Intuition as Emergence: Bridging Psychology, Philosophy and Organizational Science

By: Paola Adinolfi^1†Francesca Loia^2*†

Selected portion below with link to article here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.787428/full

“In this framework, the present paper critically discusses Sinclair and Ashkanasy’s construct, which has been the first significant attempt to develop a cross-disciplinary conceptualization of intuition, and Dane and Pratt’s article, which has been the most influential article related to the intuition in management literature and other disciplinary fields. Dane and Pratt’s article is regarded as the most comprehensive and most referenced definition of intuition (Okoli et al., 2021). Our paper analyzes the proposed intuition’s attributes and assesses the degree of cross-disciplinary agreement around them, with the purpose of enhancing the intuition construct in a way that facilitates inter-disciplinary dialogue. In the light of such analysis, a definition of intuition is proposed, as “knowing that emerges out of self-organizing holistic associations,” and the reasons for this emergentist account of intuition are explained in the discussion section. In the conclusive sections theoretical and practical implications are outlined as regards UET, the interaction between intuitive and deliberative processing modes, the conditions for intuition’s effectiveness, the relationship with artificial intelligence, the possibility to the escalation from individual to collective decision-making. The limitations of the study as well as the avenues for future research are also highlighted.”

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“The combination of intuition and AI will be useful when the conditions of intuition’s effectiveness are met, related to the effectiveness of the expertise of the human decision-maker in relation to the properties of the task. As suggested by Vincent (2021, p. 431), “if the decision maker is a novice, it may be prudent to delegate decision-making authority to AI regardless of whether the task is structured or not, since the novice will not have the capacity to supplement or correct a decision derived through extensive computation. Likewise, if the task is structured and an accurate decision can be derived through logical analysis, the decision should be delegated to AI because not even expert humans can match the speed and analytic capabilities of computer systems.”

The challenge is to integrate human and IT resources so as to automate everything automatable, thus freeing human energies for intuition. The equilibrium is dynamic: as the environment evolves, with cues changing or new cues emerging, the automated system should be reassessed. Human intuition is needed for this, and broad, open and vigilant mindfulness is required. So, while advances in IT reduce the use of intuition in the workplace, human beings will always be the guiding force (Sibanda and Ramrathan, 2017).”