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Allen Lane (2005), Paperback, 277 pages
Description
How do we think without thinking, seem to make choices in an instant--in the blink of an eye--that actually aren't as simple as they seem? Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others? Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology, the author reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.
Media reviews
Beyond question, Gladwell has succeeded in his avowed aim. Though perhaps less immediately seductive than the title and theme of The Tipping Point, Blink satisfies and gratifies.
If you want to trust my snap judgment, buy this book: you'll be delighted. If you want to trust my more reflective second judgment, buy it: you'll be delighted but frustrated, troubled and left wanting more.
"Blink" brims with surprising insights about our world and ourselves, ideas that you'll have a hard time getting out of your head, things you'll itch to share with all your friends.
You can't judge a book by its cover. But Gladwell had me at hello — and kept me hooked to the final page.
As a researcher, Gladwell doesn't break much new ground. But he's talented at popularizing others' research. He's a clever storyteller who synthesizes and translates the work of psychologists, market researchers and criminologists.
Blink cements his position as the most engaging essayist working at the intersection of science and culture.
The author can be simultaneously lively and serious, with particularly good instincts for finding quirky, varied examples to prove his points. But he delivers what is essentially a hybrid of marketing wisdom and self-help - stronger on broad, catchy constructs than on innovative thinking.
The kouros example is effective because it capitalizes on our tendency to generalize from a single positive association, leading to the conclusion that intuition trumps reason. But in this case, a bit of thought would show that conclusion to be unlikely, even within the confined realm of art
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fakery. Think about how often experts throughout history have been duped by forgers because intuition told them that they were looking at the real thing. It is ironic that Gladwell (knowingly or not) exploits one of the greatest weaknesses of intuition—our tendency to blithely infer cause from anecdotes—in making his case for intuition's extraordinary power. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member JollyContrarian
As with his breakthrough surprise best-seller The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell's follow up offering is stuffed stem to stern with fascinating anecdote, and presented in the same breezy manner. And while, I suppose, there's a consistent argument buried
Gladwell apparently can't make up his mind whether snap judgments are good things (as they seem to be for the purpose of spotting art forgeries and waging guerilla warfare) or bad things (as they seem to be when manifesting themselves in a form of temporary cop autism which causes innocent bystanders to get shot). What one is left with is a collection of anecdotes about the subconscious and immediate, each fascinating in its own right, make no mistake, and each of which undoubtedly carries its own situation-specific lesson, but which together sum up to precisely nothing at all. Sometimes Blink-style judgments are good; sometimes they proceed from our innate primordial racism. Great. Kind of.
The story I found most interesting though, on reflection, perhaps the least genuinely on point (assuming the point is "how snap judgments shape the world we live in"), was the importance of a physician's bedside manner in assessing his (or her) likelihood of being the subject of a medical negligence suit. Gladwell would say this has everything to do with "thin-slicing" - but it is difficult to see the similarity between this sort of thin-slicing and the thin-slicing encapsuated in cop shootings or on-the-fly military strategics. But there is definitely a lesson in there for those following the professional services calling: If your clients think you're nice, you are less likely to get sued, no matter how useless you might really be - and vice versa! That's a banker.
That observation might equally apply to this book itself: it doesn't uncover any single great insight about our mental lives, but Gladwell gets away with it because he's such an affable chap, and he writes in such an appealing way, that it seems churlish to hold this against him. We don't begrudge him what really is a fairly poorly knitted cardigan of fireside yarns - since ugly old jumpers are perfect for loafing about in on holiday, and on holiday is certainly where I read this book: as a kind of extended weekend paper feature it seemed just fine.
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somewhere in there, I'm blowed if I know what it is. Gladwell apparently can't make up his mind whether snap judgments are good things (as they seem to be for the purpose of spotting art forgeries and waging guerilla warfare) or bad things (as they seem to be when manifesting themselves in a form of temporary cop autism which causes innocent bystanders to get shot). What one is left with is a collection of anecdotes about the subconscious and immediate, each fascinating in its own right, make no mistake, and each of which undoubtedly carries its own situation-specific lesson, but which together sum up to precisely nothing at all. Sometimes Blink-style judgments are good; sometimes they proceed from our innate primordial racism. Great. Kind of.
The story I found most interesting though, on reflection, perhaps the least genuinely on point (assuming the point is "how snap judgments shape the world we live in"), was the importance of a physician's bedside manner in assessing his (or her) likelihood of being the subject of a medical negligence suit. Gladwell would say this has everything to do with "thin-slicing" - but it is difficult to see the similarity between this sort of thin-slicing and the thin-slicing encapsuated in cop shootings or on-the-fly military strategics. But there is definitely a lesson in there for those following the professional services calling: If your clients think you're nice, you are less likely to get sued, no matter how useless you might really be - and vice versa! That's a banker.
That observation might equally apply to this book itself: it doesn't uncover any single great insight about our mental lives, but Gladwell gets away with it because he's such an affable chap, and he writes in such an appealing way, that it seems churlish to hold this against him. We don't begrudge him what really is a fairly poorly knitted cardigan of fireside yarns - since ugly old jumpers are perfect for loafing about in on holiday, and on holiday is certainly where I read this book: as a kind of extended weekend paper feature it seemed just fine.
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LibraryThing member nbmars
My reaction to Gladwell’s Blink is similar to my wife’s reaction to his earlier book, Outliers - Gladwell is willing to twist the facts of any situation to fit into his hypotheses. However in Blink, the basic hypothesis – that split-second judgments are usually trustworthy – seems even more
Gladwell writes about a part of the brain (but I think he means mind) called the “adaptive unconscious,” which sometimes allows us to make snap decisions “every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.” He cites the example of the Getty Museum’s purchase of what appeared to be an ancient Greek kouros (a sculpture of a nude male) for almost $10 million. The Getty hired geologists, archeologists, and lawyers to study the statue with sophisticated electronic equipment. They concluded that the statue was indeed old, and so probably authentic. Several Greek art historians, however, saw the statue as a fake at first glance because it didn’t “look right.” They were unable to articulate precisely what was “not right,” but their instincts proved to be correct. From these facts, Gladwell concludes that the instincts or adaptive unconscious made a better decision than careful analysis.
I think there was a more obvious explanation. The rational analysis by the Getty people was made by people who did not know much about kouri, and all their testing and analysis did not edify them enough to make a sound judgment. The snap judgments of the Greek art historians were made by people who knew a lot about the subject matter, and didn’t need the extensive electronic tests to come to a reasonable conclusion—they could tell a fake simply because of how the statute “looked.” Gladwell was comparing the snap judgments of experts with the analytical choices of tyros.
Gladwell makes the same error, even more egregiously, in his next example.
There, he shows that John Gottman of the University of Washington needs only a one hour interview with a married couple to predict (with 95% accuracy) whether their marriage will last fifteen years. Non-experts, viewing or participating in the same interview, make very poor predictions, no matter how much analysis they put into effort. It turns out that Gottman is not even using his instinct. Instead, he believes he has learned from interviewing more than 3,000 married couples that a very reliable predictor is how much “contempt” they show for one another. [Whether or not Gottman can actually do what he claims is another issue—after all, it requires a 15 year wait to determine whether the couple will still be married in 15 years. Gladwell never questions the accuracy of Gottman’s predictions.] Gottman is not using his adaptive unconscious; he is merely applying his theory of “contempt.”
Gladwell makes another error in confusing ostensibly complex problems with genuinely complex ones. For example, he cites the problem of predicting which physicians are likely to be sued (note, the issue is who gets sued, not who is negligent). All kinds of analysis can be done on a physician’s training, specialty, background, and temperament, none of which information proves to be a good predictor of whether he will be sued. So, is this a very complex problem? No. It turns out that the vast majority of physicians who get sued are those whose patients just don’t like them. The more empathetic a physician is, the less likely she is to be sued. Thus what looked like a very complex analysis turns out to be fairly simple. Our instincts work well on this problem not because it is complex, but because it is rather simple. The problem of predicting whether a physician will be negligent, on the other hand, is difficult, and our instincts do not do a good job predicting that.
Gladwell also confuses instinct with an inability or unwillingness to articulate in language a complex thought pattern. He says that George Soros and Jack Welch often relied on their “gut” for important decisions. That may be true, but it is also likely that they just don’t bother to articulate their entire thought processes.
One might also question wiping out years of experience by labeling it “instinct.” Vic Braden, the tennis guru, claims he can predict with great accuracy when a touring pro is about to commit a double fault on his serve. Gladwell does nothing to test whether he is correct, but Braden probably can predict double faults much better than you or I could. This just shows that experts know more about their fields than non-experts, not that their instinct is a better predictor than careful analysis.
Gladwell does perform a valuable service in showing how our innate prejudices affect decision-making, and how those prejudices can be manipulated without our being conscious of the manipulation. I think, however, that he exaggerates the efficacy of that manipulation.
In reading Blink, I was frequently irritated by Gladwell’s failure to make important distinctions—it seems he was always comparing “apples with oranges.” For example, he says he is disturbed with how much more likely blacks are to be arrested and convicted of crimes than whites are. He says, “I’m not talking here about racial differences in overall crime rates. What I’m talking about is this: if, for example, a white man and a black man are charged with the identical drug-related crime, the black man is far more likely…to go to jail.” But the statistics he cites in support of his thesis are nothing but the differences in rates of incarceration in the public at large, not among those charged with the same crimes! So the reader is left with no way of judging how much of the difference comes from greater use of drugs among blacks (if any), and how much from the difference in treatment in the courts.
Blink concludes with a suggestion that something should be done in the legal system to reduce or eliminate racial prejudice, obviously a laudatory goal. His proposed method is to prevent jurors from seeing the race of the witnesses. However, in an earlier chapter, he demonstrated how important it was to view subtle changes is facial expression to determine whether a speaker was telling the truth or lying! Perhaps Gladwell values the elimination of racial prejudice above assessing the truthfulness of witnesses. Or perhaps he just forgot what he had written in the previous chapter.
Evaluation: There is no doubt Gladwell knows how to write a book with “curb appeal.” That is, it looks great at first glance, until you start to analyze his methodology and conclusions. There is certainly much merit in popularizing science, but what Gladwell relies upon is not science: his arguments are specious; his inferences are spurious; and his bruiting of himself as an authority in the social sciences helps spread the fallacious notion that if A and B occur together, one is the cause of the other. In short, his subtitle ("The Power of Thinking Without Thinking") is extremely apt.
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unsupported, if that is possible.Gladwell writes about a part of the brain (but I think he means mind) called the “adaptive unconscious,” which sometimes allows us to make snap decisions “every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.” He cites the example of the Getty Museum’s purchase of what appeared to be an ancient Greek kouros (a sculpture of a nude male) for almost $10 million. The Getty hired geologists, archeologists, and lawyers to study the statue with sophisticated electronic equipment. They concluded that the statue was indeed old, and so probably authentic. Several Greek art historians, however, saw the statue as a fake at first glance because it didn’t “look right.” They were unable to articulate precisely what was “not right,” but their instincts proved to be correct. From these facts, Gladwell concludes that the instincts or adaptive unconscious made a better decision than careful analysis.
I think there was a more obvious explanation. The rational analysis by the Getty people was made by people who did not know much about kouri, and all their testing and analysis did not edify them enough to make a sound judgment. The snap judgments of the Greek art historians were made by people who knew a lot about the subject matter, and didn’t need the extensive electronic tests to come to a reasonable conclusion—they could tell a fake simply because of how the statute “looked.” Gladwell was comparing the snap judgments of experts with the analytical choices of tyros.
Gladwell makes the same error, even more egregiously, in his next example.
There, he shows that John Gottman of the University of Washington needs only a one hour interview with a married couple to predict (with 95% accuracy) whether their marriage will last fifteen years. Non-experts, viewing or participating in the same interview, make very poor predictions, no matter how much analysis they put into effort. It turns out that Gottman is not even using his instinct. Instead, he believes he has learned from interviewing more than 3,000 married couples that a very reliable predictor is how much “contempt” they show for one another. [Whether or not Gottman can actually do what he claims is another issue—after all, it requires a 15 year wait to determine whether the couple will still be married in 15 years. Gladwell never questions the accuracy of Gottman’s predictions.] Gottman is not using his adaptive unconscious; he is merely applying his theory of “contempt.”
Gladwell makes another error in confusing ostensibly complex problems with genuinely complex ones. For example, he cites the problem of predicting which physicians are likely to be sued (note, the issue is who gets sued, not who is negligent). All kinds of analysis can be done on a physician’s training, specialty, background, and temperament, none of which information proves to be a good predictor of whether he will be sued. So, is this a very complex problem? No. It turns out that the vast majority of physicians who get sued are those whose patients just don’t like them. The more empathetic a physician is, the less likely she is to be sued. Thus what looked like a very complex analysis turns out to be fairly simple. Our instincts work well on this problem not because it is complex, but because it is rather simple. The problem of predicting whether a physician will be negligent, on the other hand, is difficult, and our instincts do not do a good job predicting that.
Gladwell also confuses instinct with an inability or unwillingness to articulate in language a complex thought pattern. He says that George Soros and Jack Welch often relied on their “gut” for important decisions. That may be true, but it is also likely that they just don’t bother to articulate their entire thought processes.
One might also question wiping out years of experience by labeling it “instinct.” Vic Braden, the tennis guru, claims he can predict with great accuracy when a touring pro is about to commit a double fault on his serve. Gladwell does nothing to test whether he is correct, but Braden probably can predict double faults much better than you or I could. This just shows that experts know more about their fields than non-experts, not that their instinct is a better predictor than careful analysis.
Gladwell does perform a valuable service in showing how our innate prejudices affect decision-making, and how those prejudices can be manipulated without our being conscious of the manipulation. I think, however, that he exaggerates the efficacy of that manipulation.
In reading Blink, I was frequently irritated by Gladwell’s failure to make important distinctions—it seems he was always comparing “apples with oranges.” For example, he says he is disturbed with how much more likely blacks are to be arrested and convicted of crimes than whites are. He says, “I’m not talking here about racial differences in overall crime rates. What I’m talking about is this: if, for example, a white man and a black man are charged with the identical drug-related crime, the black man is far more likely…to go to jail.” But the statistics he cites in support of his thesis are nothing but the differences in rates of incarceration in the public at large, not among those charged with the same crimes! So the reader is left with no way of judging how much of the difference comes from greater use of drugs among blacks (if any), and how much from the difference in treatment in the courts.
Blink concludes with a suggestion that something should be done in the legal system to reduce or eliminate racial prejudice, obviously a laudatory goal. His proposed method is to prevent jurors from seeing the race of the witnesses. However, in an earlier chapter, he demonstrated how important it was to view subtle changes is facial expression to determine whether a speaker was telling the truth or lying! Perhaps Gladwell values the elimination of racial prejudice above assessing the truthfulness of witnesses. Or perhaps he just forgot what he had written in the previous chapter.
Evaluation: There is no doubt Gladwell knows how to write a book with “curb appeal.” That is, it looks great at first glance, until you start to analyze his methodology and conclusions. There is certainly much merit in popularizing science, but what Gladwell relies upon is not science: his arguments are specious; his inferences are spurious; and his bruiting of himself as an authority in the social sciences helps spread the fallacious notion that if A and B occur together, one is the cause of the other. In short, his subtitle ("The Power of Thinking Without Thinking") is extremely apt.
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LibraryThing member KR_Patterson
This was really good, but I don't think I'm any more clear at the end than when I started how this information will help me. I love the idea of our unconscious working at levels that our conscious mind cannot. I know I often have gut instincts I ignore because I reason them out and get confused
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with a case of "too much information". I was hoping by the end of this book I would be able to apply this information, but I'm still not sure I can tell the difference between a true instinct and a snap judgment originating from preconceived ideas. If it had been more clear on that, I would have given it 5 stars. Show Less
LibraryThing member Bookstacks
Your brain works all on its own and doesn't need you to tell it what to do...is what the sub title SHOULD be. Scary stuff from the author of 'The Tipping Point', another scary book. Malcolm Gladwell presents a complicated and baffling subject in an easy to read manner, like a favorite professor he
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makes sure there are no 'HUH?' moments. But you will find it hard to believe that all this goes on in your own brain. You will also find yourself reading large portions of the book out to friends, family and workmates, exclaiming out loud: 'No Way!!' and sitting with your jaw hanging open for long periods of time. Show Less
LibraryThing member mbmackay
Malcolm Gladwell's book is about one of the two different ways of thinking - the fast or intuitive. He is a masterful writer of this type of book, popularising the original work or thoughts of others. He writes such clear and lucid sentences, and has a wonderful knack for choosing the telling
I read this book in 2012, some 6 years since its publication. In that time, Daniel Kahneman has released Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman has the advantage of being the source of much of the research into the different ways of thinking, and he also writes in an engaging style with wonderful clarity. Reading Gladwell after Kahneman made Gladwell appear a little shallow. But this is an unfair comparison - Gladwell seems to have pioneered the writing on the topic for the masses, and his book achieves its target.
I remain a Gladwell fan, and appreciate him bringing interesting ideas to my attention, and for his slick writing on such topics. A good read. (September 2012)
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example. But, you can also see the formulaic aspects of his style - the frequent repetition of the instances mentioned earlier in the book can become a little tedious.I read this book in 2012, some 6 years since its publication. In that time, Daniel Kahneman has released Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman has the advantage of being the source of much of the research into the different ways of thinking, and he also writes in an engaging style with wonderful clarity. Reading Gladwell after Kahneman made Gladwell appear a little shallow. But this is an unfair comparison - Gladwell seems to have pioneered the writing on the topic for the masses, and his book achieves its target.
I remain a Gladwell fan, and appreciate him bringing interesting ideas to my attention, and for his slick writing on such topics. A good read. (September 2012)
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LibraryThing member M.Campanella
I had a little more faith reading this than I did when I read Outliers. It rested on the last chapter, and the hope that Gladwell would tell some informed opinion on the distinction between thin-slicing poorly and not.
He thinks he has done this well in the book, chapter by chapter in the specific
He hasn't. And this fails.
Is his 'thin-slicing' (and this brand naming of life got my goat in the two books by Gladwell I have read) a good thing or a bad thing? He seems to argue that it is good.
Is it?
Thin slicing at its best is the sip test used for the pepsi challenge, which he spends a good time debasing. It is exactly what those cops in Brooklyn did, with horrible consequences. It is what the voting populace did with Warren Harding. And no arguements that 'those people did not do it correctly' will work, because that's what a rushed choice is by the nature of a rushed choice. So where is this useful? In seeing if art pieces are fakes. But was it really the fact that those who saw it for a fake looked at it suddenly that made them know? I'm not convinced. The fact that they looked at it for so short a time was why they couldn't articulate why it was a fake. It was there education and experience that allowed them to see it for what it was, even in a split second. The amount of time they looked at it was significant only in making an argument Gladwell enjoys. He credits the speed of the choices people make, without really taking into consideration the innumerable other factors that could have gone into it. Frankly, a more interesting psychological analysis would have been how the Getty's experts got dupped (and don't sell me any shit about having taken there time).
How do we know in our hastily made choices if we are acting like the art dealers or the Warren Harding voters? We don't. We can make our rushed choice, then look for evidence to back it up. If you do not have the time to do this, go with your first instinct, but be prepared for the possibility that you are wrong, and like those cops who did pretty much what Gladwell preached, be prepared for the consequences.
He thinks he has done this well in the book, chapter by chapter in the specific
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examples.He hasn't. And this fails.
Is his 'thin-slicing' (and this brand naming of life got my goat in the two books by Gladwell I have read) a good thing or a bad thing? He seems to argue that it is good.
Is it?
Thin slicing at its best is the sip test used for the pepsi challenge, which he spends a good time debasing. It is exactly what those cops in Brooklyn did, with horrible consequences. It is what the voting populace did with Warren Harding. And no arguements that 'those people did not do it correctly' will work, because that's what a rushed choice is by the nature of a rushed choice. So where is this useful? In seeing if art pieces are fakes. But was it really the fact that those who saw it for a fake looked at it suddenly that made them know? I'm not convinced. The fact that they looked at it for so short a time was why they couldn't articulate why it was a fake. It was there education and experience that allowed them to see it for what it was, even in a split second. The amount of time they looked at it was significant only in making an argument Gladwell enjoys. He credits the speed of the choices people make, without really taking into consideration the innumerable other factors that could have gone into it. Frankly, a more interesting psychological analysis would have been how the Getty's experts got dupped (and don't sell me any shit about having taken there time).
How do we know in our hastily made choices if we are acting like the art dealers or the Warren Harding voters? We don't. We can make our rushed choice, then look for evidence to back it up. If you do not have the time to do this, go with your first instinct, but be prepared for the possibility that you are wrong, and like those cops who did pretty much what Gladwell preached, be prepared for the consequences.
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LibraryThing member JeffV
In Blink, Gladwell discusses decisions and ramifications of decisions made in a "blink of an eye." The decisions can often be correct (such as when determining whether someone is being truthful) or horribly wrong -- a police officer thinks she sees someone pull a gun and 41 bullet holes later, one
The most interesting demonstrations in the book regarded the effects of split decisions and other sensory factors or prejudices. Pepsi beats Coke in a sip test, because in a sip test, the sweeter drink leaves a better impression. Most people, however, consume soda in much larger quantities, and the allure of extra sweetness wears thin. Therefore, Coke still maintains a lead in the marketplace, and this also explains the catastrophic failure of "New Coke." When combined with prejudices., however, split-second decisions can cause a lot of heartache, whether or not the prejudice is overt. Studies have shown that most people who claim to have no racial prejudice nevertheless fail an association test. Sometimes, depriving one of potentially misleading information is helpful: in one example, a woman trombonist wins a seat in a prestigious orchestra based on a blind audition (she was behind a screen so her evaluators could not see she was a woman). When she won the job fair and square, she then had to deal with the idiotic prejudice of the conductor who didn't think it was an appropriate for a woman to be playing a brass instrument. It still took a court of law to get her career where it deserved to be; but had it not been for the blind audition, the prejudice over her being a woman would have negated the fact she turned in the best audition and deserved the job.
We can make better decisions, but it takes dedicated situational practice to overcome our lifetime of experience. In the end, this book was a mere curiosity -- a collection of anecdotes that offers some excuse for how some very bad things can happen. If anything, we learn to mistrust our initial impulse -- at the very least, hold back judgment until we have more data. However, without explicit training to the contrary, it is unlikely any of us will be able to conceive of doing a thing differently until analyzed in retrospect.
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very dead guy and no gun. Gladwell goes into some of the scientific analysis on reading facial expressions; and how a skilled person can virtually read the mind of another just by watching for specific clues. The most interesting demonstrations in the book regarded the effects of split decisions and other sensory factors or prejudices. Pepsi beats Coke in a sip test, because in a sip test, the sweeter drink leaves a better impression. Most people, however, consume soda in much larger quantities, and the allure of extra sweetness wears thin. Therefore, Coke still maintains a lead in the marketplace, and this also explains the catastrophic failure of "New Coke." When combined with prejudices., however, split-second decisions can cause a lot of heartache, whether or not the prejudice is overt. Studies have shown that most people who claim to have no racial prejudice nevertheless fail an association test. Sometimes, depriving one of potentially misleading information is helpful: in one example, a woman trombonist wins a seat in a prestigious orchestra based on a blind audition (she was behind a screen so her evaluators could not see she was a woman). When she won the job fair and square, she then had to deal with the idiotic prejudice of the conductor who didn't think it was an appropriate for a woman to be playing a brass instrument. It still took a court of law to get her career where it deserved to be; but had it not been for the blind audition, the prejudice over her being a woman would have negated the fact she turned in the best audition and deserved the job.
We can make better decisions, but it takes dedicated situational practice to overcome our lifetime of experience. In the end, this book was a mere curiosity -- a collection of anecdotes that offers some excuse for how some very bad things can happen. If anything, we learn to mistrust our initial impulse -- at the very least, hold back judgment until we have more data. However, without explicit training to the contrary, it is unlikely any of us will be able to conceive of doing a thing differently until analyzed in retrospect.
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LibraryThing member minifig
A very interesting and well-written book that explores the notion of thin-slicing. Making quick decisions based on unconscious processing of huge amounts of information.
LibraryThing member Brad_LA_THS
Blink has no real plot. It is a collection of stories found that are used to educate the reader in an unbiased format of both the negative and the positive aspects of an idea the author presents early in the book. His central idea is a function of the brain dubbed “thin-slicing.” This is the
There is one quote in this book that stands out to me and is called upon by the author multiple times later in the book.
"He just swished a cloth off the top of it and said, 'Well, it isn't ours yet, but it will be in a couple of weeks.' And I said, 'I'm sorry to hear that." (P.6 Par.1)
This quote refers to the unveiling of the kouros, an ancient Greek statue, to the art historian Evelyn Harrison. The kouros had been tested extensively and all the findings said that the statue was genuine however an art historian took one glance at it and instinctively knew that it was a fake. This captures the essence of “thin-slicing” perfectly and is one of the best examples used in the text.
To enjoy this book, the reader must be curious. The reader needs to have some sort of interest in the topic of brain function. It is best if the reader is eager to learn the new concepts that are being brought up and be able to digest the information with vigor. That is what saw me through the book and I believe it would do the same for others.
One of my favorite parts of Blink is that it manages to make the reading experience more interactive. There are replications of simple experiments that the reader can do with only the book that does a fantastic job of helping the reader understand topics. Another interactive aspect is being able to test out what you have been told in real life through everyday social interactions. My only dislike of Blink is that it almost goes into too much detail at times and leaves me confused. I often had to reread passages to fully understand the material.
I highly recommend this book. It was well written, interesting, well supported and had seemingly unbiased opinions. Again, if you are curious, interested, or have a hunger for knowledge, you should definitely read this book. If not you may find yourself bored and not picking the book back up so be wary. Overall it was great to read and learn from Blink.
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act of the brain in which it takes small portions of information from a given scenario and produces extraordinary results for the small amount of time needed. It is used in instances such as adrenaline filled reactions like the flight or fight response but is also used to gather knowledge in a much safer environment as detailed extensively in Blink. There is one quote in this book that stands out to me and is called upon by the author multiple times later in the book.
"He just swished a cloth off the top of it and said, 'Well, it isn't ours yet, but it will be in a couple of weeks.' And I said, 'I'm sorry to hear that." (P.6 Par.1)
This quote refers to the unveiling of the kouros, an ancient Greek statue, to the art historian Evelyn Harrison. The kouros had been tested extensively and all the findings said that the statue was genuine however an art historian took one glance at it and instinctively knew that it was a fake. This captures the essence of “thin-slicing” perfectly and is one of the best examples used in the text.
To enjoy this book, the reader must be curious. The reader needs to have some sort of interest in the topic of brain function. It is best if the reader is eager to learn the new concepts that are being brought up and be able to digest the information with vigor. That is what saw me through the book and I believe it would do the same for others.
One of my favorite parts of Blink is that it manages to make the reading experience more interactive. There are replications of simple experiments that the reader can do with only the book that does a fantastic job of helping the reader understand topics. Another interactive aspect is being able to test out what you have been told in real life through everyday social interactions. My only dislike of Blink is that it almost goes into too much detail at times and leaves me confused. I often had to reread passages to fully understand the material.
I highly recommend this book. It was well written, interesting, well supported and had seemingly unbiased opinions. Again, if you are curious, interested, or have a hunger for knowledge, you should definitely read this book. If not you may find yourself bored and not picking the book back up so be wary. Overall it was great to read and learn from Blink.
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LibraryThing member justindtapp
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell is always a quick read-- he's a great storyteller and finds plenty of illustrations for whatever concept he's presenting.
This book is about how the brain works:
"It's a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. When
He shows how all of us have the ability to "thin-slice" people or situations in the first couple of seconds. Based on an extremely small sample size we can make judgments that are just as accurate as if we'd had hours or days with the person or situation. But some people are better at this than others because they have a lot of exposure and experience, and some people make serious errors in calculation during those moments--particularly in extremely stressful situations-- because of a "temporary autism" that can occur when the body is placed in extreme stress.
Sometimes studying something systematically and empirically may lead people to wrong conclusions, conclusions that some people just automatically and correctly know are wrong in two seconds.
A lot of good scientific research presented with great examples. I encourage you to click the link above to read more about the book from Gladwell himself. I learned a lot and enjoyed it.
4.5 stars out of 5.
This book is about how the brain works:
"It's a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. When
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you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions. Well, 'Blink' is a book about those two seconds, because I think those instant conclusions that we reach are really powerful and really important and, occasionally, really good." He shows how all of us have the ability to "thin-slice" people or situations in the first couple of seconds. Based on an extremely small sample size we can make judgments that are just as accurate as if we'd had hours or days with the person or situation. But some people are better at this than others because they have a lot of exposure and experience, and some people make serious errors in calculation during those moments--particularly in extremely stressful situations-- because of a "temporary autism" that can occur when the body is placed in extreme stress.
Sometimes studying something systematically and empirically may lead people to wrong conclusions, conclusions that some people just automatically and correctly know are wrong in two seconds.
A lot of good scientific research presented with great examples. I encourage you to click the link above to read more about the book from Gladwell himself. I learned a lot and enjoyed it.
4.5 stars out of 5.
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LibraryThing member veroamore
after the first chapter, it mostly beats you over the head with the examples trying to prove its point. interesting concept and one that appears to have merit but the book could have been half as long and made its point equally well.
LibraryThing member Jim53
An intriguing idea--that we can improve the quality of our snap decisions--but ultimately Gladwell fails to deliver. Instead he gives us a long list of anecdotes, some of which support his thesis.
LibraryThing member dk_phoenix
What an interesting book! I can't say it was particularly revolutionary, or immensely thought-provoking, or even that I fully agree with all of Gladwell's concepts, but I'm glad I took the time to read this one through.
The book takes a gander at the concept of 'thin-slicing', or making
Now, that seems to go without saying. Not exactly a novel concept. However, Gladwell provides a number of fascinating anecdotes to illustrate his points, which makes this book worth reading. My favorite sections were the ones that dealt with facial signals, ie. reading people effectively. Gladwell included a trial study with an autistic individual and reading facial expressions which was absolutely fascinating.
After reading this, there are a number of studies listed in his bibliography that I plan to search out for myself. I'd like to learn a bit more about how we process information, in particular how to better understand facial expressions (something that comes very naturally to many salesmen).
It's a quick read, so if it's something you might be interested in, go ahead and pick up the book. Who knows, you may even learn something!
The book takes a gander at the concept of 'thin-slicing', or making
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judgments/decisions based on split second information. Whether we're choosing an answer on a multiple choice quiz, making a first impression, or selling a car, split-second information and what we do with it can mean the difference between success and disaster.Now, that seems to go without saying. Not exactly a novel concept. However, Gladwell provides a number of fascinating anecdotes to illustrate his points, which makes this book worth reading. My favorite sections were the ones that dealt with facial signals, ie. reading people effectively. Gladwell included a trial study with an autistic individual and reading facial expressions which was absolutely fascinating.
After reading this, there are a number of studies listed in his bibliography that I plan to search out for myself. I'd like to learn a bit more about how we process information, in particular how to better understand facial expressions (something that comes very naturally to many salesmen).
It's a quick read, so if it's something you might be interested in, go ahead and pick up the book. Who knows, you may even learn something!
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LibraryThing member happines
Ever met someone for the first time and hated them instantly? If you thought there was ‘something’ about that person that made you hate them, you are right but try analyzing what and your mind draws a blank. When people try to explain why they thought, what they thought most of us fail to give
The author (Malcolm Gladwell) discusses a very important concept-Thin slicing. It essentially refers to how we make shockingly accurate judgments on people and things we see for the ‘first time’. Most of us attribute that feeling to a gut feel but there is more to it than that. What happens as explained in the book is that, the brain sifts through a lot of our mind’s historical data to give us an accurate estimate (or a thin slice) which we refer to as our gut feeling.
Mind reading is another important concept that’s touched upon. Several incidents are discussed where critical judgments were made erroneously because the people involved did not accurately mind read. The example used for illustration is ironic considering the same erroneous judgment was repeated this year in England, when a bunch of policemen misunderstood the intentions of an innocent man and shot him in the subway.
The author explains that although eyes are the windows to our soul, it’s the facial expressions that are the master key to our internal feelings. Expressions that flit across our faces in micro seconds hold more information than any amount of studies that may analyze that person over days. Here I am reminded of a friend of mine who is an exception to this rule. She was a truly lucky girl considering that no one could mind read her because her face was ‘always’ blank, no matter what myriad emotions she experienced.
The book then proceeds to discuss a whole bunch of other concepts and experiments which are then rationally explained. The important experiments analyzed are the Coke-Pepsi blind test, the Warren Harding error (or the error of judging people based only on their good looks), Paul Van Ripper’s big victory etc. The author discusses his observations from topics as varied as speed dating, military battles, heart attack response analysis, car sales and celebrity singers.
Other things discussed are marriage signatures, consumer choices and the pitfalls of pre-conceived/stereotypical notions. Our minds unconsciously levitate towards certain stereotypical notions and although we can ‘mind train’ ourselves it’s quite difficult. The theories discussed are the syndrome of tall people achieving more success, men being considered more superior to women work-wise etc.
Blink is an intensive study of the psychology of the human mind. In ‘Blink’, the author has attempted to explain in simple language, several new concepts that unravel the secrets of our thinking. The material that he has presented is neither breakthrough nor earth shattering but by making these things familiar to the common man in interesting layman language, he’s served a coup’degrace. The author presents all the concepts in such an interesting manner that even though he sounds confused throughout the book, you’ll still like what you are reading.
If nothing this book can guarantee you that the next time you are at a party and are short of some attention-grabbing conversation starters you could recall and discuss plenty of ideas that you have picked from ‘Blink’.
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plausible answers. Here’s where ‘Blink’ comes in. Blink is all about the amazingly accurate split-second decisions we make when we see something for the first time, due to the power of our subconscious mind. The author (Malcolm Gladwell) discusses a very important concept-Thin slicing. It essentially refers to how we make shockingly accurate judgments on people and things we see for the ‘first time’. Most of us attribute that feeling to a gut feel but there is more to it than that. What happens as explained in the book is that, the brain sifts through a lot of our mind’s historical data to give us an accurate estimate (or a thin slice) which we refer to as our gut feeling.
Mind reading is another important concept that’s touched upon. Several incidents are discussed where critical judgments were made erroneously because the people involved did not accurately mind read. The example used for illustration is ironic considering the same erroneous judgment was repeated this year in England, when a bunch of policemen misunderstood the intentions of an innocent man and shot him in the subway.
The author explains that although eyes are the windows to our soul, it’s the facial expressions that are the master key to our internal feelings. Expressions that flit across our faces in micro seconds hold more information than any amount of studies that may analyze that person over days. Here I am reminded of a friend of mine who is an exception to this rule. She was a truly lucky girl considering that no one could mind read her because her face was ‘always’ blank, no matter what myriad emotions she experienced.
The book then proceeds to discuss a whole bunch of other concepts and experiments which are then rationally explained. The important experiments analyzed are the Coke-Pepsi blind test, the Warren Harding error (or the error of judging people based only on their good looks), Paul Van Ripper’s big victory etc. The author discusses his observations from topics as varied as speed dating, military battles, heart attack response analysis, car sales and celebrity singers.
Other things discussed are marriage signatures, consumer choices and the pitfalls of pre-conceived/stereotypical notions. Our minds unconsciously levitate towards certain stereotypical notions and although we can ‘mind train’ ourselves it’s quite difficult. The theories discussed are the syndrome of tall people achieving more success, men being considered more superior to women work-wise etc.
Blink is an intensive study of the psychology of the human mind. In ‘Blink’, the author has attempted to explain in simple language, several new concepts that unravel the secrets of our thinking. The material that he has presented is neither breakthrough nor earth shattering but by making these things familiar to the common man in interesting layman language, he’s served a coup’degrace. The author presents all the concepts in such an interesting manner that even though he sounds confused throughout the book, you’ll still like what you are reading.
If nothing this book can guarantee you that the next time you are at a party and are short of some attention-grabbing conversation starters you could recall and discuss plenty of ideas that you have picked from ‘Blink’.
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LibraryThing member weeta
This is one of the many books that keeps coming in used and new at the bookstore where I work. This generally either means it's either really good, mandatory class reading...or it's just really terrible. I got curious and gave it a go and normally am all about woo-woo pseudoscience and metaphysics
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type junk. Sadly, no matter how much I want to like Gladwell, I just couldn't get into this. The title seems pretty misleading because much of the book considered the problems that happen when people "think without thinking." The pseudo-science was tolerable and there are a couple interesting stories within, but by the time Gladwell was proposing a theory of "temporary Autism" as justification for police brutality, I just wanted the darn book to be over. Show Less
LibraryThing member michaeldwebb
More fun from the Dan Brown of the think piece. Like Brown, Gladwell is a guilty pleasure - you know it's kind of dumb and a bit lowbrow, but he's just so damn readable. What was this about? Not a lot really - a few thoughts about human snap judgement, backed up with examples from a cast of
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interesting characters, all off which Gladwell enthuses about in a contagious but completely non-critical way. There's no real conclusion to the book, but if you want something light and fluffy to read then you could do worse than pick this up. Show Less
LibraryThing member laxhslr9599
Very well written and interesting book. Gladwell's rhetoric is very persuasive throughought the book. Many of his real life examples are ones that will overall help me better myself and my mindset as I move on in my life. The only problem that I have with this book is that it does get quite
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repetitive, and I can see how many would argue that Okay you made your point, theres no need to carry on for 150+ more pages about it. Other than that, I would still recommend this book, and it is great for anyone with a psychological backround, or an educational spurt. Overall I liked it, and it is one that many should read. Show Less
LibraryThing member DrLed
Synopsis: The pros and cons of making snap decisions and those based on first impression are examined with examples given. There are also implications for testing procedures and how performance can be affected by 'thin slicing' and 'priming'.
Review: This is an interesting look at what we know
Review: This is an interesting look at what we know
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without knowing, how too much information can actually cloud judgment, and how we can and cannot overcome prejudices. Middle chapters were a bit redundant. Show Less
LibraryThing member grheault
Blink is a popularizatiBon of psychological research that would make for very boring reading in the original. Blink is like a dinner party conversation that has an academic basis. If you quadrant out the decisions presented in this book on the axes of quickness vs. accuracy you find missing expert
Lots of information on bad and good quick decisions, and could use a lot more discussion of policy recommendations for improving decision making in public sphere: police and medical who are often in time-pressured cirucumstances and whose quick decisions have serious consequences for others.
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decisions made slowly: the kind of decisions that uncover non-obvious truths. Lots of information on bad and good quick decisions, and could use a lot more discussion of policy recommendations for improving decision making in public sphere: police and medical who are often in time-pressured cirucumstances and whose quick decisions have serious consequences for others.
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LibraryThing member jimocracy
This was a much better book than The Tipping Point. I liked reading about different examples of slices in time. Gladwell did a great job telling a story that is counter-intuitive and fascinating.
LibraryThing member sacrain
I liked this book - it was very interesting. It didn't have the compelling fascination of Freakonomics for me -- it was somewhat of a struggle to sludge through every word. Gladwell seems to have a habit of repeating discoveries or theories a couple of times. I'm not sure if that's just his style,
If nothing else, this book made me feel smarter, and I have to thank Gladwell for breaking down scientific papers and studies into layman's terms (for the most part).
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if he thinks the readers aren't bright enough to catch on to the first explanation, or if it was just to make the book longer. If nothing else, this book made me feel smarter, and I have to thank Gladwell for breaking down scientific papers and studies into layman's terms (for the most part).
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LibraryThing member anne34729
This book was energetically recommended to me by a number of friends so I had high expectations. This could account for a slight disappointment and is probably right in line with Malcolm's warnings against preconceptions.
Having said that, I did enjoy the book; the notion that attraction is a gut
Having said that, I did enjoy the book; the notion that attraction is a gut
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response but not necessarily the wisest guide. Sometimes waiting and pondering can aid significantly in the decision making process, sometimes it requires less thinking. Knowing the difference is the rub. Show Less
LibraryThing member breic2
This book is about the power of the first impression and of the unconscious. It is also about the dangers of relying on the first impression, discussing problems that can however often be avoided by training. The book is organized as a series of case studies, essentially brief New Yorker stories.
First, Gladwell claims that in many cases all the information needed to make a decision is there in even very brief snippets. For example, it is easy to tell from a short, blurred clip of doctor-patient interaction which doctors will be sued. There is also some discussion of Ekman's facial action coding system, and of John Gottman's study of married couples to predict divorces.
The unconscious mind is often quite good at making fast decisions based only on brief impressions. Interestingly, this facility can be suppressed. For example, being forced to rationalize your impression makes your decisions worse, because you don't know why you like what you like. Only experts can articulate the reasons for their preferences. This effect is easily seen in taste tests. Also, when solving insight puzzles, speaking your reasoning aloud often actively prevents your brain from making the necessary insight (in contrast to problems that can be worked out systematically). Too much analysis paralyzes the subconscious.
However, there are also problems about acting based on a brief impression. An obvious problem is discrimination, which taints the subconscious of almost everyone. For example, people tend to have negative associations to blacks and positive associations to whites, even black people. This can be measured by timing classification tests. This effect is greatly reduced if you see a positive black role model just before taking the test, though. Thus your impressions can also be easily primed, subconsciously. A second problem, discussed in the context of police work and the Amadou Diallo case, is when stress narrows your brain's focus. Training can help overcome this, as can techniques to give a little more time and reduce the urgency.
Unfortunately, Gladwell is not entirely a trustworthy narrator. As a trivial example, at one point he talks about how a researcher collected 100,000 feet of film. How many Libraries of Congress is that? His judgement is also not trustworthy, as evidenced by the inclusion of only marginally related case studies. Still, it was an enjoyable book, easy to read, and I learned a few things about how I make decisions.
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They don't all fit the theme (the musician Kenna, a military exercise, heart-attack diagnosis in the ER), but many do, and the stories are all engaging. First, Gladwell claims that in many cases all the information needed to make a decision is there in even very brief snippets. For example, it is easy to tell from a short, blurred clip of doctor-patient interaction which doctors will be sued. There is also some discussion of Ekman's facial action coding system, and of John Gottman's study of married couples to predict divorces.
The unconscious mind is often quite good at making fast decisions based only on brief impressions. Interestingly, this facility can be suppressed. For example, being forced to rationalize your impression makes your decisions worse, because you don't know why you like what you like. Only experts can articulate the reasons for their preferences. This effect is easily seen in taste tests. Also, when solving insight puzzles, speaking your reasoning aloud often actively prevents your brain from making the necessary insight (in contrast to problems that can be worked out systematically). Too much analysis paralyzes the subconscious.
However, there are also problems about acting based on a brief impression. An obvious problem is discrimination, which taints the subconscious of almost everyone. For example, people tend to have negative associations to blacks and positive associations to whites, even black people. This can be measured by timing classification tests. This effect is greatly reduced if you see a positive black role model just before taking the test, though. Thus your impressions can also be easily primed, subconsciously. A second problem, discussed in the context of police work and the Amadou Diallo case, is when stress narrows your brain's focus. Training can help overcome this, as can techniques to give a little more time and reduce the urgency.
Unfortunately, Gladwell is not entirely a trustworthy narrator. As a trivial example, at one point he talks about how a researcher collected 100,000 feet of film. How many Libraries of Congress is that? His judgement is also not trustworthy, as evidenced by the inclusion of only marginally related case studies. Still, it was an enjoyable book, easy to read, and I learned a few things about how I make decisions.
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LibraryThing member collinsdanielp
I enjoyed this book a lot. I think it had many great insights into how our unconscious affects our judgement. I would have rated it higher, but I found Gladwell's continued excuses for the four plainclothes police officers who shot an unarmed black man 41 times in his apartment building disgusting.
LibraryThing member amydelpo
What can I say that hasn't already been said? Interesting, thought provoking, well written -- an easy, informative read.
Awards
Christian Science Monitor Best Book (Nonfiction — 2005)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2005-01-11
Physical description
277 p.; 8.35 inches
ISBN
071399844X / 9780713998443