consciously aware of something, your mind is.
So what does Prof. Pearson have to say about intuition, why we should trust it, and how to use it?
SMILE!
Assembled by Prof. Pearson, the acronym “SMILE” contains five tips to help you harness your intuition:
S โ Self-awareness. Emotion. Never use your intuition if you’re feeling emotional: this applies to both positive and negative emotions.
M โ Mastery. Because intuition is based on learning, and learning is context specific, only use intuition for things which you have experience in/on. An example put together by Prof. Pearson explains that if you’re playing your first ever match of tennis, you cannot trust your intuition to determine the outcome of the game or the results of your next step. This is because it is a new experience, so it’s best to go through the game based on logical expertise (what your coach taught you) to help your brain develop connections between the possible good and/or bad outcomes during the match.
I โ Instincts & addiction. Where intuition is a learned adaptation, instinct is a primal adaptation that we are born with: it is important to avoid using the two interchangeably. An example of instinct used in this context and explained by Prof. Pearson would be similar to that of a baby spitting out a slice of lemon, instinctively. This was not a learned or intuitive process, but rather an instinctual one where the body naturally rejects something.
Prof. Pearson’s studies have also determined that addiction (in this case, addiction to alcohol, gambling, social media) can be interchangeably confused for intuition. It’s not recommended to use intuition for primal brain urges such as the aforementioned ones, because craving/addiction gives you a “natural internal feeling to do something”, which can mess with our internal perception system, “interoception.”
Before moving forward: definition time!
Interoception: a collection of senses providing information to our organism about the internal system of the body. It is responsible for fending off anxiety and regulating emotions, to name a few, which ultimately gives us the ability to express how we are feeling at any given moment. Ex: “I’m hungry” or “I’m sad”.
L โ Low probability. Don’t use your intuition for anything surrounding numbers or probabilities! Studies have shown that “When we use our feelings and emotions to judge probability, we can’t process numbers, and we tend to misjudge them.”
E โ Environment. Going back to the fact that intuition is based on learning, and learning is context-specific, it’s crucial that we only use intuition in familiar contexts and environments.
Intuition is often used in sports, business, and leadership contexts. In a sports context, athletes require the ability to make rapid decisions without understanding the probabilities of said outcome: their decision has a time limit, so the decision is almost always intuition-based.
It’s similar for someone in a leadership position as well. People in these positions often have to make decisions with little information or ambiguity, which is where intuition becomes handy. Moreover, it’s useful in situations such as meeting new people: that “gut feeling” you get is often your brain either warning you of danger or allowing you to understand that this experience can benefit you. Never ignore what your gut is telling you.
Practice your intuition in small steps
Practice SMILE until tapping into your intuition and unconscious mind becomes natural. Note whether you’re feeling positive or negative about a certain experience and jot it down. Over time, this practice will not only boost your decision accuracy and confidence, but it will help you explore the art of making rapid decisions with less information in an ever-changing and uncertain world.