Jonah Lehrer emphasizes the wisdom of feelings. He recaps a study that asked undergraduates to make various predictions about everything from forecasting the Dow Jones to the finalists of American Idol:
Here’s the strange part: although these predictions concerned a vast range of events, the results were consistent across every trial: people who were more likely to trust their feelings were also more likely to accurately predict the outcome. … [A] strong emotion is a reminder that, even when we think we know nothing, our brain knows something. That’s what the feeling is trying to tell us.
The Dish 