Abstract

In recen years intuition has become a topic of considerable discussion in the business community. It is riot difficult to find classes being offered that claim to instruct individuals in how to improve their intuition both in their work and home environments. One question that arises from the sudden interest in the subject is whether there is an ESP component of intuition, in addition to the processes that Psychology already recognizes as being part of this ability. The current paper reports a replication of a previous study trying to answer that question. A tool called the Intuitive Market Trader (IMT) was developed to examine ESP in a situation where businessmen feel most comfortable, trying to create a monetary gain. In the current application, they do so using a computer program that simulates trading in the stock market. Inspired by decision augmentation theory, the game is set up such that to obtain a :sigh score the participant must intercept a random bit stream at specific points that allow them to successfully implement a "buy low - sell high " strategy. Data were obtained from 75 participants, 26 male and 49 female, who were employed in a wide variety of occupations, with special attention being paid to individuals who filled managerial positions. Overall results produced a positive mean z score of 9. 33, t(74) = 4.15. However, a possible bias was discovered due to the way the pseudorandom number generator was accessed for the generation of bits, and thus a correction was applied to the t test that ;.Melded a reduced t(74) = 3.32,p = . 001, one-tailed. Based on findings reported in 1974 by Douglas Dean and colleagues, a secondary analysis was performed to examine individual differences based on he reported occupations of the participants. A total of 14 participants who were considered to have a management background scored higher than other participants (mean z scores of 0.54 vs 0.28), but the difference between the groups was not significant (p = .10, one-tailed). As in the previous study, participants were given, prior to the psi task, the Personal Styles Inventory (PSI) in an effort to identify persons with high intuitive ability. Consistent with the previous study, no significant correlations between individual psi scores and PSI scores were observed. Nonetheless, the IMT shows considerable promise as a psi-conducive test procedure.