When Not to Trust Your Gut — HBS Working Knowledge

In past issues of this newsletter, we have highlighted a variety of psychological biases that affect negotiators, many of which spring from a reliance on intuition. Of course, negotiators are not always affected by bias; we often think systematically and clearly at the bargaining table. Most negotiators believe they are capable of distinguishing between situations in which they can safely rely on intuition from those that require more careful thought—but often they are wrong. In fact, most of us trust our intuition more than evidence suggests that we should.