intuitioner

The term intuitioner refers to a person who relies on intuition as a primary source of knowledge or guidance in decision making. The concept is informal and lacks a standardized credential. It can apply in fields such as personal development, design, creative work, and spiritual practice, where judgments are described as stemming from gut feelings, immediate insights, or symbolic cues rather than explicit analysis.

Origin and usage: The word combines intuition with the agent noun suffix -er. It appears mainly in popular or self-help discourse rather than formal dictionaries, and its precise meaning varies among speakers.

Practice and basis: Proponents argue that intuition reflects rapid, unconscious information processing and pattern recognition. Intuitions may be cultivated through reflection, journaling, mindfulness, or deliberate exposure to diverse experiences. Critics warn that intuitive impressions can be biased by memory and heuristics, and that reliability depends heavily on context.

Assessment and criticism: In psychology, intuition is studied as a fast, automatic system that can aid or mislead judgment. The intuitioner label is controversial in formal settings when used to justify claims without evidence, and many emphasize combining intuition with critical thinking and empirical verification where possible.

See also: Intuition; Heuristics; Dual-process theory; Cognitive biases.