Personality and the use of intuition: individual differences in strategy and performance on an implicit learning task

Abstract

There is a divergence of opinion regarding the existence of individual differences in the use of intuition, ranging from intuition being the preserve of a creative minority to intuition as a basic cognitive process that is equally accessible to all. The existence and nature of individual differences in the use of intuition were explored by studying relationships between the sensing–intuition scale of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator and strategy and performance on an implicit learning task. Results indicated differences in strategy and performance in implicit learning between sensing and intuitive types. Intuitive types were more likely to report a strategy of using intuition; sensing types were more likely to use explicit knowledge. In addition, intuitive types were more accurate than sensing types in their intuition. Thus, the position that there are individual differences in the use of intuition has been supported. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The influence of personality and working memory capacity on implicit learning

“…They asked their participants to complete, among others, several personality questionnaires, explicit learning tasks, as well as a WMC test and processing speed tests. Their results were in line with the findings of Woolhouse and Bayne (2000). Scores on the IL task were positively correlated with Openness (as measured by the Openness to Experience scale of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory [NEO-PI-R]) and with Intuition (as measured by the sensation/intuition scale of the MBTI).…”

Larger capacity for unconscious versus conscious episodic memory

“…We cannot determine whether our deliberative decision makers had also encoded the clips but then failed letting this knowledge guide their retrieval responses or whether they simply failed to encode the clips in the first place. Anyway, the limitation of memory effects to intuition-experienced participants corroborates the general finding that intuition is positively related to implicit learning from supraliminal 63,64 and subliminal stimuli 26 and to dealing with a high information load. [65][66][67] Implicit retrieval effects in the present study were limited to the soft memory measure, the reaction time difference between correct and incorrect retrieval responses.…”

Cognitive aptitudes for implicit and explicit learning and information-processing styles: An individual differences study

“…The study by Kaufman et al (2010) also found that probabilistic SRT learning significantly correlated with openness to experience of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, based on the Five Factor model, and the intuition facet of the MBTI. The same intuition facet was also related to implicit learning in a task involving hidden covariation detection in Woolhouse and Bayne (2000), where participants had to judge the job suitability of a series of candidates based on a personality profile, where suitability was determined by a nonsalient rule concerning the scores.…”