Will people maintain their initial intuitive decision even when they know the rational answer is different? Acquiescing to intuition, proposed by Risen (2016) in her research on superstitious and magical thinking, delves into the concept of people holding irrational beliefs while being conscious of their irrationality. Individuals make fast, intuitive decisions, acknowledge the rational response may differ, yet revert to their initial biased intuition.

This thesis investigates acquiescence through five comprehensive studies. It first explores the phenomenon’s generalisability across four classical reasoning, judgment, and decision-making tasks: base-rate, ratio bias, belief bias and moral judgment dilemmas. Secondly, it investigates the strength of intuition concept, by manipulating task features that may trigger acquiescence. Third, it evaluates individual differences in thinking styles, employing the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) and the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI). Finally, participants are asked to retrospectively report on their decisions to ascertain the depth of their awareness regarding their irrational decision-making.

The findings indicate that participants exhibited acquiescence in certain scenarios, but not consistently across all situations. This implies that acquiescence is not a universal phenomenon, instead, it appears to be influenced by the strength of the intuitive biased response, as demonstrated through the manipulation of probability. Additionally, individual thinking style measures indicate that individuals with high reflective thinking are less likely to acquiesce to their intuition. Moreover, our findings support the notion that individuals who acquiesce to their intuition do so knowingly. This is evident in their retrospective reports, where initial intuitive responses often rely on stereotypical descriptions, while reasoned responses reflect an understanding of statistical information and categorical likelihoods. Most participants ultimately reject statistics and rationalise their return to the initial biased personality description in the final question.

In summary, our research indicates that acquiescence is not a universally applicable phenomenon. However, it does underscore that individuals with a strong intuitive belief and a disposition towards experiential thinking styles are more likely to acquiesce to their intuition, and they do so knowingly. These findings have theoretical implications for dual process models, motivated reasoning theories and the cognitive miserly view of deliberation, as well as practical implications for de-biasing research targeting intuitive, System 1 biased responses through interventional training.Will people maintain their initial intuitive decision even when they know the rational answer is different? Acquiescing to intuition, proposed by Risen (2016) in her research on superstitious and magical thinking, delves into the concept of people holding irrational beliefs while being conscious of their irrationality. Individuals make fast, intuitive decisions, acknowledge the rational response may differ, yet revert to their initial biased intuition.

This thesis investigates acquiescence through five comprehensive studies. It first explores the phenomenon’s generalisability across four classical reasoning, judgment, and decision-making tasks: base-rate, ratio bias, belief bias and moral judgment dilemmas. Secondly, it investigates the strength of intuition concept, by manipulating task features that may trigger acquiescence. Third, it evaluates individual differences in thinking styles, employing the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) and the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI). Finally, participants are asked to retrospectively report on their decisions to ascertain the depth of their awareness regarding their irrational decision-making.

The findings indicate that participants exhibited acquiescence in certain scenarios, but not consistently across all situations. This implies that acquiescence is not a universal phenomenon, instead, it appears to be influenced by the strength of the intuitive biased response, as demonstrated through the manipulation of probability. Additionally, individual thinking style measures indicate that individuals with high reflective thinking are less likely to acquiesce to their intuition. Moreover, our findings support the notion that individuals who acquiesce to their intuition do so knowingly. This is evident in their retrospective reports, where initial intuitive responses often rely on stereotypical descriptions, while reasoned responses reflect an understanding of statistical information and categorical likelihoods. Most participants ultimately reject statistics and rationalise their return to the initial biased personality description in the final question.

In summary, our research indicates that acquiescence is not a universally applicable phenomenon. However, it does underscore that individuals with a strong intuitive belief and a disposition towards experiential thinking styles are more likely to acquiesce to their intuition, and they do so knowingly. These findings have theoretical implications for dual process models, motivated reasoning theories and the cognitive miserly view of deliberation, as well as practical implications for de-biasing research targeting intuitive, System 1 biased responses through interventional training.