what is actually happening psychologically/physiologically when you have a “gut feeling” about something?
In: Biology
The “gut feeling” comes from the very old part of your brain. The part of you reading this is the newer conscious part of your brain that understands logic and thinks things through. The “gut feeling” is when the old part feels it needs you to do something to protect itself.
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short answer: it’s your subconscious triggering a mild fight or flight response.
long answer: the always watching and listening backseat driver of your brain did notice something that the front seat driver missed because it was too distracted with the traffic. unfortunately, that backseat driver can’t speak very loud, so sometimes to get that driver’s attention, it will kick the back of the driver’s seat. sometimes stronger, sometimes only gentle.
that kick then will get that driver’s attention that there might be something wrong and to get ready to either drive away from any danger or to drive toward it and face it.
**edit because some people asked for more specifics:**
when you are in a fight or flight situation, no matter if you are aware of it or not, then your body is in distress. that causes a part of your brain, the hypothalamus, to signal an organ called adrenal gland to release a hormone called adrenaline to give your body some extra strength, so you can either run faster or fight harder.
among other things that adrenaline will cause your bowels to contract and your bloodvessel to expand which is what that stomach sensation basically is and why some people will literally shit themself when into a high-stress situation.
Your mind is likely processing, unconsciously, numerous cues fed to it by your senses. For example, if you are to meet someone that gives you a bad “gut feelings,” you maybe unconsciously analyzing their posture, vocal tones, smell, the look in their eye, and other cues about them that suggest to you that they are untrustworthy.
Culture builds subliminal influences. Basically how you were raised and the experiences you were exposed to govern how you will react to situations
Part of human evolution is threat evaluation.
Some animated movies look really bad to us because of the uncanny valley. Our “that looks off” senses are triggered.
We go into instinctive alert mode because we are aware something is new and weird and maybe dangerous.
Similarly we’re evolving in a changing world so humans are constantly dealing with unknown and new threats.
Humans are basically evolving to be better at looking for new things that might kill us, and that’s a great survival mechanism.
One aspect of this is pareidolia. We see things that are there and find patterns that are not. This happened to me when I left a coat on a chair and woke up to get a drink and thought I saw an intruder.
Dogs can actually hear noises we cannot (sensitivity) and I think humans trust our instincts because we really do need to worry about the little noises (threats) we know can actually hurt us, but perhaps we also know we cannot hear.
Not sure if it’s relavent but don’t we have a huge network of neural cells in our gut? Many of which reliease hormones?
The “gut feeling” is formed by your subconscious picking up subtle clues and evidence your conscious mind doesn’t pick up. Most of it doesn’t register and you have no clue as to why you feel that way, except to have this “gut feeling.”
Basically, your body is picking up on extremely subtle clues like motion, smell, facial expressions, etc. and although they’re not registering consciously, your brain is still using them to form an impression of a situation and sending you that feedback. The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker touches on this phenomenon, but take it with a grain of salt as it was written 30 years ago and some chapters are off base from current views.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm
Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions. “Many processes in the brain occur automatically and without involvement of our consciousness. This prevents our mind from being overloaded by simple routine tasks. But when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings.”
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