How to activate intuitive and reflective thinking in behavior research? A comprehensive examination of experimental techniques

Experiments comparing intuitive and reflective decisions provide insights into the cognitive foundations of human behavior. However, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the frequently used experimental techniques for activating intuition and reflection remain unknown. In a large-scale preregistered online experiment (N = 3667), we compared the effects of eight reflection, six intuition, and two within-subjects manipulations on actual and self-reported measures of cognitive performance. Compared to the overall control, the long debiasing training was the most effective technique for increasing actual reflection scores, and the emotion induction was the most effective technique for increasing actual intuition scores. In contrast, the reason and the intuition recall, the reason induction, and the brief time delay conditions failed to achieve the intended effects. We recommend using the debiasing training, the decision justification, or the monetary incentives technique to activate reflection, and the emotion induction, the cognitive load, or the time pressure technique to activate intuition.

Automated summary

Comparing intuitive and reflective decisions can provide insights into human behavior. In a large-scale experiment, different techniques were compared for their effects on cognitive performance. Long debiasing training was found to be the most effective technique for activating reflection, while emotion induction was the most effective for activating intuition.