Science & Tech

Developing Intuition

Lesson time 08:55 min

Ever feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? That’s your intuition, and you should listen to it. In this lesson, John provides examples of cases in which intuition potentially saved lives—and walks us through ways we can develop our own intuition.

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Topics include: Case Study: The Tampa Killer • Listen to Your Intuition • Strengthen Your Intuition • Assignment

John Douglas

Teaches How to Think Like an FBI Profiler

Legendary Special Agent John Douglas teaches how criminal profiling methods can help you predict people’s motives to benefit your everyday life.

Preview

[MUSIC PLAYING] - When someone says they're trusting their gut, it's the-- what they mean is they're trusting their intuition. Some people think of only like a psychic type of thing. No, it's really-- it's experience coupled with a gut reaction that you have. The time when intuition is really very effective is primarily in stressful types of situations. And studies have found that to be the case-- when, when you should really rely on intuition, where something you feel may happen is about, about to happen. But this also has to be coupled by experience, where you, as a person watching a program, hearing me talk, I'm giving you my knowledge that you should be thinking about in the future. So I'm educating you so you have that part. But then also, you should use your, your inner soul, your knowledge, and your gut instinct. [MUSIC PLAYING] Be careful of the difference between intuition and inherent bias. Intuition is when we notice things and make a judgment without consciously noticing we are making the judgment. Implicit, or inherent, bias is when we rely on superficial cues. And then we allow our preconceived stereotypes to fill in the blanks. In this chapter, I'll teach you about intuition-- when to listen to it, and how to develop it. [MUSIC PLAYING] [WATER RIPPLING] There was a case in Tampa, Florida that we were involved with in our unit. And these two women meet this guy who invites them out on their boat. And he seems like a decent guy. He looks good, nice looking fellow. He can't go by looks and think that a violent offender looks a certain way. But one of the women just doesn't feel right about this guy, the situation. So she's listening to her gut inside. She decides not to go. A girlfriend ends up going on this boat. They no sooner get out on this boat where this guy attempts to sexually assault her. In fact, he makes a comment-- you know, I'll end up putting a cinder around your body and dumping you in the Tampa Bay, here. She somehow escapes off the boat. [WATER RIPPLING] What happens next is that he meets a mother with two daughters. He meets them-- friendly guy, looks like a trusting type of individual. He said, how would you like to go out on a boat? They agree to it. He gives them written directions. They go out and meet him down by the pier, takes them out on a nice little boat ride-- kills them all. [MUSIC PLAYING] He put, uh, cinderblocks around their bodies. And through the decomposition of the bodies, the bodies floated up to the surface, even with the cinder block on their legs. The case was assigned to a new woman agent in my unit named Janna Monroe. She's a former police officer. And what I try to do on my business-- and really in any business-- is to try to create creativity. Keep your mind open. Think of things. Think of new ways, new methods, new-- in our case-- investigative techniques. There's nothing wrong with that. And it's welcomed, here, in m...

About the Instructor

Netflix’s “Mindhunter” was inspired by the FBI’s first criminal profiler, John Douglas. As chief of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, he conducted groundbreaking interviews with notorious criminals such as Charles Manson and Ed Kemper, changing interrogative tactics forever. On MasterClass, he teaches you to use his methods in everyday life, unlocking your intuition to read people's motives.

Featured MasterClass Instructor

John Douglas

Legendary Special Agent John Douglas teaches how criminal profiling methods can help you predict people’s motives to benefit your everyday life.

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