Mar. 6, 2008 Most of us experience ‘gut feelings’ we can’t
explain, such as instantly loving – or hating – a new property
when we’re househunting or the snap judgements we make on
meeting new people. Now researchers at Leeds say these feelings
– or intuitions – are real and we should take our hunches
seriously. According to a team led by Professor Gerard
Hodgkinson of the Centre for Organisational Strategy, Learning
and Change at Leeds University Business School, intuition is the
result of the way our brains store, process and retrieve
information on a subconscious level and so is a real
psychological phenomenon which needs further study to help us
harness its potential. There are many recorded incidences where
intuition prevented catastrophes and cases of remarkable
recoveries when doctors followed their gut feelings. Yet science
has historically ridiculed the concept of intuition, putting it
in the same box as parapsychology, phrenology and other
‘pseudoscientific’ practices. Through analysis of a wide rang