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Loading... Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinkingby Malcolm Gladwell
  
No current Talk conversations about this book.  thisisstephenbetts | Nov 25, 2023 |    ) mos3abof | Nov 19, 2023 | • How rapid cognition and thin-slicing work, and why snap judgments can be as effective as those made from lengthy deliberations; • Why your instincts might mislead you, when to trust your instincts (and when not to); and • How to improve intuitive decision-making through structured spontaneity, training and managing external cues. Book summary at: https://readingraphics.com/book-summary-blink/ (  ) AngelaLamHF | Sep 30, 2023 | Gladwell is a journalist, not a scientist. But that allows him the freedom to wonder far afield to bring together amazingly varied and seemingly unrelated research to build his case. When viewed together, the studies and anecdotes create a tantalizing glimpse of what seems to be happening inside our heads. Oh, and this is one of the few times when having the author read the audio book works. ( ) zot79 | Aug 20, 2023 |  ) BookConcierge | Jul 19, 2023 |
 Beyond question, Gladwell has succeeded in his avowed aim. Though perhaps less immediately seductive than the title and theme of The Tipping Point, Blink satisfies and gratifies. If you want to trust my snap judgment, buy this book: you'll be delighted. If you want to trust my more reflective second judgment, buy it: you'll be delighted but frustrated, troubled and left wanting more. "Blink" brims with surprising insights about our world and ourselves, ideas that you'll have a hard time getting out of your head, things you'll itch to share with all your friends.  You can't judge a book by its cover. But Gladwell had me at hello — and kept me hooked to the final page. As a researcher, Gladwell doesn't break much new ground. But he's talented at popularizing others' research. He's a clever storyteller who synthesizes and translates the work of psychologists, market researchers and criminologists. Belongs to Publisher SeriesPenguin Celebrations (31) Is contained inIs replied to in
Psychology.
Nonfiction.
Self Help.
HTML: From the #1 bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia, the landmark book that has revolutionized the way we understand leadership and decision making. In his breakthrough 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 instantâ??in the blink of an eyeâ??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 workâ??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"â??filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of var No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)153.44Philosophy and Psychology Psychology Cognition And Memory Thought, thinking, reasoning, intuition, value, judgment IntuitionLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.73)
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Wikipedia in English (7)
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Its main problem is that it doesn't manage to hold to any central thesis. I think many people would pick it up thinking it's about how we make better decisions when we act instinctively, rather than over-analyze decisions.
Actually the main conclusion Gladwell draws is "it depends".
The back-up to that is that experts in a field, with years of experience, can instinctively make correct decisions, without necessarily being able to articulate precisely why. No, really.
There were some interesting bits of psychology, particularly about how articulating why we make a decison may actually be detrimental to our being able to do it (as the thing your memory stores is then your articulation of it, not the doing of it). However, he seems to then ignore the things he is telling us, in relying on 1st hand accounts of instinctual events, which he has told us are inherently unreliable. Gah!
As with The Tipping Point, there is quite a bit of this cherry-picking data, according to whichever way his argument is blowing at the time, and much flawed logic. For example:
* He claims that strangers judging a subject's character from their bedroom are more accurate than the subject's friends judgements. Actually he means that they more closely match the self-assessments of the subject, which may or may not be accurate.
* I'm paraphrasing, but he says that doctors that we think have a domineering tone have been "found wanting" by us, with the implication that we should ignore them. But actually he has previously said that they are simply more likely to be sued, and that that has no correlation with how many medical mistakes they make. So they have not been "found wanting" and a doctor with a nicer tone may well be a worse doctor.
* he says that that if we want to have more positive instinctive associations about black people, we should get to know some, hang out with them, become friends etc., etc. That's a nice piece of social engineering, which I am very happy to support in principle, but what he has shown earlier in the chapter is that if you want to have more positive instinctive associations actually what you want to do is think about positive black role models (MLK, Nelson Mandela) and watch international track and field events.
* Gladwell cites a statistic that displays of contempt in a relationship are correlated with number of colds suffered by the recipient of the contempt, from which he draws the conclusion the effect is so stressful that it suppresses the immune systen. What?! where does that conclusion come from? It could be the person is throwing sickies, or that they're taking long walks in the cold, or they're smoking more, etc., etc. But Gladwell seems to blithely draws these confident conclusions without pause or consideration.
Gladwell still writes engagingly (I read this in a day) and many of the anecdotes and sciencey snippets are fascinating. I feel his books would have more integrity if they were just collections of essays (or his articles). As it is he seems hidebound to find some grand overarching theme, leading him to undermine the good and interesting writing that is here.
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