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Reason and Intuition

The human brain processes information for decision-making using one of two routes: an intuitive system and a rational system (Epstein, 1994; popularized by Kahneman, 2011 as System 1 and System 2, respectively). The intuitive system is quick, impulsive, and operates with minimal effort, relying on emotions or habits to provide cues for what to do next, while the rational system is logical, analytical, deliberate, and methodical. Research in neuropsychology suggests that the brain can only use...
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Overcoming intuition: metacognitive difficulty activates analytic reasoning.

Adam L Alter1, Daniel M Oppenheimer, Nicholas Epley

  • 1Psychology Department, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540 USA. aalter@princeton.edu

Journal of Experimental Psychology. General
|November 15, 2007
PubMed
Summary

Experiencing thinking difficulty, like reading fuzzy text, activates analytical reasoning (System 2). This helps correct intuitive judgments (System 1), improving decision-making and problem-solving skills.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Behavioral Economics

Background:

  • Human reasoning involves intuitive (System 1) and analytical (System 2) processing.
  • System 2 processes can correct errors from System 1, but are often disengaged.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if metacognitive experiences of difficulty activate System 2 reasoning.
  • To determine if induced difficulty can improve judgment and reasoning accuracy.

Main Methods:

  • Four experiments exposed participants to information in degraded fonts, difficult lettering, or while performing a physical action (furrowing brow).
  • Judgments, persuasion reliance, and syllogistic reasoning were assessed under these conditions.

Main Results:

  • Experiencing difficulty, regardless of source, reduced reliance on heuristics and peripheral cues.
  • Induced disfluency improved performance on analytical tasks like syllogistic reasoning.

Conclusions:

  • Metacognitive difficulty serves as an "alarm" activating System 2 analytical reasoning.
  • Deliberate thought processes can be triggered by subtle, incidental experiences of processing difficulty.