There is a growing body of literature that supports the idea that decision making involves not only cognition, but also emotion and intuition. However, following extant “dual-process” decision theories, the emotional and intuitive aspects of decision making have predominantly been considered as one “experiential” entity. The purpose of this article is to review the neurological evidence for a three-factor model of head, heart, and gut aspects of embodied cognition in decision making and to report on a study carried out to design and validate a psychometric instrument that measures decision-making preferences across three separable interoceptive components, representing the complex, functional, and adaptive neural networks (or “brains”) of head (analytical/cognitive), heart (emotional/affective), and gut (intuition). Development and validation of the Multiple Brain Preference Questionnaire (MBPQ) instrument was carried out in three phases. Translational validity was assessed using content and face validity. Construct validity was undertaken via exploratory factor analysis of the results from the use of the instrument with 301 subjects from a global sampling, and reliability tests were performed using internal consistency and test–retest analysis. Results confirmed extraction of three factors (head, heart, and gut) was appropriate and reliability analysis showed the MBPQ to be both valid and reliable. Applications of the tool to coaching and leadership are suggested.
Introduction
There is now a robust body of research into the nature of decision making and in particular into the roles of cognition, emotion, and intuition in human decision making. This research spans more than three decades (e.g., see Bohm & Brun, 2008; Burke & Miller, 1999; Lerner, Li, Valdesolo, & Kassam, 2015; Schwarz, 2000; Sinclair, 2014). In earlier research, decision theorists suggested there were two dominant systems humans use in decision making: the “analytic system” and the “experiential system” (Gutnik, Forogh Hakimzada, Yoskowitz, & Patel, 2006). Evans and Stanovich (2013) discuss two major channels for decision making within the “dual-process/dual-system” decision theories. These two theories both assert that human information processing is accomplished in two different, but complementary ways (“analytically” or “intuitively”) through two substantially different and differently evolved types of thinking. System 1 is both fast and intuitive and System 2 is much slower and more deliberate in function. System 2, the analytic system, is slower and involves conscious, deliberate cognitive processes and logical, reason-oriented thinking. In contrast, System 1, the faster experiential system, uses emotion-related associations, intuitions, and “gut instincts” when making decisions (Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1997).
This decision model also fits well with work emerging over the last decade from the fields of embodied cognition and interoceptive awareness. Most notably this includes Damasio’s somatic marker theory (Bechara & Damasio, 2005; Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1991), Thayer’s neurovisceral integration model (Park & Thayer, 2014; Thayer & Lane, 2000, 2009), Craig’s findings on the neurobiological basis of interoceptive awareness (IA; Craig, 2002, 2009, 2014), and Critchley’s work on heart-based viscerosensory signaling (Critchley, 2015; Critchley, Wiens, Rotshtein, Ohman, & Dolan, 2004). These models and theories and the research supporting them all suggest that human cognition and decision making are strongly influenced by, or actively involved with, deep somatic and embodied re-representation and interoceptive processing. For example, Damasio’s “somatic marker” hypothesis (Damasio, 1994, 1999) states that meta-representation of bodily states constitutes a set of emotional feelings, accessible to consciousness and providing the “gut-feeling” and “heart intelligence” that guides our decision processes.
According to Burr (2017), the older traditional cognitivist account of analytical decision-making “views choice behaviour as a serial process of deliberation and commitment, which is separate from perception and action” (p. 1). However, as Burr points out, recent work in embodied decision making has shown that this account is incompatible with emerging neurophysiological data. For example, current work on embodied decision making (Cisek & Pastor-Bernier, 2014; Lepora & Pezzulo, 2015) indicates that decision making is inextricably intertwined with sensorimotor control such that there is a blurring of the boundaries between perception, action, and cognition, involving reciprocal communication between affective and sensorimotor neural regions.
Burr also highlights that Barrett and Bar (2009) have convincingly argued that neural activity in perception is reflective of ongoing integration of sensory information from exteroceptive cues, with interoceptive information from the body and that this supports the view that when it comes to decisions, the involved perceptual states are “intrinsically infused with affective value,” such that the affective or emotional salience is deeply intertwined with its perception. This indicates that far from involving only head–brain based cognitive or logical (System 2) processes, decision making is intrinsically and deeply entwined with emotional and interoceptive bodily sensorimotor (System 1) experiences.
Interestingly, this notion that decision making involves deep aspects of somatic re-representation and embodied “cognition” leads to an important insight. Given our interoceptive processing and embodied cognition emerges up from embodied neural circuits into the deep limbic structures and eventually the frontal lobes of our cranial brain (Critchley, 2009; Critchley & Harrison, 2013), then this neuroceptive processing must deeply involve our system of autonomic afferents (Craig, 2014; Critchley, 2009; Porges, 2001, 2011). And this embodied autonomic and affective processing has two major key neural systems communicating to it and interacting with it within the body: the intrinsic cardiac neural plexus (Armour, 2007) and the enteric neural plexus (Gershon, 1999).
In colloquial terms, humans often ascribe intuitive and informational roles to heart and gut regions of the body. We talk about “gut instincts,” “gut feelings,” “messages from the heart,” and “heart intuitions” (Soosalu & Oka, 2012a). Given that we have two separable and complex neural plexuses in these regions, it may not be surprising then that the importance of the heart and gut in human processes such as decision making are being validated by a growing list of studies both in the lab and in real-world scenarios.
The Intrinsic Cardiac Network
The heart contains a complex, functional and adaptive intrinsic neural network (Armour, 2007). Intracardiac neurons are concentrated in multiple heart ganglia, and the structure of the interactions between neurons, both within intracardiac ganglia and also between individual ganglia, provide the basis for the complex nervous network of the heart (both anatomically and functionally) and has been labeled by researchers in the new field of neurocardiology as a functional “brain” (Ardell, 2004; Brack, 2014; Kukanova & Mravec, 2006; D. Randall, 2000; C. Randall, Wurster, Randall, & Xi-Moy, 1996).
Dr. J. Andrew Armour (1991), a pioneer in this field, has undertaken extensive research and introduced the concept of the intrinsic cardiac network as a functional “heart brain.” His work demonstrated a complex intrinsic nervous system in the heart, that is deemed sufficiently sophisticated to qualify as a “little brain” in its own right (Armour, 2007). The complexity of the neural circuitry in the heart allows independent action, separate from the cranial brain. Armour (1991) has demonstrated the ability of the heart to learn independently, it has its own memories, and it can feel and sense information. This information from the heart is sent to the brain through a variety of different afferents, including autonomic afferents. These afferent nerves enter the brain at the medulla, and from there are dispersed to the higher centers of the brain, where they may have a variety of influences including in the context of perception, decision making, and other cognitive processes (Armour, 2004; Thayer, 2007). In Thayer’s (2007) work on neurovisceral integration, he has shown how the heart influences neural structures in the head–brain deeply involved in cognitive, affective, and autonomic regulation.
The Enteric Neural Plexus
The enteric neural plexus consists of approximately 500 million neurons (Cognigni, Bailey, & Miguel-Aliaga, 2011) and is said to be of a similar size and complexity to that of a cat’s head-brain (Mosley, 2012; Watzke, 2010). The network of enteric neural tissue is spread across the organs of the gastrointestinal tract, from oral cavity and esophagus to anus. Dr. Michael Gershon (1999) in his groundbreaking work in the field of neurogastroenterology has described the enteric nervous system as “the second brain.” Gershon’s work, however, follows as a rediscovery, since Byron Robinson, MD, an American medical physician and anatomist working over 100 years ago, published in 1907 a book titled The Abdominal and Pelvic Brain, in which he described a complex nervous system or “brain” that he had discovered in the region of the gut (Robinson, 1907).
The enteric brain has been shown to be able to control the gut independently of the cranial brain (Gershon, 1999; Goldsteon, Hofstra, & Burns, 2013). Virtually every aspect of gut activity is under the regulatory influence of this independent enteric nervous system (Holzer, 2017; Holzer, Schicho, Holzer-Petsche, & Lippe, 2001). There is also growing evidence that the enteric brain deeply influences head-based affective information processing (Berntson, Sarter, & Cacioppo, 2003; Holzer, 2017). As Mayer (2011) points out in his paper titled “Gut Feelings: The Emerging Biology of Gut-Brain Communication,”
Recent neurobiological insights into this gut–brain crosstalk have revealed a complex, bidirectional communication system that not only ensures the proper maintenance of gastrointestinal homeostasis and digestion but is likely to have multiple effects on affect, motivation and higher cognitive functions, including intuitive decision making. (p. 453)
Head, Heart, and Gut in Decision Making
Thus we see that both of these gut and heart neural systems evince complex processing, learning and appear to be involved in higher order human functioning. That these “brains” or complex, adaptive and functional neural systems are involved in decision making is being uncovered by a growing body of fascinating research. For example, a number of researchers have found that enhanced cardiac perception is associated with benefits in decision making (e.g., see: Dunn et al., 2010; Werner, Jung, Duschek, & Schandry, 2009).
As Dunn et al. (2010) state,
These findings identify both the generation and the perception of bodily responses as pivotal sources of variability in emotion experience and intuition, and offer strong supporting evidence for bodily feedback theories, suggesting that cognitive-affective processing does in significant part relate to “following the heart.” (p. 1835)
In terms of gut-based functioning, Klarer et al. (2014) examined anxiety and fear learning and decision behaviors in rats that had their gut vagal afferent nerves severed. They found that once the gut vagal neural pathways that subserve “gut feel” had been disconnected, the rats, as compared to sham controls, were no longer able to respond with normal innate anxiety decision-behaviors to fearful stimuli and that fear learning and conditioning was concomitantly affected. As they suggest, “The innate response to fear appears to be influenced significantly by signals sent from the stomach to the brain” (Meyer, 2014, p. 1) and “These data add weight to theories emphasizing an important role of afferent visceral signals in the regulation of emotional behavior” (Klarer et al., 2014, p. 7067).
That similar processes operate in humans is suggested by Mayer (2011) in his examination of the emerging biology of gut–brain communication and the gut–brain interface. As Mayer points out, “ . . . the popular statement that somebody has made a decision based on their gut feelings may have an actual neurobiological basis related to brain–gut interactions, and to interoceptive memories related to such interactions” (p. 463).
Also supporting this notion that there are three separable domains in decision making of head (rational/logic), heart (emotions), and gut (intuitions) is the work of Sadler and Zeidler (2005), who examined patterns of informal reasoning and moral decision making and demonstrated evidence for individual patterns of rationalistic, emotive, and intuitive styles. They found that while some subjects employed all three decision styles, many subjects utilized individual patterns or combinations of these three styles of reasoning.
In the field of leadership decision-making, there is also a growing awareness of the importance of the separable domains of head, heart, and gut (Brack, 2011; Genovese, 2016). For example, Dotlich, Cairo, and Rhinesmith (2006) found that in complex business decision environments, the use of head, heart, and gut in decision styles lead to wiser and more effective decisions. As they point out, “Complex times require complete leaders . . . leaders capable of using their head, their heart, and their guts as situations demand” (p. 1). And backing this up, Heifetz and Linsky (2004) in their work on adaptive leadership claim that
Solutions to technical problems lie in the head and solving them requires intellect and logic. Solutions to adaptive problems lie in the stomach and the heart and rely on changing people’s beliefs, habits, ways of working or ways of life. (p. 35)
Finally, as Markic (2009) points out in her examination of “Rationality and Emotions in Decision Making,”
Decision making is traditionally viewed as a rational process where reason calculates the best way to achieve the goal. Investigations from different areas of cognitive science have shown that human decisions and actions are much more influenced by intuition and emotional responses than it was previously thought. (p. 54)
Showing that there is a burgeoning awareness in the literature that logic, emotion, and intuition are all involved in the process of decision making.
Individual Differences
Given that current research findings suggest that within the body there are three key neural systems, or “brains,” involved in decision making, one in the head, one in the heart, and another in the gut, it would not be surprising then that individual differences, competencies, and preferences might show up in how people use these neural systems in decision making. Indeed, emotions involving the heart and instincts/feelings involving the gut have evolved over time because of their adaptive functions in both genotypic and phenotypic survival (Haselton & Ketelaar, 2006; Ketelaar, 2004). We also know that the enteric nervous system evolved first before the intrinsic cardiac network and before the encephalization of the head-brain (Bishopric, 2005; Mayer, 2011; Porges, 2001). So it would not be surprising therefore if head, heart, and gut neural intelligences have come to be used for differing aspects of decision making and that thereby different people might have differing propensities and preferences in their use of embodied cognitive functions.
Cardiovascular system research, looking at interoception (Critchley et al., 2004; Katkin, 1985; Pollatos, Herbert, Matthias, & Schandry, 2007; Pollatos, Kirsch, & Schandry, 2005) and the gastrointestinal system (Herbert & Pollatos., 2012; Stephan et al., 2003), demonstrates that there are a range of important interindividual differences in “interoceptive awareness” (IA) and interoceptive sensitivity. As Herbert and Pollatos (2012) indicate, individual degrees of IA can be conceptualized as a trait-like sensitivity toward one’s visceral signals. With, for example, a greater sensitivity to how an individual emotionally responds being related to cardiac awareness, which can be developed through a range of embodied learning processes. In addition, Wiens, Mezzacappa, and Katkin (2000) reported that individuals with heightened IA (as quantified objectively from performance in a heartbeat detection task) report more intense emotional experiences. So it would not be surprising then that such individuals might give more attention or salience to heart-based affective signals during decision making.
From a gut perspective, Riezzo, Porcelli, Guerra, and Giorgio (1996) found that gastric electrical activity as measured by electrogastrography (EGG) was a useful indicator of psychophysiological stress created by activities such as arithmetic tasks and Stroop color–word tests, and that wide interindividual variability was observed during the stress period.
Thus people may have marked individual differences in their awareness of and focus on head versus heart versus gut aspects of decision making. Supporting this idea, Fetterman and Robinson (2013) explored the different ways individuals metaphorically perceived or located the self in either head or heart. In a paper reporting seven studies, Fetterman and Robinson (2013) demonstrated that those individuals described as head-locators perceived themselves to be rational, logical, and interpersonally cold, whereas heart-locators described themselves as emotional, feminine, and interpersonally warm. Head-locators showed more accuracy in general knowledge assessments and obtained higher grade results. Conversely, heart-locators favored emotional rather than rational considerations within the context of moral decision making. Adam, Obodaru, and Galinsky (2015) also examined head versus heart-locators and found strong individual differences among men versus women and in American versus Indian cohorts. These findings show strong support for individual differences in head versus heart preference in decision-making style.
Epstein, Pacini, Denes-Raj, and Heier (1996) and Epstein (1990) in their work on cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) and the associated Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI) also showed that people differ in their reliance on the experiential/intuitive system versus the rational/cognitive system. CEST is a dual-process model of perception and cognition that posits that people operate using two separate systems for information processing: analytical-rational and intuitive-experiential. Norris and Epstein (2011), more recently, identified intuitive-experiential system: intuition, emotionality, and imagination as three reliable subfactors, and we can see that these three facets nicely mirror the aspects of head (imagination), heart (emotion), and gut (intuition) that Soosalu and Oka (2012a, 2012b) have highlighted as key functions in decision making of the three brains. The research using the REI has also found strong individual differences in preference for these particular decision styles and that this preference is often associated with a number of meaningful life outcomes (Shiloh, Salton, & Sharabi, 2002; Sladek, Bond, & Phillips, 2010).
Intuition and the Conflation of Heart and Gut
One of the key challenges in the existing decision-making research literature is the conflation or mixing of heart and gut into the “intuitive” domain. Researchers often appear to lump heart, gut, and (general) intuitive labels into their questionnaire instruments. This is not surprising given the focus in decision-making research on the dual-factor theory of System 1 (intuitive/experiential) and System 2 (cognitive/rational).
However, if it is true that embodied cognition utilized in decision making involves separable interoceptive components from the key neural plexuses of the cardiac and enteric regions, then it would be useful for greater theoretical and empirical specificity for the field of decision-making research to begin examining head, heart, AND gut preferences in decision-making mode or style.
To show that heart and gut are often conflated together in studies on intuitive versus cognitive decision making, let us examine some representative research. For example, in a series of studies examining differences in decision modes (intuitive vs. analytical), Weber and Lindemann (2008) used questions such as,
How likely would you be to make this decision based on your immediate feelings or gut reaction to the situation? (p. 199)
Thus showing that (heart-based) feelings and gut reactions have been conflated or mixed into the one question. Interestingly from an individual differences perspective, the results of their research showed that while many respondents could be influenced into using either the intuitive or analytical modes based on domain and situational compatibility, nevertheless nearly one third of subjects exhibited a chronic disposition to operate in an affect-based (intuitive) or a calculation-based (analytic) mode, showing that individual differences in decision mode preference can be strong and enduring.
Betsch (2008) also examined chronic preferences for intuition and deliberation in decision making. In her study she developed what she called the “Preference for Intuition and Deliberation Scale (PID).” This scale grouped questions such as the following:
My feelings play an important role in my decisions.
When it comes to trusting people, I can usually rely on my gut feelings. (p. 246)
And grouped such questions into the single “intuition” (or affective-decision) category, once again mixing and conflating emotional/affective (heart) with gut (visceral) signals. Importantly, however, she found, “People differ in the way they rely on their heads or their hearts. Even though virtually everybody is able to feel and to think, people follow their strategy preferences if they have the chance to” (p. 243). In an earlier series of studies, Betsch (2004) asked people directly which strategy they would rely on in different situations (those requiring intuition or deliberation to different degrees). She found that, beyond the situational requirement, a subject’s preferred strategy significantly explained variance in strategy selection (Betsch, 2004, Study 3), which led people who favored intuition to choose intuition more frequently than deliberation across all scenarios.
A further example of the conflation of heart and gut interoception in decision research is that of the work of Katkin, Wiens, and Ohman (2001). They examined the development of “gut feelings” in subjects presented with fear inducing stimuli through behavioral conditioning; however, they used heartbeat detection as a measure of visceral or gut feeling sensitivity.
In examining decision making in nursing practice, Hams (2000) also looked at intuition as “gut feeling.” However, she then conflated gut instinct with heart-based intuiting, stating that
For me [the nurse] it’s a physical sensation. I have two kinds of knowing. I have the knowing that comes from my head that is subject to conscious awareness. And I have the knowing that, for me, comes out of my heart which is where I feel it. (p. 311)
Unfortunately, this mixed focus on head, heart, and gut and the undifferentiated lumping of heart and gut into the appellation “intuition” has lead to a number of challenges in the study of individual difference in decision making. Indeed, Appelt, Milch, Handgraaf, and Weber (2011), in their development of a Decision-Making Individual Differences Inventory lamented that “Individual differences in decision making are a topic of long-standing interest, but often yield inconsistent and contradictory results” (p. 252). One possible reason for such inconsistency in the examination of individual differences is that researchers have tended to contrast decision-making style as either cognitive or intuitive, and have conflated intuitive style with differing focus on heart interoceptive–based intuitions versus gut-feel intuitions. Indeed in numerous studies we see that authors talk about studying intuitive decision making by examining “gut feel” and then use heart interoception monitoring as the experimental measure, thus conflating heart and gut embodiment aspects of interoceptive intuition. In contrast, intuition can be divided into at least three domains of head (based on conscious reasoning or unconscious cognitive heuristics, for example, Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011; Kahneman, 2011), heart (cardiac interoception), and gut (enteric/visceral interoception).
That the field of decision-making research is only now beginning to become aware of the difference in types of intuitive signaling is shown by a very recent study. Sadler-Smith (2016) examined the linguistic structure of human resource practitioners’ experience of intuition. He found that intuitions emerge into consciousness as “bodily awareness” and “cognitive awareness” and that bodily awareness comprised two first-order concepts of “gut reactions” and “feelings.” Such a categorization of intuition specifically into differing elements of cognitive, feeling, and gut reaction is currently relatively rare and a commendable addition to the field of decision-making research. For as Pollatos (2015) in examining cardiac versus gut-based IA and sensitivity points out, these bodily signals represent distinct and separate processes and should therefore not be conflated.
Head, Heart, and Gut Preference in Decision Making
To support the examination of and research focus on head, heart, and gut domains in decision making, in the present study, we developed and validated a psychometric instrument that explores multiple brain (head, heart, and gut) preferences in decision making. While it is expected that people will exhibit individual differences in their preference for head, heart, and gut decision-making patterns, existing research suggests that these neural systems are interconnected and interdependent (Mayer, 2011; Thayer & Lane, 2009). The Multiple Brain Preference Questionnaire (MBPQ) instrument explores individual patterns or preferences for head (analytical/cognitive), heart (emotional/affective), and gut (intuition) based decision-making styles, which accumulatively create an individuals’ holistic and integrated response in decision making.
