Blink

: For Blink, Malcolm Gladwell, author of the bestselling The Tipping Point explores the extraordinarily perceptive and deceptive power of the sub-conscious mind. Gladwell's major claim is that decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as a decision made cautiously and deliberately. What we are actually doing is what Gladwell calls `thin-slicing'. When we leap to a decision or have a hunch our unconscious is sifting through the situation in front of us looking for a pattern, throwing out the irrelevant information and zeroing in on what really matters. Our unconscious mind is so good at this that it often delivers a better answer than more deliberate and protracted ways of thinking. Much of this is utterly mysterious but some of the most astonishing and useful examples of thin-slicing can be learned.

Gladwell hopes to convince us that our snap judgements and first impressions can be educated and controlled so instead of merely praising the mysterious process of instinct and intuition he is interested in those moments when our instincts betray us, the situations where our powers of rapid cognition can go awry, where we fail to read the signs. Most disturbing of all is the degree to which culturally determined preconceptions and prejudices control us. Without reducing matters to racism and sexism Gladwell shows us that there are facts about people's appearance—their size or shape or color or sex—that can trigger a very similar set of powerful associations which explains why utter mediocrities (such as U.S. President Warren Harding) can sometimes end up in positions of enormous responsibility; or why tall people earn substantially more than their shorter colleagues; or why car salesmen unconsciously charge prices according to race and gender.

Gladwell's conversational prose style is concise, informative, accessible and entertaining. The stories, scientific findings and psychological tests are consistently surprising whether he is dealing with speed-dating, record promotions, police shoot-outs, the human face, or the reasons doctors get sued. --Larry Brown END

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An enjoyable and compelling read - more something that gets you thinking and not an intense scientific analysis. - Rated
'Blink' is, as many others have said, an anecdotal, absorbing book on the premise of just how powerful gut instincts can be. It's not an in-depth analysis or criticism of theory, but as I picked it up that wasn't what I was looking for anyway. As a Psychology student, I read it outside of my course for enjoyment and not only does it give grounding to such an interest (i.e. a friend in her 3rd year of Psychology is using 'thin-slicing' in her project, and I lent her this book to help her understand it fully!) but is also one of those books that stays with you. It affects how you think about certain decisions and a greater understanding of your own mind. What more could you want from it?

A Critical Decision Making Tool! - Rated
Sometimes decisions need to be made quickly. All of our knowledge, education, experience, reasoning, intuition, common sense and confidence must come together rapidly.

Malcolm Gladwell calls quick decision making thin slicing in his book: Blink. Thin slicing is the ability to focus on a small set of critical variables to make a quick decision rather than consciously considering every possible variable.

Many decisions are time dependent. Weighing the amount of information needed before making a decision, against the time available is a challenge.

Examples of when thin slicing is needed: combat, avoiding a car accident, or anything requiring an immediate decision. Another common name for thin slicing is thinking on your feet.

Gladwell does an excellent job of explaining what happens in these situations. For example:

"...in interviews with police officers who have been involved with shootings, these same details appear again and again: extreme visual clarity, tunnel vision, diminished sound, and the sense that time is slowing down. This is how the human body reacts to extreme stress..."

Besides the excellent examples given in the book, here is a classic example of using thin slicing.

Thin slicing was used on multiple occasions during the US space program. Gene Kranz (a flight controller on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs) writes about the need for quick accurate decisions in his book: Failure is not an Option.

Endless intensive simulations were run with the controllers, flight crew and others before every launch. Everyone's skills had to be razor sharp during the actual missions. Decisions had to be accurate and made in real time. There was little, and sometimes no room for error. Lives were at stake. Risk was part of their business.

Gene Kranz sums up how he gained his skills to be a top flight director when he said:

"The flight director's ultimate training comes at the console, working real problems, facing the risks, making irrevocable decisions."


Although we may not be faced with life and death decisions, we will (on occasions) have to make quick decisions. The better our skills and Critical Thinking are, coupled with training and quickness, the more prepared we will be to make sound decisions in the blink of an eye!

The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide To: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking

A new way of seeing - Rated
In the blink of an eye we gather huge amounts of information. The author, Gladwell, likens our brains to giant computers capable of processing lots of data in a flash. I found it fascinating how we can use this information either for survival purposes and / or we can apply our intuitive knowledge to any given situation. The author coins the term "thin slicing" to explain the process of applying one's intuition. He states that we are often suspicious of trusting this intuition because it's so quick and easy, even when it's on target. He relays experiments where instantaneous "thin slicing" has amazing results, sometimes in life and death situations, but also explains what can cause the skillto fall short. The reason often being that we are not truly living in the present moment.

Two books that easily guide one into the present moment are Ariel and Shya Kane's "Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment" and "How To Create A Magical Relationship". These refreshingly fun and practical books effortlessly get the reader into the present moment where enlightenment resides. In an instant life can become brilliant and magical. Both of these intelligent books have shown me that life needn't be hard work in order to be amazing.

Enjoyable read - Rated
Gladwell's prose is effortlessly readable and the reader is constantly entertained by his anecdotes. I don't think he is a great thinker, but he presents his concepts very clearly and you immediately see how they are reflected in your own life. What the book lacks is a structured argument -by the end you feel as if it hasn't really gone anywhere. Nevertheless it's a very enjoyable read. Along similar lines, I would recommend Steve Taylor's excellent Making Time Making Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control It, which 'unpacks' why we perceive time passing at different speeds in different situations and shows how we can become free of it.

Doesn't this guy understand irony - Rated
I am sorry but a book that discussing making good judgemnts on minimal information that then goes into page after page of repeating the same tired old examples and gives too much information. As the book says I knew it was right in the first few pages - why would I need the rest of it - now thats ironic