Sticky Intuition: Following your intuition makes you less likely to change your mind than following a structured process

Abstract: Relying on our faulty intuition and persisting with bad decisions are common decision pitfalls. We routinely encourage decision-makers to follow a structured process to improve accuracy and to timely abandon poor decisions. Extensive research has focused on these two decision biases as independent phenomena - pointing out its consequences, uncovering its antecedents, and testing interventions to reduce its prevalence. Our research is theoretically and empirically novel as it bridges these foundational concepts to demonstrate that how we make decisions (using intuition versus process) affects our receptivity to differing opinions and consequently, the likelihood of persisting with our prior beliefs.

Our studies show that after people follow their intuition, they become more likely to disregard contradictory opinions and stick to their decisions, compared to people who follow a structured process. We find greater persistence of the same decision when reached through intuition, compared to when decisions are reached through time-intensive evaluation (Studies 1, 3, & 4) or effortless reliance on AI and data aggregation (Study 2).

Surprisingly, overconfidence does not explain the stickiness of intuitive decisions. Instead, we find that people feel a stronger sense of psychological ownership over intuitive decisions than process-led decisions, making them less likely to abandon their intuitive decisions despite feeling decreased confidence (Studies 3 & 4). Specifically, we document that decision-makers believe intuitive decisions represent what they feel, while process-led decisions represent what they know, and decision-makers are less receptive to updating decisions reflecting their feelings than their knowledge.

Keywords: intuition, structured process, psychological ownership, belief persistence, mindchange