Definition
Intuition is a strategy of knowledge use characterized by a lack of effortful reasoning with which knowledge is accessed or generated, often with great speed. When relying on intuition, individuals have little conscious awareness of the origins or basis of their thoughts and feelings and cannot point to a specific process that generated them. Intuition typically represents the holistic perception of multiple cues, which amounts to a ready capacity to recognize patterns. Thus, intuition can be defined as the capacity to comprehend facts with immediacy and without conscious reasoning. Individuals experience intuition as the direct perception of facts without effort.
Introduction
Modern research on intuition began with (e.g., Carl G. Jung’s 1926) work on psychological types, according to which individuals vary in the extent that they relied on “unconscious perception,” the habitual reliance on information obtained without reflection...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Carney, D. R., Colvin, C. R., & Hall, J. A. (2007). A thin slice perspective on the accuracy of first impressions. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(5), 1054–1072.
Epstein, S. (2014). Cognitive-experiential theory: An integrative theory of personality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hicks, J. A., Cicero, D. C., Trent, J., Burton, C. M., & King, L. A. (2010). Positive affect, intuition, and feelings of meaning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(6), 967–979.
Hodgkinson, G. P., Sadler-Smith, E., Burke, L. A., Claxton, G., & Sparrow, P. R. (2009). Intuition in organizations: Implications for strategic management. Long Range Planning, 42(3), 277–297.
Jung, C. G. (1926). Psychological types. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Myers, D. G. (2004). Intuition: Its powers and perils. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Phillips, J. K., Klein, G., & Sieck, W. R. (2004). Expertise in judgment and decision making: A case for training intuitive decision skills. In D. J. Koehler & N. Harvey (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of judgment and decision making (pp. 297–315). Malden: Blackwell.
Topolinski, S. (2011). A process model of intuition. European Review of Social Psychology, 22(1), 274–315.
Wilson, T. D. (2004). Strangers to ourselves. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wolfradt, U., & Pretz, J. E. (2001). Individual differences in creativity: Personality, story writing, and hobbies. European Journal of Personality, 15(4), 297–310.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Kemmelmeier, M., Kaplan, T. (2020). Intuition. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_692
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_692
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-24610-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-24612-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences