Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
You have already done it. You have already blinked. You have already made a snap decision about the usefulness of this summary. You make snap decisions all the time and everyday. Blink discusses these decisions. Why do we make them? How do we make them? Why don't we trust them? Why shouldn't we trust them? Why we might want to trust them? Who does trust them and when? Blink is about our natural ability to slice a moment thinly—thin slicing—and recognize patterns in our environment, experiences, and relationships.
Whether we are having a simple conversation with a friend or making a business deal, we make instant judgments by watching the other person. Gladwell cites the work of Paul Ekman and other scientists who study facial expressions offering several interesting points. Facial expressions can be read cross culturally. Facial expressions reflect thought and thought reflects facial expressions. Thus, in a blink, we read another person's face to get a sense of what they are thinking, and often without consciously thinking about it, we decide to change our approach or we see that it is appropriate to laugh, smile, or be quizzical.
Gladwell describes “thin-slicing” as the interpretation of data from a very small slice of time. And he suggests that personal experience can help build up our ability to thin slice well. He offers examples from card players and food tasters and tennis coaches to police, curators, and doctors. He shows how good and bad decision-making aren't as much about how much information we process quickly but which information we focus on.
A fantastic tidbit readers should note focuses on priming. A professor offers an assignment which, among other words, includes gray, old, Florida , bingo, and wrinkle. John Bargh came up with this priming experiment. After reading some sentences including these words, readers will walk slower or take on other characteristics we associate with old age. Hmmm, maybe if we want a pick-me-up we should find something to read that mentions, youth, elevation, excitement, agility, fast, playful, and pre-school.
Gladwell suggests that learning more about our rapid cognition will help us build a better world. How? Because we can learn how to thin slice better. Gladwell writes, “Insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.” And it can get snuffed out, he argues, through increased heart rate (which creates tunnel vision symptoms) or by looking for the wrong information. And these negative effects of rapid cognition can be countered by sensitivity training and building experience.
Sometimes we thin-slice badly. Often we fall for tall people, which Gladwell describes as the Warren Harding error where tall people look as if they might be smart, but in actuality are not better then their shorter counterparts. Harding looked like a president, and it hardly seemed to matter that he didn't follow through with acts or speeches that corresponded to his distinguished looks.
Practically speaking, how do we know when to trust out thin-slicing? There isn't a single or easy answer. In general, we thin-slice well what we know well when we are least stressed about the moment and the outcome. With practice, we can fine tune and focus our ability.
