Difference between revisions of "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking"
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Revision as of 22:04, 13 April 2007
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| Author | Malcolm Gladwell |
|---|---|
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Psychology |
| Publisher | Back Bay Books |
| Released | January 11, 2005 |
| Media Type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
| Pages | 320 p. (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-316-17232-4 & ISBN 0-316-01066-9 (paperback edition) |
| Preceded by | The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference |
Executive Summary
With the publication of several best-selling books, reporter Malcolm Gladwell has emerged in the 2000s as one of the most influential figures in American letters. Extending the trademark style that he developed in 2000’s The Tipping Point, Gladwell’s research in 2005’s Blink spans many different disciplines and areas of study in a dazzlingly comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms and processes that underlie our ability to make decisions rapidly.
Gladwell begins with several chapters that illustrate the ways that very accurate decisions can be made rapidly. Indeed, according to the anecdotes and case studies that the author presents in the introduction and the first several chapters, our initial, intuitive response to a person, object, or event -- the one that transpires in the first few milliseconds of our exposure to it -- is often the one that proves to be correct.
This ability is predicated upon the process that Gladwell terms "thin slicing." The human mind can often examine a situation and skim all of the information that is necessary to make a correct decision and plot a course of action almost instantaneously. The most accurate "thin slices" are often those that involve our assessment of the emotional or mental states of others. Apparently, evolutionary processes that have unfolded over the course of many millennia have allowed us to be able to assess the actions and motives of our companions with a split-second glance.
However, although the human mind’s ability to thin-slice is remarkable, its utility is tempered by a number of distinct characteristics. First, the thin-slicing mechanisms in the brain reside almost entirely in the unconscious, rendering it impossible for us to access them deliberately. Indeed, as Gladwell points out, we often don’t know what our unconscious knows or how it has helped us to make a decision or choose a course of action. It seems that people often develop their own, alternate accounts of decision-making to explain away the brain’s rapid thin-slicing ability.
Over the course of the next several chapters, Gladwell recounts the ways in which our sociocultural context can impede our ability to benefit from the thin-slicing skill of the unconscious. Most significantly, he asserts, our vast stores of prejudices and biases can often hijack the unconscious and disallow access to our thin-slicing, intuitive abilities.
However, once we learn the power of rapid cognition, we can develop and incorporate solutions that will protect our thin-slicing unconscious from the undue influence of prejudice. Gladwell suggests implementing techniques that will short-circuit prejudices in our every day lives. In this way, he contends, we can reconnect with and benefit from the power of the blink.
Chapter Summaries
Conclusion: Listening with Your Eyes: The Lessons of Blink
In a short epilogue, Gladwell recounts the way that a simple innovation in audition practices incited a revolution in the deeply entrenched traditions of the classical music world. In one audition, an orchestra instituted the use of screens to conceal the identity of the candidates, because the son of an administrator was auditioning, and it was feared that nepotism might unduly influence the process. As other orchestras began to implement this practice, a strange thing happened: orchestras rapidly began to be diversified by women and minorities. In conditions of anonymity, merit won out over the many prejudicial factors that had long prevailed in the era of non-anonymous auditions. Gladwell concludes the book by encouraging readers to take this lesson to heart and apply the lessons of Blink to make positive changes in their decision-making behaviors.