Proof: A ‘gut check’ leads to smarter decisions

As you read reviews for a firepit and can’t decide whether to trust customer feedback, go with your gut. When researchers in the U.K. and Singapore had volunteers evaluate hotel reviews, they found that people picked up on cues—like exaggeration and lack of detail—that a review wasn’t trustworthy, triggering a gut reaction about which write-ups were real. The authors explain that fake reviews share characteristics our brain can detect with surprising accuracy.