Mike Lehr's Blog

The important practical implication of intuition and emotions in decision making is this: if we don’t grasp the underlying emotions and how intuition is driving a decision, then we really don’t understand the decision. That means we expose ourselves unnecessarily to error.

Said another way, no matter how logical or reasonable a decision might seem its tap root is still emotional. Any appearance of logic or reason is purely cosmetic. Looked upon another way, the rationale becomes the “excuse” justifying a basically emotional decision.

This even extends to the scientific method and statistical analysis. You don’t need either to arrive at a good decision. They are rationales allowing the expression of certain emotions, many rooted in the need to feel secure about a decision. Therefore, a person’s intuition will encourage the selection of science and statistics to satisfy security needs.

In everyday life, we will tend to observe the implications of intuition and emotions in decision making when we present a rationale that trumps the one being presented and the decision does not change. We will also tend to observe extremely contorted rationales simply to justify a decision. This is the origination of the derisive expression, “You’re just rationalizing your decision.”

As an example, take a sales situation. If we base our sales presentation on what appears to be the inherent logic of that person’s objections rather than the intuition and emotions driving them, we failure is quite possible: we address the logic but gain no decision to move forward. In the end, we might even conclude that the person is simply being unreasonable. However, we are projecting; it’s unreasonable to expect reason to prevail in decision-making rooted in emotions.

Cognition is the refining of knowledge and the justifying of decisions through rationales. Rationales are thoughts linked by such techniques as reason and logic. They impact how we view things, both tangible and intangible. Cognition gives us a way to express ourselves, to express our desires, wants and needs.

Cognition is a process occurring primarily on a conscious level. “Refining” and “justifying” indicate that process. Since the formulation of thoughts occurs primarily in our conscious, cognition gives form to what our intuition creates. This form allows us to change our world in accordance with our desires, wants and needs.

Cognition is the refiner of virtually every decision we make, because almost everything we think, do or say needs some sort of refinement to give it focus and specificity before it can effectively impact our world. In this way, cognition crystallizes into a goal, objective or some other tangible form the direction that our intuition gives us. It’s similar to the way an agenda, a score or a script gives form to a meeting, a song or a play in accordance with the tone we want for them.

As an example of what cognition is, consider a message that seeks to influence people. It will contain a rationale using reason and logic to demonstrate the positive benefits of adopting the message. However, if the rationale is not understandable it will appear as unreasonable, illogical, incomplete or indecipherable. As a result, the message will have difficulty influencing people. Witness what happens to a computer when the coding does not follow the language or logic of a certain protocol. The same thing happens with people when confronted by rationales they do not understand. That is cognition at work.