Blink The Power of Thinking Without Thought

Author: Malcolm Gladwell Publisher: Little, Brown and Company Year: January 2005 Length: 277 pages Format: Hardcover ISBN: 0316172324 Amazon Description Blink is about the first two seconds of looking--the decisive glance that knows in an instant. Gladwell, the best-selling author of The Tipping Point, campaigns for snap judgments and mind reading with a gift for translating research into splendid storytelling. Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on the golf course, selling cars, and military maneuvers, he persuades readers to think small and focus on the meaning of "thin slices" of behavior.

Commentary/Review

I had heard of Malcolm Gladwell, of course, when his book, "Tipping Point" came out. But I was going through my fiction, and only fiction (except for work related technical books) book phase, when it came out, so I hadn't read it. My minds a strange thing, sometimes it just needs the escape, and nothing but fiction will do. Other times, it needs the challenge, and then I read a slew of non-fiction intermingled with fiction or fan fiction.

So I hadn't read Tipping Point, but was [am] firmly in the midst of a non-fiction reading phase. I had just moved back to Madison, Wisconsin and Gladwell was coming to campus to give a talk as part of one of the University's many lecture series. So I purchased Blink, and added Gladwell's lecture to my calendar.

What's amazing about "Blink" is what it has you think about, question, and explore. It's not really a how-to book, which will disappoint many, but if you want a mental challenge, Blink offers you a number of scenarios to explore.

My first mental exploration came at the hands of John Mordechai Gottman, the author of "What Predicts Divorce?: The Relationship Between Marital Processes and Marital Outcomes". I believe this is the non-academic version of the book referenced by Gladwell in Blink as "The Mathematics of Divorce". Gottman is introduced in chapter one of Gladwell's book as he discusses a method called "thin slicing".

Gottman, a professor of Mathemetics, the founder of the Gottman Institute, and a trained psychologist that can easily predict if your marriage is in trouble. Gottman has found that by focusing on four attributes—defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt— he can accurately predict divorce rates. Now what caught my attention was not his skill, per say, but a statement he makes.

Contempt is closely related to disgust, and what disgust and contempt are bout is completely rejecting and excluding someone from the community.

Gottman states that if you measure contempt, you can bypass numerous other issues, such as gender differences between criticism and stonewalling, cultural relationships to various words and terms, etc. Contempt is special. It's not like love or hate, it's about power, superiority. It's easy to despise someone you feel inferior to you. It's easy to rain down a barrage of emotional abuse on others just by considering them unworthy of your consideration.

So my first mental exercise with Blink was the exploration of contempt in my life—how accessible is contempt to me; who in my life do feelings of contempt arise for; who's emotions, feelings, livelihood, life do I care so little for that I can't take the time to even consider what they need from me. It was a revealing thought pattern, especially as I explored my relationships with my family—mother, brothers and sister.

The next "ah ha" moment in Gladwell's book came for me, in chapter two, "The Locked Door". The Locked Door is about snap decisions. The good and the bad of snap decisions. Obviously, we all know we make them, but do we even think about how many of them we make per day, and what biases they betray. Gladwell tells the story of two psychologist, Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson who studied black performance on the standardize, Graduate Record Examination. Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African-Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 797-811.

Steele and Aronson determined that when black students were reminded that they were black, they were more likely to score half as well than normal.

When the students were asked to identify their race on a pretest questionaire, that simple act was sufficient to prime them with all the negative stereotypes associated with African Americans and academic achievement — and the number of items they got right was cut in half.

That statement is far beyond, whether or not standardize tests are fair to people of color, or can adequately measure intelligence. At its core, its a statement about belief. Imagine, that if the simple act of just filling in a circle to indicate that your African American can have such a radical effect on your ability to perform at any given moment. Now think about what other day-to-day things can also cause it.

I didn't want to or need to argue the validity, breadth, or adaptability of the study. My mind had already zeroed in on numerous other situations that mentally correlated for me. Many of us have seem children so brow beaten by their parents, that they fully believe that they are inadequate, unworthy, unlikeable, worthy of their parents and the world's contempt. No matter how smart, how beautiful, or how bold these children could be; they often turn out shy, unassertive, and unassuming.

I'm black, and while I traditionally performed well on standardize test. Not to belittle my own intelligence, I wondered how much of my performance could be contributed to the fact that I often had to choose which race to select. See, I'm also mixed, my mother is a quarter Cherokee; and my father was a quarter Apache.

The confusion of selection came from being adopted. Even though I knew my birth parents also had Native America roots, I had no idea about percentages or how they identified. So I often wondered if I should go with what I know (I'm black); accept my adopted parents heritage (I'm Black/Native); or guess my natural parents heritage (I knew Native American played a role, but typically less than 25% isn't suppose to for mixed race).

This also had me think about, did I perform better on the tests where I checked "Other/Mixed" versus the one where I checked "Black/African American." I can't really say one way or the other, and admittedly, I didn't do too shabby one way or the other. But imagine, if a 1350 could have become a 1500 or higher by simply placing the questions of race, gender, and other specifics to the end.

Other stories in Blink also gave me things to ponder, such as the implementation of screened performances for symphonies (musicians audition behind a screen so that gender, race and other visual factors can't be identified, and only their playing skills can be measured). The simple introduction of screens for auditions totally changed the landscape of classical musical performers. Before its introduction, all collected and anecdotal evidence suggested that men where better performers/musicians than women. Hence the make-up of most symphonies was often 100% male. But with the introduction of screened auditions, soon the landscape changed with women rapidly gaining more and more spots at prestigious symphonies.

This alone was an amazing example of how rapid judgment, institutional, and cultural bias can create "normal" situations in which all participants agree that no bias or discrimination occurred. Think of all the years, that exemplary female musicians were bypassed, because society agreed, men were better musicians than women. This example also served as an excellent example on how small changes can create dramatic shifts. For example, the implementation of gender bias regulations, diversity courses, etc., would have taken years to produce any type of effect; but the introduction of screened auditions changed the make-up of symphonies worldwide in 1-2 years.

I'm not a traditional reviewer, in fact, I don't really consider these book reviews at all. I like books that serve their purpose. If it made me think or allowed me to escape for a few minutes or a few hours, the book will probably end up on these pages. If I can't remember its titled, by the time I done with it, then you'll probably never see it.

That said, Blink made me think, it challenged me, and allowed me to challenge myself. For that I recommend it. It's probably not the book for everyone, and if your looking for a how-to guide on "thin-slicing" then you'll be disappointed. But if you want the challenge of thinking about what you know; how you know; how and when do you apply it; and what effect your application might have on others; then give Blink a read.

Rating

Purchase Notice

Note: All books can mentioned in this section of the website can be purchased at Amazon.com. Proceeds from the Amazon.com Associate directly benefit Nonprofit Tech, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicating to providing technology services for nonprofit, educational, and public institutions; whom I work with. If that does not discourage you, then buy Blink from Amazon.com

Other Details

Genre: Applied Psychology, Business & Economics, Business , Economics , Finance, Cognitive Psychology, Decision Making & Problem Solving, Decision making, Intuition, Psychology, Social Psychology, Business & Economics
Categories: non-fiction •
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