Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious

by Gerd Gigerenzer

Overview

Why is split second decision-making superior to deliberation? Gut Feelings delivers the science behind Malcolm Gladwell's Blink.

Reflection and reason are overrated, according to renowned psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer. Much better qualified to help us make decisions is the cognitive, emotional, and social repertoire we call intuition, a suite of gut feelings that have evolved over the millennia specifically for making decisions. Gladwell drew heavily on Gigerenzer's research. But Gigerenzer goes a step further by explaining just why our gut instincts are so often right. Intuition, it seems, is not some sort of mystical chemical reaction but a neurologically based behavior that evolved to ensure that we humans respond quickly when faced with a dilemma (BusinessWeek).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143113768
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/24/2008
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Gerd Gigerenzer is the author of Gut Feelings. He is currently the director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany, and lectures around the world on the importance of proper risk education for everyone from school-age children to prominent doctors, bankers, and politicians.

Editorial Reviews

You can think of this book as an explanation of the science behind Blink. Author Gerd Gigenrenzer isn't just piggybacking Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller. In fact, his breakthrough research at Berlin's Max Planck Institute provides some of the deepest proofs of the power of intuition as a decision-making tool. Gut Feelings probes the unconscious mental processes that provide shortcuts to problem solving in countless everyday situations. The psychologist's insights about "fast and frugal heuristics" are both fascinating and accessible to lay readers.

Before his research, this was a topic dismissed as crazed superstition. Gigerenzer is able to show how aspects of intuition work and how ordinary people successfully use it in modern life.

New York Times

Goes beyond Gladwell's Blink to reveal the evolutionary basis of intuition.

Seed

Logic be damned! Gigerenzer delivers a convincing argument for going with your gut.

Men's Health

Gigerenzer's theories about the usefulness of mental shortcuts were a small but crucial element of Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller Blink,and that attention has provided the psychologist, who is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, the opportunity to recast his academic research for a general audience. The key concept-rules of thumb serve us as effectively as complex analytic processes, if not more so-is simple to grasp. Gigerenzer draws on his own research as well as that of other psychologists to show how even experts rely on intuition to shape their judgment, going so far as to ignore available data in order to make snap decisions. Sometimes, the solution to a complex problem can be boiled down to one easily recognized factor, he says, and the author uses case studies to show that the "Take the Best" approach often works. Gladwell has in turn influenced Gigerenzer's approach, including the use of catchy phrases like "the zero-choice dinner" and "the fast and frugal tree," and though this isn't quite as snappy as Blink, well, what is? Closing chapters on moral intuition and social instincts stretch the central argument a bit thin, but like the rest will be easily absorbed by readers. Illus. (July 9)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

Intuitions and hunches are neither wild guesses nor unreliable pathways to the truth, asserts German behavioral scientist Gigerenzer; they are generally dependable, though unconscious, techniques based on our evolved brain's structures and processes. Sounds a bit like Blink (2005), doesn't it? And no wonder, since Malcolm Gladwell based portions of his bestseller on research done by Gigerenzer and his associates at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Here, readers will find an engagingly brisk summary of current knowledge about the heuristics of intuition-the "rules of thumb" we often employ. How do outfielders know where a fly ball will come down? What are the differences between the intuitive powers of men and women? How do people who know very little about specialized fields like tennis or the stock market match the predictive powers of experts? How do peahens select peacocks? Why do people follow the crowd? These are among the questions Gigerenzer explores, assisted by numerous graphs, illustrations and optical effects. He points to research that locates in the brain a "judgment" area we use to "decide" whether to employ gut feelings to a given issue. Near the end, the author takes a close look at the quick judgments physicians must make, at the unconscious rules we use to guide our moral decisions, at the ways we yield to the imperatives of our families and social groups. Gigerenzer's prose-no translator is credited, so presumably he writes in English-is lively and at times even evocative. "Simplicity," he writes in his discussion of such traditional moral codes as the Ten Commandments, "is the ink with which effective moral systems are written."A pleasing,edifying tour of territory that has long been dark and unexplored.

Kirkus Reviews

GUT FEELINGS is a fascinating analysis of how human beings make choices and judgments based on instincts. Author Gerd Gigerenzer explains where these gut feelings come from and talks about the role they play in our decisions about everything from business investments to choosing a mate. The text is peppered with plenty of anecdotes that keep it interesting and relevant. Dick Hill reads these examples with perfect inflection, and he reads the more scientific passages clearly and evenly, making complicated concepts easy to follow. This is a great narration because Hill remains unobtrusive, drawing the listener’s attention to the subject matter rather than his performance. With no apparent effort, he makes this book an entertaining and informative listen. K.F. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

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