Don't underestimate hunches

Many people never believe in hunches when making decisions, but in fact it can help us make the right choice in most decisions.

In the past few centuries, scientists have studied the impact of both instinct and reason in the decision-making process.

Instinct can lead us to the right decision in the majority of choices.

Professor Marius Usher, a Tel Aviv University psychology lecturer in Israel, and colleagues recruited a group of volunteers to perform an experiment. They asked the volunteers to see the pairs of numbers show up very quickly on the right and left of the computer screen. Numbers appear on the right side of the screen in a group and the numbers shown on the left belong to another group. Volunteers must predict which group has a larger average number, Science Daily reported.

Since numbers appear very quickly - two to four groups appear every second - volunteers cannot remember each number to perform addition and average division. Therefore, they must make decisions based on intuition.

When the computer displays 6 pairs of numbers, the volunteers choose the right group with a higher average of 65% of the time, but when the computer displays up to 24 pairs of numbers, the correct rate increases to 90% of the number times.

Usher thinks that analysis is an important part of the decision-making process. When analyzing, the brain examines the strengths and weaknesses of each option to produce an overall picture.

'Intuition can help us make the right decisions in life,' Usher said.