Increasing Intuitive Decision Making Speed and Accuracy by Further Understanding Intuitive Decision Making Using Emotional Means

Abstract

Up to this point, the role of intuition in decision making (instantaneous decisions without conscious awareness) has not received adequate attention by those outside the field of psychology (Hodgkinson, Langan-Fox, & Sasler-Smith, 2008). Herein, we argue that many important decisions are made within organizations without the use of the conscious mind. For instance, if an individual encounters a situation, they simply react in a way that has worked in the past without thinking, such as responding to anger with anger. Affect (i.e., emotion) has been shown to play an important role in this intuitive decision making (Lieberman, 2000, 2007). Intuitive ability can be increased by training individuals to implicitly recognize affective environmental cues and rapidly match them to commonly recurring emotional patterns, which lead to effective problem solving and decision making (Hodgkinson et al., 2008). We present a model of intuitive decision making that outlines how pattern matching is used by the brain to make decisions without our awareness. The result of this study can assist organizations in how to train their members to make better intuitive decisions.