Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: library tower, string heuristic, frugal tree, New York, Take the Best, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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)
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From Booklist

Trust your hunches, for intuition does have an underlying rationale, according to this accessible account from a German scientist of human cognition. Permeated with everyday scenarios, such as picking stocks, schools, or spouses, the book adopts an evolutionary perspective of how people act on the basis of incomplete information (usually successfully). He sets the table with an example of a baseball player pursuing a fly ball, who relies not on conscious calculation but on an evolved "gaze heuristic" to make the catch. Definitions of such rules of thumb dot the text, which Gigerenzer embeds amid his presentations of studies that indicate, for example, that financial analysts don't predict markets any better than partially informed amateurs. Explaining this as an outcome of a "recognition heuristic," Gigerenzer argues that knowing a little rather than everything about something is sufficient to take action on it. He forges on into medicine, law, and moral behavior, succeeding in the process in converting a specialized topic into a conduit for greater self-awareness among his readers. Taylor, Gilbert

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1 edition (July 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670038636
• ISBN-13: 978-0670038633
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #309,285 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gigerenzer's thesis made accessible to a larger audience, July 19, 2007

By	Steven A. Peterson (Hershey, PA (Born in Kewanee, IL)) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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"Gut Feelings" is a work aimed at a more general audience. Gerd Gigerenzer has written a number of academic works on the subject of this book; these would not be as readily accessible to a larger audience.

Since I find his scientific works most intriguing, I think that this specific book is apt to be most interesting for readers. It deals with a subject relevant to the recent best seller "The Black Swan." It makes for a nice comparison to read both volumes. Both authors speak to the poor record, for example, of stock analysts in predicting what stocks do well and what do not do well. However, their analyses march in different directions.

The dusk jacket notes the central focus of the work: "How does intuition work? What lies behind our moral behavior if not reflection and reasoning? How can simple `rules of thumb' help amateurs beat the stock market, outfielders catch a fly ball, parents choose a school, or lovers choose a mate?"

The main argument of the author is that the evolutionary process has led humans to develop "rules of thumb" or "heuristics" that tend to lead to efficient decision making processes. Does statistical analysis give better results than heuristics? Not necessarily, says the author.

What are these "shortcuts"? For instance, what if you are in a decision making situation and you need to respond to someone who may cause you problems or cooperate with you? The evidence suggests the value of a specific game with rules. As Gigerenzer puts it (page 62):

"(1) Cooperate first, (2) keep a memory of size one, and (3) imitate your partner's last behavior."

In plain English: If you are in competition with someone, at first cooperate. If they cooperate, you would continue cooperating. If they double cross you (don't cooperate), retaliate. Over time, according to a variety of studies, this works better than always double crossing people or always cooperating.

Other heuristics: "Take the first." That is, if your first cue suggests one decision over another, go with it, even if you are ignoring other information. If there is no advantage on the first cue, go to a second one. If one option is better, go with it. In short, satisfice; select the first option that seems to work. Others are discussed as well.

The book seems to digress a bit when it gets to moral behavior and social instincts.

Nonetheless, a thought-provoking work that is accessible to interested readers. Well worth looking at.

45 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why We Do What We Do: An Intelligent and Genuinely Informative Account, September 20, 2007

By	Dr. Richard G. Petty (Atlanta) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I once saw some slow motion film of some world-class cricketers. Some of the best batsmen closed their eyes in the face of a ball hurtling towards them at over 100 miles per hour. Yet they still hit the ball with remarkable accuracy. There are similar puzzles in baseball. You can describe the trajectory of the ball with all kinds of clever mathematics, but the clever outfielder knows little about such arcane mysteries. He watches the flight of the ball and automatically keeps the angle between his eyes and the ball constant.

A neuroscientist consulting with a major car manufacturer showed them a way to develop a very simple proximity sensor based on the nervous system of a locust. When locusts swarm, they somehow avoid bumping into each other. It turns out that the circuit involves only four neurons. But saves the locusts - and weekend motorists - an ocean of hurt.

The cricketer, the baseball player and the locust represent three examples of ways in which the nervous system uses simple rules to allow us to functions in complex situations. If we had to use all of our brainpower to solve every problem we would never get out of bed.

Gerd Gigerenzer is a well-known and influential figure in neuroscience: he directs the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Plank Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany. He is a superb presenter who is much in demand at major international conferences and he has won numerous awards including the American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize for Behavioral Science Research. He is also the author of the seminal work: Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World (Evolution and Cognition Series).

In this book he discusses the way in which simple rules form the basis of much of what goes on beneath the level of conscious awareness and may also form the basis of intuition.

I slightly disagree with this last point: what Gerd is really talking about is instinct rather than intuition.

The publicity surrounding this new book makes much of Gerd's role in providing some of the science and theoretical underpinning of Malcolm Gladwell's excellent book and perennial favorite: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. On this occasion the marketers have got it right.

Gerd Gigerenzer illustrates his book with many fascinating examples that show the accuracy of instinct. He also makes an important and often-overlooked point: instinctual decisions are not impulsive: they have their own brain-based rationale. The rules and principles that guide instinct are unsophisticated but surprisingly accurate. This is why people can often make good choices on topics outside their area of expertise. I have seen this with top level scientists and marketers, who can look at something about which they know very little, but still come up with remarkably perceptive answers. There has also been much recent discussion about the success of private investors who pick their own stocks and shares, when compared with professionals. He argues that what we feel in our gut is informed by a brain that relies upon thousands of years of experience.

Since this book went to press, more empirical data has come out that suggests that he is right when he says that reason may no be the best decision-making tool at our disposal. That most certainly does not mean that we should trade in our brains for our feelings. It may indeed be that complex decisions are best made using unconscious processes, but we still need to use reason to see if we have come up with the right answer!

Gerd writes extremely well, and his style is fluent and engaging. Particularly commendable is someone whose first language is not English. Many of the examples that he chooses have immediate applications in our own lives.

Very highly recommended.


Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Truly interesting, but it's a one-insight book that gets repetitive., January 22, 2008

By	M. Strong (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This is a solid book, based on a very interesting insight: that in a lot of cases, more information doesn't lead to better decisions, but worse ones. As it turns out, the additional information only serves to obscure our view of the most important factor in the decision. This isn't just true for fallible human brains, but also when all the data is plugged into a computer for a big, nasty regression equation.

Cool, huh?

So why not five stars?

Because the book peaks in the first two chapters as Gerd Gigerenzer (truly one of the all-time great author names) very clearly explains his insight to you using the fascinating concept of how humans catch a fly ball. (Hint: it isn't by doing all sorts of subconscious calculations about speed and trajectory)

From there on out, it's just one example after another of the same concept. By chapter four, when new examples get introduced, you're already projecting out exactly how people traditionally view it and how Gigerenzer's research shows things actually work. The good news is that shows Gigerenzer is a good teacher; the bad news is that the book is clearly too long.

So I'd highly recommend this first two or three chapters of this book to learn about Gigerenzer's very interesting, counter-intuitive and well-explained insight. As soon as you feel like you get the idea, though, I'd move on to your next book - you won't be missing any new ideas.