Can You Trust Your Gut?

In the early eighties, the J. Paul Getty Museum paid nearly 10 million dollars for a marble statue from the 6th century BC. For more than a year, and prior to purchasing the statue, the Getty subjected the statue to numerous scientific analyses to establish its authenticity. As soon as it went on display, however, a number of experts on Greek art, having viewed the statue only briefly, instinctively felt that there was something wrong with the statue. They couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong, but they said it just didn’t “look right.” More than a year of study and scientific analyses had failed to reveal what the art experts grasped in two seconds—it was a fraud.

What is happening here, explains Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, is rapid cognition, which takes place in our adaptive unconscious. This is not the dark, seedy subconscious of Freud, replete with Oedipal complexes. The adaptive unconscious is the part of our brain that can make instantaneous decisions—like a giant computer instantly sorting through all the data and coming up with a conclusion.

So can we use that kind of thinking in dating? Can we know within six minutes of meeting someone, that we want to go on a date? Can we judge a profile after glancing at it for a few seconds?

Speed-dating is another intriguing example of rapid cognition. The speed-daters make instant decisions about whether or not they like someone based on things such as: she had a tongue piercing, or he gave me a red rose, or he had a southern accent.

Way too superficial, you say? But this sort of “thin-slicing” (decision-making based on a thin slice of information) happens all the time. Usually, people call this their “gut reaction” or “gut feeling.”

Can you trust your feelings?

Many people have a singular mistrust for their “gut instincts” or feelings. But feelings are morally neutral. When they are governed by what is reasonable and good, our feelings are also good. If our feelings contribute to an evil action, then they become evil. The way we willfully behave, based on our feelings, can be sinful.  If, for example, I become angry with someone and nurture hateful feelings toward him or even wish to harm him, then I commit a sin.

Feelings are important. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that “Feelings or passions are emotions …that incline us to act or not to act in regard to something felt or imagined to be good or evil" (CCC, 1763).

When we spring out the way of a swerving car, we are reacting appropriately to fear. When we read about social injustice, we are appropriately angry. When we love, we are drawn to what, or whom, we love. “Moral perfection consists in man’s being moved to the good not by his will alone, but also by his sensitive appetite, as in the words of the psalm, ‘My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God'" (CCC, 1770).

It would be absurd to say to our fiancée, “I rationally approached this relationship and determined that you meet all the criteria for an excellent spouse. I don’t actually have any feelings for you, but I think you would make a good wife.”

Very logical, Mr. Spock. But what kind of a marriage would that be?

We have feelings and emotions, because we are physical beings. Christ, the Word become flesh, had feelings: he became quite angry with the Pharisees (“Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart…” Mark 3:5) and with the money changers outside the temple.

Jesus wept when Lazarus died, and as he approached Jerusalem prior to the crucifixion, “he saw the city and wept over it” (Luke 19:41).

In the Garden of Gesthemane the night before his death, he was in agony (“sorrowful even to death” Matthew 26:38). Jesus experienced the utmost desolation and abandonment on the Cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

Part of becoming a mature Christian, is integrating in a healthy way our reason and our emotions, acknowledging our feelings while not letting them run wild. With the help of grace, we can allow ourselves to feel deeply, yet not be completely driven by our passions. We also have to let other people acknowledge their feelings. Our feelings are our own. Nobody makes me feel sad or happy.

“A person has to have a healthy emotional life, for without it he is defenseless against the powers of evil,” writes Father Emmerich Vogt, O.P., Friar Provincial of the Western Dominican Province and founder of the Twelve Step Review.

Can feelings lead us astray? 

A friend of mine, who recently broke off a relationship with a young man whom she had been seeing casually, told me that she felt “terrible” and “uncharitable.” She knew that this relationship was not going to work in the long run, because they had very different values, and because she was beginning to feel uncomfortable with him. He was pressuring her, and she was feeling manipulated. She then consulted a priest who agreed that it would be more prudent to break it off. Though she tried to be respectful when she told the young man that they could no longer

go out, he was hurt and angry. He blamed her. He accused her of being afraid to fall in love. My friend was miserable. “Am I being mean? Are my bad feelings a sign that I should get back together with him?”

My friend had two “gut feelings” that were at odds. The first was her feeling that something was not right with the relationship with her male friend. The second was her feeling of anxiety after she had broken up. She felt that perhaps she had done something wrong because he was so hurt after she broke off the relationship. She wondered whether she was being mean.

Which feeling was right?

I reminded her that she had spoken to him respectfully and had sought wise counsel from a priest, to see whether her first instinct was credible. She rightly recognized that a trusted spiritual advisor would be more objective than her girlfriends. She had prayed about her decision and then had spoken with him in person, presented their differing values without attacking his character in any way. Finally, she promised to keep the young man in her prayers. So long as she had remained charitable, she did not make him feel angry. She had to let him take responsibility for his own anger and resentment.

Her feeling of anguish in this case was actually a cross that she had to take up; doing the right thing can be difficult emotionally. But our sensitivity toward other people’s feelings does not mean we should simply keep people stringing along, out of a fear of hurt feelings. Our feelings can lead us astray, also. When my friend was distraught, fearing that she was responsible for someone else’s feelings, she had to stop and think: Is this valid?

When you can trust your gut 

Being charitable is not the same as being “nice.” Being nice means never saying anything that might cause anyone to feel hurt or disappointed. But this is often not possible, and sometimes not even charitable. Charity seeks the true good of a person’s soul. To string the young man along indefinitely may not have caused hurt feelings in the short run, but in the long run, it would not have been charitable, either.

God has created us to be capable of experiencing strong feelings—so we can use them for good purpose. Through our emotions we intuit the good and suspect evil. They are our God-given, built- in radar. Growing in wisdom and in virtue means knowing when one’s feelings are leading one toward what is good for our soul, and making a prudent decision to follow what is truly good.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness” (Matthew 7:22).

So can we trust rapid cognition when discerning what we are supposed to do in our lives?

Rapid cognition is like following your conscience—if your conscience is well formed, you can trust it; but if you have a deformed or doubtful conscience, it is best not to follow it. “Every moment—every blink—is composed of a series of discrete moving parts, and every one of those parts offers an opportunity for intervention, for reform, and for correction,” writes Gladwell.

This point is echoed by the Catechism, which tells us that we must always seriously seek what is right and good, and try to discern God’s will in our lives. To this end, we must prudently interpret the data of experience, seek wise advice, and pray for the help of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works in us, when we are in the state of grace, by “mobilizing the whole being, with all its sorrows, fears and sadness” (CCC, 1769)—as well as its desire, love and joy—toward the ultimate good, the source of all goodness, God himself.