I’m heavily intuition-dominant, in that I tend to minimize the use of “System 2” thinking whenever possible and make decisions based primarily on emotion. Some more patterns I’ve noticed:
Strategy. System 2/Logic-dominant thinking is much better for planning things out, especially when you’re working with a novel situation. If you use System 1 when playing a game such as Settlers of Catan for the first time you’ll have a very low chance of winning. If you use System 2 you’ll generally perform better (at least in the first play.)
Decision speed. Intuitive thinkers tend to make decisions quickly, and to (unconsciously) assign a high cost to “opening” a made decision. Logical thinkers tend to make decisions more slowly (but often more correctly) and be much more willing to debate, consider alternatives, etc.
Responsiveness to external feedback. Intuitive thinkers learn primarily by trying things and seeing what works, since most of their skills are on the 5 second level. This means fast learning with certain types of skills, but also a tendency to fail at things that don’t provide frequent feedback.
(Un)-awareness of their skills. Intuitive thinkers tend to have a harder time explicitly describing their thought process, or how they developed a skill. Someone who knows came up with a plan to learn Probability and executed it effectively can probably give you directions on how to study, but someone who knows how to charm a room will have a difficult time articulating exactly what they do.
Severe struggle with unusual tasks/skills. Heavily intuitive people who do most of their communication online are often literally afraid of phones, to the point where they’ll procrastinate on making calls for hours. Same with networking, going to office hours, etc. Some practice making phone calls tends to mitigate this problem pretty quickly, but it means intuitive thinkers often have a very steep learning curve when it comes to new skills. Conversely logic-dominated thinkers seem to have an easier time working outside their comfort zone.
None of these are insurmountable. For example, I’ve focused on improving my communication skills over the past few years and it’s shown tremendous results, to the point where people explicitly ask me to give talks or explain certain topics. But they do seem to be fairly strong tendencies.
Severe struggle with unusual tasks/skills. Heavily intuitive people who do most of their communication online are often literally afraid of phones, to the point where they’ll procrastinate on making calls for hours. Same with networking, going to office hours, etc. Some practice making phone calls tends to mitigate this problem pretty quickly, but it means intuitive thinkers often have a very steep learning curve when it comes to new skills. Conversely logic-dominated thinkers seem to have an easier time working outside their comfort zone.
This is a feature of people with an intuitive thinking style? Really? The description applies to me near-perfectly (I am, perhaps, “afraid of phones” more figuratively than literally), and I’d certainly describe myself as an almost totally logic-based thinker.
Something is wrong here. Either this is not, in fact, a feature of intuitive people, or the intuitive/logic-based framework is flawed.
Good to know. Generally speaking, I would expect degrees of autism to have more predictive power than intuitive vs. logical, especially in that case. Controlling for autism though, I would say that on average, logical thinkers I’ve met tend to be more willing to recognize that the actions that lead to their goals are outside their comfort zone (and take those actions), while intuitive thinkers I’ve seen tend to be less inclined to do things that don’t feel good (emotionally.) It ties in with the ignoring emotions point in the original post-intuitive thinkers are better at using their emotions productively, but tend to be ruled by their emotions even when it’s not useful (and this is definitely a problem for me.)
Rather than improve my logical side I’ve mostly come up with mechanisms that let me avoid System 2 thinking.
For example, to improve my overall communication skills I practiced writing on forums with an upvote mechanism. This let me get feedback pretty rapidly, and over time my communication skills improved significantly-even when it came to explaining how I had developed System 1 skills.
For strategy, I mostly rely on conversations with my friends. I can get myself to strategize if I sit down and concentrate but it’s very tiring, whereas when I talk to smart people they are usually able to quickly see holes in my long-term plans and point them out to me.
For forcing myself to actually use System 2 around 5% of the time...I know I have shifted from thinking consciously <1% of the time, to being able to use System 2 on command (though it is still very tiring). But I’m not really clear what enabled the change. One possible explanation: throughout the last 5 years I have been part of several board game meetups where I would have the opportunity to play a game just once or just a few times. So I was forced to think consciously if I wanted to have any chance of winning.
I’m heavily intuition-dominant, in that I tend to minimize the use of “System 2” thinking whenever possible and make decisions based primarily on emotion. Some more patterns I’ve noticed:
Strategy. System 2/Logic-dominant thinking is much better for planning things out, especially when you’re working with a novel situation. If you use System 1 when playing a game such as Settlers of Catan for the first time you’ll have a very low chance of winning. If you use System 2 you’ll generally perform better (at least in the first play.)
Decision speed. Intuitive thinkers tend to make decisions quickly, and to (unconsciously) assign a high cost to “opening” a made decision. Logical thinkers tend to make decisions more slowly (but often more correctly) and be much more willing to debate, consider alternatives, etc.
Responsiveness to external feedback. Intuitive thinkers learn primarily by trying things and seeing what works, since most of their skills are on the 5 second level. This means fast learning with certain types of skills, but also a tendency to fail at things that don’t provide frequent feedback.
(Un)-awareness of their skills. Intuitive thinkers tend to have a harder time explicitly describing their thought process, or how they developed a skill. Someone who knows came up with a plan to learn Probability and executed it effectively can probably give you directions on how to study, but someone who knows how to charm a room will have a difficult time articulating exactly what they do.
Severe struggle with unusual tasks/skills. Heavily intuitive people who do most of their communication online are often literally afraid of phones, to the point where they’ll procrastinate on making calls for hours. Same with networking, going to office hours, etc. Some practice making phone calls tends to mitigate this problem pretty quickly, but it means intuitive thinkers often have a very steep learning curve when it comes to new skills. Conversely logic-dominated thinkers seem to have an easier time working outside their comfort zone.
None of these are insurmountable. For example, I’ve focused on improving my communication skills over the past few years and it’s shown tremendous results, to the point where people explicitly ask me to give talks or explain certain topics. But they do seem to be fairly strong tendencies.
This is a feature of people with an intuitive thinking style? Really? The description applies to me near-perfectly (I am, perhaps, “afraid of phones” more figuratively than literally), and I’d certainly describe myself as an almost totally logic-based thinker.
Something is wrong here. Either this is not, in fact, a feature of intuitive people, or the intuitive/logic-based framework is flawed.
Interesting. Thanks for the data point.
As a general pattern, do you feel like you have a harder time going outside your comfort zone than most people?
Yep. (Very relevant note: I am on the autism spectrum.)
Good to know. Generally speaking, I would expect degrees of autism to have more predictive power than intuitive vs. logical, especially in that case. Controlling for autism though, I would say that on average, logical thinkers I’ve met tend to be more willing to recognize that the actions that lead to their goals are outside their comfort zone (and take those actions), while intuitive thinkers I’ve seen tend to be less inclined to do things that don’t feel good (emotionally.) It ties in with the ignoring emotions point in the original post-intuitive thinkers are better at using their emotions productively, but tend to be ruled by their emotions even when it’s not useful (and this is definitely a problem for me.)
Good observations.
As an intuition-dominant thinker, how did you improve your logical side?
Rather than improve my logical side I’ve mostly come up with mechanisms that let me avoid System 2 thinking.
For example, to improve my overall communication skills I practiced writing on forums with an upvote mechanism. This let me get feedback pretty rapidly, and over time my communication skills improved significantly-even when it came to explaining how I had developed System 1 skills.
For strategy, I mostly rely on conversations with my friends. I can get myself to strategize if I sit down and concentrate but it’s very tiring, whereas when I talk to smart people they are usually able to quickly see holes in my long-term plans and point them out to me.
For forcing myself to actually use System 2 around 5% of the time...I know I have shifted from thinking consciously <1% of the time, to being able to use System 2 on command (though it is still very tiring). But I’m not really clear what enabled the change. One possible explanation: throughout the last 5 years I have been part of several board game meetups where I would have the opportunity to play a game just once or just a few times. So I was forced to think consciously if I wanted to have any chance of winning.