Gladwell's talent is for weaving together
scientific research findings from fields as
diverse as sociology, psychology, criminology
and marketing with an anecdotal style to create
new ways of looking at things for the popular
reader.
Blink is an attempt to bring to the public's
eye this emerging area of psychology, rapid
cognition, that has received little popular
attention.
One.
First impressions and snap judgments.
The ability to come to lightning-quick conclusions,
Gladwell notes, evolved for the sake of survival
of our functioning occurs without us having
to consciously think, and we move back and
forth between conscious and unconscious modes
of thought.
We work with two sides of the brain: one that
has to be deliberate over things, analyze
and categorize; and the one that sizes things
up first and asks questions later.
Two.
‘Thin-slicing’.
Gladwell introduces the reader to the concept
of 'thin-slicing', which is “the ability
of our unconscious to find patterns in situations
and behavior based on very narrow slices of
experience”.
Even the most complex situations, he says,
can be 'read' quickly if we can identify the
underlying pattern.
Three.
Looking like a leader.
The positive aspect of thin-slicing is the
ability to make a quick and correct judgments.
But it also carries the negative aspect of
ones that are hasty and wrong.
Four.
Tragic first impressions.
The wrong first impression can have more tragic
consequences.
Gladwell provides a lengthy analysis of the
shooting of an innocent man, Amadou Diallo,
in the Bronx area of New York City.
Five.
Too much information.
We feel we need a lot of information to be
confident in our judgments, but often that
extra information, while giving us the illusion
of certainty, makes us more prone to mistakes.
Described in the book, Blink, are fascinating
cases, anecdotes and intellectual detours
- from Tom Hanks' star appeal to speed dating
to military strategy to fake Greek statues
to the how orchestras handle auditioning - that
illustrate Gladwell's thesis of the power
of first impressions from 0 to 1.
Click down below to get the full summary and
analysis of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.
