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| "The Masked Anemone" by Odilon Redon (1840-1916) |
Can you recount an experience in which you had a "gut feeling" about a situation that turned out either to be right or wrong?
Do you think that people in general rely too heavily on not enough on first impressions and gut instincts as opposed to logic and reason?
In what kind of situations might gut instincts and first impressions prove to be unreliable or dangerous?
I personally feel like I rely too heavily on "gut feelings". For example, every time my friends get a crazy idea I am the one to say, "I don't have a good feeling about this." That so called "gut feeling" has caused me to miss out on a lot of fun things and new experiences. I'm sure it has also saved me from trouble, but I know without a doubt it has hindered my experiences more than anything.
ReplyDeleteMorgan Hicks
Sometimes those experiences could've been dangerous! I think relying on your gut feeling could be more beneficial to a person than not. More often than not, when a person comes up with a plan they've rehearsed it in their mind so many times they are numb to the other possibly negative outcomes. That's when you tell your friends about the plan and their gut sounds an alarm shouting "this isn't your brightest, sunshine". Logic and reason can be distorted in the minds eye. This is where I believe the gut instinct comes along and reminds the brain of what could possibly happen.
DeleteI believe that a person's gut feeling can in certain circumstances save a person. As a young woman, I am constantly aware of my surroundings and who is around me, especially when I'm by myself somewhere. Sometimes, I get a gut feeling that something is a little off about a person, usually a guy. This causes me to pay attention to what he's doing and if I don't feel safe, I choose to leave the area.
ReplyDeleteI think that every person decides how much to rely on their gut instinct. Some overuse it or use it as an excuse and others choose to ignore it completely. Unfortunately, some of our gut feelings have been taught to us. For example, we have been taught to be leery of certain individuals based on their race, body type or build, gender, or group they're associated with, such as bikers. This can override our true gut feelings or cause us to judge someone who may be a great person. We must learn to trust our personal instincts and not how someone else thinks we should feel. In some cases, you'll have to look past a person's appearance.
Ashlyn Angel
Personally, I rely on my gut instincts a lot, but I wouldn't say that I rely on them too much. Like Morgan stated sometimes I miss out on things that could have turned out fine, but I also keep myself from dangerous situations or situations which could jeopardize relationships, safety, etc. I also strongly agree with Ashlyn in that each person has to individually push past stereotypes and pressure placed on him or her by parents, guardians, or other authority figures. Gut instincts can save lives; I'm so glad my brain works in ways I don't even think about. YAY Unconscious thoughts and feelings!
ReplyDelete-Emily Davis
I agree with everyone on this. I do think though that instincts are things we can not change and are ingrained in us, while our choices and decisions are consciously thought up. I am a cop's daughter so I have been taught that feelings and instincts are important. If I am ever in a situation that I am not sure of, and my gut feeling kicks in, its something that I have not consciously thought "Hmm.. this may not be a good idea" but a red flag in the back of my mind saying "No!".
ReplyDeleteI think if I had to come down to doing what I "think" or what my gut-feeling is telling me, I would listen to my gut. I have in the past gone against it and ended up being alright, but at other times I have gotten myself in a situation that I ended up having a horrible time or it ended up being a completely bad idea.
Overall, I believe that if that gut-feeling does kick in, something is off. Maybe not something huge, but something is overall, and that caution should be demonstrated.
Chelsi Norris
I totally understand what Chelsi is saying! Growing up in a sheltered home, I was not usually in positions that were dangerous, but I was taught that to protect myself, I should listen to what my mind and heart told me. Just like some of the others who commented have mentioned, by choosing to follow my gut and not participate I have missed out on some awesome experiences, but to jeopardize myself and others by not listening would be much worse. I think that this gut feeling could be our unconsciousness arousing us to the danger that our conscious mind would put us in and we should listen to those cautionary feelings.
DeleteI'm in agreement with the posts above. I think that "gut feelings" certainly exist. It is probably due to information that our mind once gathered without us even knowing it and now it is trying to warn us although we may not understand what is wrong. Even though I feel that gut feelings are truly a beacon our own mind is using in our favor, I also think that humans might sometimes anticipate a certain scenario and use "gut feelings" more as an excuse than a true feeling. Just as Ashlyn said I also believe that some reactions and "instincts" are taught to us through stereotyping. When we know for a fact that what we are experiencing is, indeed, a genuine "gut feeling," I think it is in our best nature to listen to it and avoid the situation ahead. Alternatively, if it is just our mind finding excuses or jumping to conclusions, then it is probably most suitable to at least take a moment and think it over for a second.
ReplyDeleteFunny story...one night Morgan Hicks and I both pulled up at the same time to Knight Hall to return to our dorm rooms. We were both getting back to campus later than we probably should have been, but we were in the boat we were in none the less. Well considering that it was late, dark, and as Morgan referenced in other posts, we have the mentality that as young female we are always out to get assailed, we both were a little jittery. So, for a solid few minutes Morgan and I both sat in our cars waiting for the other to get out and drag us off. I was fully expecting that the person in the other car was an attacker who had followed me and here I was without my pepper spray. Once I finally decided to get out so did she and we both felt rather silly. In this case, maybe fear caused us to jump to conclusions, but in most cases I would say better to be safe than sorry. Our brain was processing all the warning flags perhaps consciously and unconsciously and was alerting us that this situation was fishy and to proceed with caution. I certainly agree with how Jonathan explained gut feelings and I think it is better to go with your gut and feel silly later, than not and wish you would have.
ReplyDeletePublished by Anna Talkington...my bad!
DeleteThis is a great anecdote. The scientific fact is that "gut feelings" are actually responses to triggers that we don't always consciously see; we may feel that they have no set cause, but in fact, they're built in to help us avoid potentially dangerous situations, like the one in Anna's story. They're the end result (well, okay, they're still in beta...) of generations of natural selection, which selected for the cautious and against the foolhardy, as a general rule. This deep-seated source is also why the feelings are, themselves, so strong--if a certain surge of brain chemicals was meant to keep you from getting eaten, it had to be pretty potent stuff!
Delete--Hinton
In general, I don’t think that people rely too much on gut instincts, but first impressions are not necessarily the best indicator of the nature of a person, place, or whatever happens to be making the impression at the time. Gut instinct can be a way for the unconscious mind to inform you of something you may not have consciously noticed, such as the minefield incident Mlodinow recounted, however, logic and reasoning are not necessarily better or worse to rely on. Everything depends on the circumstances of what happens around a person. If time is in short supply, then the use of logic and reasoning may not be the best course of action, while gut instinct can come into action quickly, but may not be completely reliable.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, if there is a large amount at stake in a scenario, such as with a gambler who is about to either win or lose it all, logic and reasoning could go a long way to help your chances of winning, but under pressure, not everyone works at their best. A gut instinct wouldn’t be much better in this case, but it would be a compelling reason to decide what to do if you couldn’t deduce a course of action yourself.
There are very few situations I could think of in which a gut instinct would be a generally bad thing to follow, since it is essentially your subconscious mind trying to tell you something important. First impressions, however, are frequently an unreliable way to judge someone or something. Mlodinow said in his chapter about categorization that he doesn’t know enough about people on Wall Street to make accurate judgments about them as individuals, and instead uses a stereotype as an indicator of how he assumes they usually act. Many stereotypes, it seems, stem from bad first impressions that some people make on others, perpetuated by people who don’t bother to find out enough about others to disprove the stereotype.
First impressions can be influenced not only be how a person acts, but by the cultural norms surrounding certain groups, and how they affect anyone involved. I have found that getting to know someone better than simply making an acquaintance with them has always resulted in better understanding of a person, often contradictory to how I first met the person.
Eric Loucks
In my experience, people who are analytical usually rely heavily on logic and reasoning when evaluating a situation, whereas people who excel in fields such as art or literature tend to "listen to their gut-feelings." Either logic or intuition is a viable method for examining most situations, but circumstance may favor one method over another. One situation where gut feelings can prove unreliable is when meeting new people. Think back to the glorious, or if you were like me, horrifying, days of middle school dodge ball. Everyone knows that before you can begin, you have to separate into two teams, normally accomplished by team captains alternating. If you were placed in the position of being a captain, the difficulty lay in how you chose your team. At the beginning of the year, you really weren't sure who was good at dodge ball and who wasn't. So, more than likely, you'd go for the biggest, meanest, and most athletic looking guy. This would be the logical choice based on the available data. Now I'll give it to you, the big kid could probably throw a ball fast enough to knock out your teeth. But as time went by, you noticed that it was the average-looking kid who could dodge and catch the ball that made the most contribution to the team. The choice of whether to use logic and reasoning versus instincts and gut feelings is dependent on the situation and environmental variables. Experience, past failures and successes will all help a person to transform into a skilled decision maker that will know when to use an analytical approach and when to just fly by the seat of their pants.
ReplyDeleteNathan Poole
I think that we should use our gut feeling in certain situations because it has to be there for a reason especially since it has never truly harmed someone before that we know of. In a lot of phenomenal cases there are instances where people can’t explain who they knew something and I believe it is because of that gut feeling.
ReplyDelete-Ashley Huhman