Pitting intuitive and analytical thinking against each other: The case of transitivity

• Published in: Psychonomic bulletin & review Vol. 20; no. 3; pp. 608 - 614
• Main Authors: Rusou, Zohar, Zakay, Dan, Usher, Marius
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer-Verlag 01.06.2013; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Advantages; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Biological and medical sciences; Brief Report; Choice Behavior - physiology; Cognition. Intelligence; Cognitive Psychology; Decision making; Decision Making - physiology; Decision making. Choice; Experiments; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Hypotheses; Intuition - physiology; Judgment - physiology; Logic; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; R&D; Random Allocation; Research & development; Studies; Thinking - physiology; Dual-process theories; Choice; Decision making; Judgment and decision making; Human; Theory; Cognition; Intuition; Experimental study; Judgment
• ISSN: 1069-9384; 1531-5320; 1531-5320
• DOI: 10.3758/s13423-013-0382-7

Identifying which thinking mode, intuitive or analytical, yields better decisions has been a major subject of inquiry by decision-making researchers. Yet studies show contradictory results. One possibility is that the ambiguity is due to the variability in experimental conditions across studies. Our hypothesis is that decision quality depends critically on the level of compatibility between the thinking mode employed in the decision and the nature of the decision-making task. In two experiments, we pitted intuition and analytical thinking against each other on tasks that were either mainly intuitive or mainly analytical. Thinking modes, as well as task characteristics, were manipulated in a factorial design, with choice transitivity as the dependent measure. Results showed higher choice consistency (transitivity) when thinking mode and the characteristics of the decision task were compatible.