Intuition: A fundamental bridging construct in the behavioural sciences

Abstract

The concept of intuition has, until recently, received scant scholarly attention within and beyond the psychological sciences, despite its potential to unify a number of lines of inquiry. Presently, the literature on intuition is conceptually underdeveloped and dispersed across a range of domains of application, from education, to management, to health. In this article, we clarify and distinguish intuition from related constructs, such as insight, and review a number of theoretical models that attempt to unify cognition and affect. Intuition's place within a broader conceptual framework that distinguishes between two fundamental types of human information processing is explored. We examine recent evidence from the field of social cognitive neuroscience that identifies the potential neural correlates of these separate systems and conclude by identifying a number of theoretical and methodological challenges associated with the valid and reliable assessment of intuition as a basis for future research in this burgeoning field of inquiry. © 2008 The British Psychological Society.