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Back Bay Books

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

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Description

In his landmark bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made 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? How do our brains really work-in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others? In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink 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 "thin-slicing"-filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books; 1st edition (April 3, 2007)


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Paperback ‏ : ‎ 296 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316010669


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 65


Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1100L


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.88 x 8.25 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #3,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #11 in Decision-Making & Problem Solving #32 in Popular Social Psychology & Interactions #110 in Personal Transformation Self-Help


#11 in Decision-Making & Problem Solving:


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • Excellent product
I recently purchased this product, and I am thoroughly impressed! The product exceeded my expectations in every way. The quality is outstanding, and it works exactly as described. One of the best features is [specific feature], which has made a significant difference in [how it improved your experience]. It’s clear that a lot of thought went into the design and functionality of this product. This product is also very user-friendly and easy to set up, even for someone who isn’t very tech-savvy. The instructions were clear, and everything worked seamlessly from the start. In terms of value for money, this product is definitely worth every penny. It’s durable, well-made, and performs better than similar products I’ve tried in the past. I would highly recommend this product to anyone in the market for [type of product]. It’s a top-notch product that delivers on its promises. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2024 by Adam Branson
    • Fun, Interesting Read on Subconscious Decisions and Snap Judgments, albeit not a fully satisfying one
One of the primary criticisms of Gladwell's book, a criticism common to popular social science books, is that it covers the underlying research on an overly superficial level. I am not familiar with the scholarly work Gladwell relies upon, but if my experience in fields I am more familiar with holds, Blink certainly covers this corner of psychology on a superficial level. But that is ok. It would not be possible to write such a book otherwise. More important, in my mind, to this kind of book is that it clearly explain the consequences of the research to and spark some excitement for the subject in the lay reader. Blink achieves in spades on both counts. Blink is about snap judgments. Or, to put it another way, decisions made subconsciously, not consciously. Sometimes this is good (if you are an expert on the subject, for particularly complex decisions); sometimes this is bad (if the decision may be colored by subconscious, irrelevant biases). When Gladwell sticks to snap judgments (which he labels as "thin slicing"), Blink works. The stories are funny, relevant, and interesting. We discover that it is very difficult to really understand many, many things without years and years of experience and training, but we can still tell what is good and what we like. Gladwell uses jelly as an example, but take wine. I can tell you which wines I like and even tell you which wine I like better. But I cannot talk like a sommelier. And, as much of the research Gladwell discusses suggests, attempting to do so would interfere with my unconscious ability to differentiate good wine from bad. Gladwell also tries to show how we can use an understanding of thin slicing to make better decisions, but he tends to give answers that are less than fully satisfying. Gladwell relates how administrators at Cook County Hospital saved money and increased the accuracy of diagnoses by implementing a decision tree. It is an odd case study. Neither thin slicing nor conscious decision-making worked for the doctors; it was not an example of shifting from one to the other. It was an example of the power of narrowing focus to a few truly relevant metrics (a powerful and highly useful subject, but it is not the subject of Blink). In another case study, Gladwell never quite explains his point regarding the Kenna story, about a musician loved by record execs and ignored by the radio. Presumably he meant to imply that the thin slicing by the record execs was right (because they are experts), but the thin slicing by the radio focus groups was wrong (because they were not experts and could not identify music they would enjoy as quickly). Gladwell may be right, but that conclusion does not flow necessarily. Gladwell never really gives a solid basis for discerning when experts can be trusted. From Blink, it would be easy to over rely on experts. But a "sort of" expert can be worse than a layman. In the counterfeit statute case study Gladwell starts with, both those who got it right and those who got it wrong were experts. To give an example not in the books, literary "experts" have long denigrated the Lord of the Rings, while readers have had no trouble recognizing its brilliance (even if unable to explain why). The literary experts did not have the expertise to properly evaluate the expertise in philology and mythology that Tolkien used. Gladwell's final application of thin slicing shows a poor understanding of his own material. Gladwell observed that the percentage of female orchestra members shot up dramatically after a switch to screened auditions. Irrelevant visual signals were crowding out the relevant audio signals. Gladwell then extrapolates this to argue criminal defendants should be screened to mitigate subconscious racial bias. But a jury trial is not an orchestra audition. If a criminal defendant is on the stand in a jury trial, he visual cues are more important than the audio clues. As Gladwell discussed earlier in the book, facial expressions tell an indelible story about what a person is really thinking (he even uses an example from the OJ Simpson trial!). One of the primary duties of the jury is to assess the credibility of witnesses; how can they do this if they cannot see the person's face? That this recommendation achieved such quick support from an audience at Harvard Law School says more about the state of legal education than its merit. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2011 by H. P.
    • It made me think
I read Khaneman' s Thinking Fast and Slow before this one. They have somewhat similar content, Khaneman presented more scientific detail. Gladwell presented a more journalistic, dramatic and engaging set of lessons. Both are great reads!
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2024 by Carroll Thronesbery
    • Is there an ENCORE after the "Tipping Point"? - The answer is BLINK - A FABULOUS Book!!!!
If you wanted to sum up Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink", I would tell you to see the very first "Star Wars" movie. Remember in 1977 when Luke Skywalker while piloting his fighter hears Obi-Wan Kenobi tell him to turn off his radar while attacking the evil star ship? Obi-Wan wants Luke to rely on the FORCE. In other words, give up his conscious thought patterns and go with your gut. This is what BLINK is all about. Our ability to instantly know what is real from what is fiction. What is good from what is bad? Gladwell is telling us to go with our right (creative) brain, and for the moment to shut down our left (logical, analytical) brain, and oh he is so right. In example after example, the author goes through diverse instances where people in just the time it takes to BLINK, can make FABULOUS decisions that turn out to be the right ones. Others using the power of their analytical minds can take days, weeks, and even months, and come to the wrong decision. There's something going on here, and Gladwell is onto it. Human beings have five million years of evolutionary history behind us, and consciousness for only the last 15,000 or 20,000 years. Somehow, we have TURNED OFF the power of our unconscious instinctual patterns, and overridden them with our super analytical ways of logic. The result is inferior decisions to what we had before we became conscious. Hey, when a lion was chasing down our ancestors for a meal, you didn't have much time to think. By the way, every page of this relatively short book is fascinating. You will literally not be able to put it down. Let's look at a few of the topics that Gladwell covers in depth and convincingly. A) The J. Paul Getty Museum & the Kouros Statue The cash-flushed Getty Museum wanted to buy a 7-foot Greek statue for $10 million. With contract in hand they call in some of the greatest experts in the world who after running exhaustive scientific tests, agree that it's the real thing and you should jump to buy it. At the same time a handful of other experts just looking at the object instantly announce it's a fake, and you should walk away. Learn who was right and why. Hint: it took 2 seconds of looking to KNOW the answer. B) Who's a good Professor in less than 30 seconds Remember when we went to college we would attend a lecture or two to determine if we wanted to take the entire course with a certain professor. In BLINK you will see scientific studies that prove you can come to the same decision by watching a video of the professor for 30 seconds. Who's kidding whom? C) What if you could tell how long a potential marriage would last? This one is mind blowing. John Gottman of the University of Washington has shown in tests that he can do this with accuracy. Watching one hour of a couple talking, and Gottman can tell with 95% accuracy if 15 years later, they will still be married. Blink goes into it in detail. Too bad, I didn't learn about this study sooner. D) Why do some doctors get sued, and others not at all? You would think that the risk of being sued if you are a doctor is all about making mistakes, or improper medical care. BLINK shows that its really about words like "RUSHED, IGNORED, and TREATED POORLY." E) Can a President of the United States be elected on looks alone? Read BLINK and you will see how an entire nation got suckered into electing Warren Warding President just for that reason, unbelievable but true. Read how and why, and be mesmerized. F) Only 14.5% of men are six feet and over. Why are 58% of CEO's six feet, or taller? Pretty wild when you think about it, yet true. Could there be some kind of unwritten or unconscious criteria for being a Fortune 500 CEO that involves height? There aren't enough tall people to COMPLETELY staff any one company. Why is it that the tall ones seem to rise to the TOP? G) Blue Team versus Red Team This is my personal favorite. The American military runs war games all the time. The good guys who are us are always the BLUE Team. The enemy is always the RED team. In preparation for the first Iraq war in the early 1990's, the government ran the exercise, and put General Paul Van Riper in charge of the bad guys, the RED team. The bottom line is that the bad guys blew away the good guys, the Americans by using unconventional "BLINK" type thinking, while the BLUE Team relied on conventional, overwhelming force, and inside the Beltway type bureaucratic thinking. This illustrates why this book is so important. You will learn out of the box type thinking. You will also learn when to use it, and when to go with your logical left brain type thinking. By the way in the war exercise when the bad guys, the RED Team beat the good guys the BLUE Team with ease, what did the Pentagon do? They announced that the game would be done over again, and they outlawed the techniques that the bad guys the RED Team employed. The result, the good guys won. The problem is that nobody told the bad guys in Iraq during the second Iraq War that these techniques were outlawed, and thus our Generals as usual find themselves in some difficulty to say the least. Read BLINK, and find out how and why. This book is FASCINATING, and NOT TO BE PUT DOWN, ONCE YOU START READING IT. Richard Stoyeck ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2007 by Richard of Connecticut

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