Any psychologist would confirm that the subconscious plays an important role in major decisions. This insight is not new to most people, because almost everyone knows the somewhat indefinable “gut feeling”, that intuition that is often felt when it comes to important decisions. In the meantime, it has been scientifically proven: Careful consideration is not always the right way to go, because thinking too long overtaxes the brain. And: listening to your feelings is vital.
Sleep on it overnight
As the journal Science wrote in its February 17, 2006 issue, a team of psychologists led by Ap Dijksterhuis of the University of Amsterdam found in experiments with test subjects that when making complex decisions such as buying a car, you don’t need a ton of facts and information to arrive at the right decision. If one goes about one’s normal daily business, does not give the purchase any further thought, sleeps on it for a night and now makes the decision, the decision is almost always satisfactory. In contrast, conscious deliberation is useful when it comes to smaller decisions, such as which hair dryer to buy. This could be proven both under laboratory conditions and in real life. The researchers assume that the human subconscious has a higher capacity to integrate more information, which ultimately leads to better decisions. For simple things like hair dryers, it only takes a few facts – wattage, power consumption and weight, for example – to gather the information needed to make a choice.
Subconscious, intuition – what is it?
An “aha” moment, the bright idea, the sure feeling, the right nose – all this is behind the terms subconscious and intuition. The subconscious is the colloquial version of the unconscious, a term coined by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. According to Freud, the unconscious is a system consisting primarily of repressed content not admitted by the conscious mind and subject to its own laws. Intuition comes from the Latin “intueor” and means “to consider, to ponder something”. Intuition is an intuition that arises from the unconscious. Swiss psychologist Maja Storch writes: “Recent research in the field of neuroscience shows that, in addition to the rational decision-making system associated with conscious processes, humans also have a decision-making system associated with feelings and physical sensations.” Intuition, she said, is superior to the rational decision-making system in complex situations that involve many variables. Maja Storch has been studying the influence of feelings on decision making at the University of Zurich.
The rational human being – reason decisions vs. gut decisions
We have learned from an early age to be “reasonable,” to act thoughtfully, to think rationally. The findings of brain research show, however, that feelings are essential for survival when we act, because feelings continuously evaluate the experiences we have. A good experience means being able to do something again, a bad experience means avoiding. Maja Storch comments, “So every brain has its own personal Stiftung Warentest, so to speak!” Motivational psychologists have found that only those decisions have a real chance of being translated into action that are accompanied by a strong positive feeling. The Portuguese neurologist Antonio R. Damasio, head of the neurology department at the University of Iowa, convincingly explains the fundamental role emotions play in “rational” human behavior: A person whose emotional and social behavior is disrupted by brain injury is no longer capable of making so-called rational decisions. Damasio coined the term “somatic markers,” a bodily signaling system. Somatic markers direct our attention to whether a contemplated solution really “feels good.” Intuition, then, is largely fed by our memories, sensations, and sensations. We are constantly learning, but we are not aware of the learning process. What we have learned is then available to us when the opportunity arises, as if out of the blue. In this way, we often arrive automatically and quickly at important solutions even to everyday problems that seem banal.Experts, such as doctors, arrive at particularly good intuitive solutions thanks to their wealth of experience. “When we think and act intuitively, we often need only a very small amount of facts or information to reach a judgment or make a decision. “, wrote Heiko Ernst in “Psychology Today” (March 2003) – this corresponds to what the Amsterdam psychologists found.
The “gut brain” – emotions from the digestive tract.
So the fact that the gut plays a decisive role is not only said by the vernacular: “Decide from the gut” is one of the most common phrases when you seem to decide spontaneously. The fact is that there is a network of nerves in the abdominal region that controls the brain to a certain extent. The American neuroscientist Michael Gershon, head of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Columbia University in New York, is considered the discoverer of the “abdominal brain.” Specifically, this refers to the digestive tract. It has more than 100 million nerve cells – more than are found in the entire spinal cord. And far more nerve cords lead from the abdomen to the brain than vice versa. 90 percent of the connections run from the bottom to the top. This “second brain,” neuroscientists have discovered, is a mirror image of the head brain – cell types, active substances and receptors are exactly the same. Scientists at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover stimulated living nerve cells from the abdominal region of animals with electricity and chemical substances. They found that the “abdominal brain” can also store memories, because it uses the same messenger substances as the head brain and is in constant communication with it. The sensations and reactions of the abdominal brain are permanently reported to 90 percent to the head brain, where they are stored and evaluated in a specific area. The exchange of information from the head brain towards the abdomen, on the other hand, is very low, only ten percent. After all that we know, the question arises: Are those decisions that we make “from the gut” the best ones? Should we listen more to our feelings instead of our intellect? But this would be a wrong, because one-sided conclusion. Intuitive messages or somatic markers “are unlikely to be sufficient for normal human decision-making processes,” warns Antonio R. Damasio. According to him, somatic markers facilitate and improve decisions, but they do not take away our thinking. “They help us think by putting some (dangerous or favorable) choices in perspective.” Between reason and intuition, between gut feelings and rational deliberation, “there is a close partnership,” Damasio says.
Tips for everyday life
Intuition, then, can be important for making important decisions, and there’s no harm in opening yourself up to it. Ang Lee and Theodor Seifert, in their book Intuition, describe the method used by mathematician Henri Poincaré: there are four stages to go through when seeking the solution to a problem.
- Preparation – one first deals extensively with the task or problem, actively seeks solutions and also examines the ethical and moral guidelines.
- Incubation – now you “let go”, ignore the problem, go after his hobby or sleep.
- Illumination – the flash of inspiration, the enlightenment, the solution present themselves – this does not come intentionally, but by itself, you suddenly know what to do.
- Verification – the intuitively found solution should definitely be critically reviewed again in terms of “truth and ethics”.
A frequently cited example of arriving at solutions in the way described is Auguste Kekulé, who was looking for the structural formula of benzene. Sometime one evening, as he fell asleep in front of his fireplace, a snake appeared to him in a dream, biting its tail. The problem was solved: benzene has a ring structure, which was a completely novel result at the time.
