Intuition: Marvels and Flaws
Kahneman contrasts art experts’ intuitive suspicions about a kouros with Gladwell’s account of Harding’s presidential appearance. He argues that intuition can reflect useful cues or question substitution, and that investigators should try to identify the basis of an intuitive judgment.
THE IDEA
Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller Blink appeared while Klein and I were working on the project, and it was reassuring to find ourselves in agreement about it. Gladwell’s book opens with the memorable story of art experts faced with an object that is described as a magnificent example of a kouros, a sculpture of a striding boy. Several of the experts had strong visceral reactions: they felt in their gut that the statue was a fake but were not able to articulate what it was about it that made them uneasy. Everyone who read the book—millions did—remembers that story as a triumph of intuition. The experts agreed that they knew the sculpture was a fake without knowing how they knew—the very definition of intuition. The story appears to imply that a systematic search for the cue that guided the experts would have failed, but Klein and I both rejected that conclusion. From our point of view, such an inquiry was needed, and if it had been conducted properly (which Klein knows how to do), it would probably have succeeded. Although many readers of the kouros example were surely drawn to an almost magical view of expert intuition, Gladwell himself does not hold that position. In a later chapter he describes a massive failure of intuition: Americans elected President Harding, whose only qualification for the position was that he perfectly looked the part. Square jawed and tall, he was the perfect image of a strong and decisive leader. People voted for someone who looked strong and decisive without any other reason to believe that he was. An intuitive prediction of how Harding would perform as president arose from substituting one question for another. Question substitution can produce a confident intuition despite its weak basis.
When to use it
Evaluating the authenticity of art or antiques based on expert gut feelings.
Making political or hiring decisions: resisting the allure of appearance and seeking deeper evidence.
Medical diagnosis: balancing intuitive pattern recognition with analytical checks.
Investment decisions: trusting a hunch vs. conducting thorough research.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Kouros statue intuition
In the account discussed by Kahneman, art experts suspect a kouros is fake without being able to explain their reaction. Kahneman and Klein argue that a systematic inquiry might identify the cues behind it.
Warren Harding election
Kahneman uses Gladwell’s account of Harding’s tall, square-jawed appearance to illustrate substituting a presidential look for evidence of competence. The example concerns that shortcut rather than a complete explanation of the election.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think of a time your intuition was right. What cues might have been at play?
When have you or others been overconfident in an intuitive judgment? How could systematic analysis have helped?
In what domains is expert intuition most reliable, and when is it most likely to fail?
References
- Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking — Malcolm Gladwell (2005)
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman)