Intuition: Its Powers and Perils

by David G. Myers
Yale University Press, 2002

How reliable is our intuition? How much should we depend on gut-level instinct rather than rational analysis when we play the stock market, choose a mate, hire an employee, or assess our own abilities? In this engaging and accessible book, David G. Myers shows us that while intuition can provide us with useful—and often amazing—insights, it can also dangerously mislead us.

—Yale University Press

…a rich emerging field of scientific inquiry brilliantly summarized.”

—Scientific American, Michael Shermer

…delightfully readable and deliberately provocative…

—Publishers Weekly

…an extraordinary book…highly entertaining.

—Human Nature Review, Markus Kemmelmeier

We studied intuitions—thoughts and preferences that come to mind quickly and without much reflection. . . .For comprehensive reviews of intuition see Hogarth, 2001; Myers, 2002.

—Daniel Kahneman, The Nobel Lecture, on receiving the 2002 Nobel Prize

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book list, American Library Association, 2004

Essays adapted from Intuition: Its Powers and Perils

• The powers and perils of intuition. Scientific American Mind, June/July, 2007, pp. 24-31.

• Intuition or intellect? Los Angeles Times

• Do we fear the right things? APS Observer

• The power of coincidence. Skeptic

• There’s a gut feeling… by Karen Peterson, USA Today

• The powers and perils of intuition. Psychology Today, November/December, 2002, pp. 42-52.

• The powers and perils of intuition. (PDF) In S. Della Salla (Ed.) (2007), Tall tales about the brain: Things we know, but ain’t so. London: Oxford University Press.

Table of Contents

(Chapter overviews plus links to researchers)

0. INTRODUCTION (read it all)

PART I. THE POWERS OF INTUITION

1. Thinking Without Awareness
2. Social Intuition
3. Intuitive Expertise and Creativity

PART II. THE PERILS OF INTUITION

4. Intuitions About Our Past and Future
5. Intuitions About Our Competence and Virtue
6. Intuitions About Reality

PART III. PRACTICAL INTUITION

7. Sports Intuition
8. Investment Intuition
9. Clinical Intuition
10. Interviewer Intuition
11. Risk Intuition
12. Gamblers' Intuition
13. Psychic Intuition

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