Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

De nuevo, un libro de Malcom Gladwell [MG]. MG ha escrito un ensayo sobre cómo nuestro pensamiento subconsciente (lo que se suele llamar “la primera impresión”) es muchas veces más certero que nuetro pensamiento lógico cuando nos enfrentamos a un problema nuevo. A lo largo de libro nos habla de muchas historias en las que los protagonistas supieron desde el principio cuál era la solución a un problema (descubrir si una estatua era falsa, ver si una pareja aguantará junta cinco años…), aunque costara mucho tiempo llegar a fundamentar racionalmente tal decisión.
El libro, estimados lectores, tiene sus pros y sus contras. Su principal atractivo para mí es que todas las historias que cuenta son extremadamente interesantes. Me show more encantan. Son realmente entretenidas y el estilo del autor es fluido y didáctico. El punto en contra es que todas las historias juntas no consiguen convencerte de la tesis del autor. La segunda mitad del libro, de hecho, habla de cómo nuestro subconsciente puede verse engañado por esa “primera impresión”, echando por tierra todo lo que nos había contado en la primera parte. Curioso. En The tipping point sucedía algo parecido. Las historias son todas interesantísimas, pero uno no acaba convencido de lo que quiere demostrar el autor. La impresión que da es que ha juntado muchas historias para intentar imbricarlas en un todo, sin conseguirlo. Cada historia tiene su moraleja, pero no siempre es la moraleja que el autor quiere darle.
Hay además un fallo de bulto: en una de las secciones, el autor intenta demostrar que si uno es más alto tiene mayores probabilidades de ser director de una empresa (CEO). Como prueba, mira las estaturas de los directores de las principales empresas norteamericanas y comprueba que son superiores a la media. Cae de lleno en la falacia post hoc, ergo propter hoc (después de, por tanto a causa de). El hecho de que una cosa suceda a continuación de otra NO implica que está causada por ella. Pueden estar ambas causadas por una tercera cosa o pueden ser independientes. Clamoroso fallo en un libro por lo demás medianamente bien argumentado.
En cualquier caso, les recomiendo el libro. No lo miren como un ensayo razonado sino como una colección de historias interesantes. En eso sí que es un libro superior.
Mi nota: Muy entretenido show less

38. Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Audio) by Malcolm Gladwell, read by the author (2005, 7:44, ~210 pages in paperback, listened June 8-17)
Rating: 4 stars

Another great book from Gladwell, much more science-y than Outliers or any others that I've listened to. It's the kind of book that makes you forget the author isn't actually the expert, but presenting other people's work. He just writes brilliantly. He also reads brilliantly.

The book covers the unconscious brain that does most of our "thinking" for us in a rapid speed, giving us our instincts for various impressions and feeling that we haven't had a chance to consciously work out. He looks at how powerful this is, particularly in well trained experts, and how it gets show more fooled and leads to mistakes, and on how this is manipulated in advertising and politics. And he makes it fun and fascinating, bringing in great stories. The most moving is his recount of the Amadou Diallo shooting by the NYC police, the story behind Bruce Springstein's 41 Shots.

There is just something wonderfully charming the Gladwell's exaggerated simplifications. He'll tell a story and then says, "Of course he did" and, really, it's not an of course, but damn that line sticks. I'm at the moment thoroughly charmed by Gladwell.

2015
https://www.librarything.com/topic/191940#5212765 show less

The subtitle ‘The power of thinking without thinking’ nicely captures the essence of this fascinating book.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, here sets out to explore why it is that sometimes the thinking in the blink of an eye provides greater understanding and insight than that which follows a mountain of analysis. He asserts that our subconscious is continuously collecting and processing information, much of it directing our actions but in ways totally unseen by our conscious mind.

The book begins with an introduction to some intriguing examples to illustrate this power of insight and introduces the idea of ‘thin slicing’, the ability we all have to evaluate a situation very quickly, capturing core information on show more which to base a decision.

Having introduced the concept Malcolm is at pains to explain that he is not simply advocating the abandonment of analysis in favour of gut reaction. Our instinctive judgements sometimes prove correct but at other times can lead us astray. His key message is that they offer different approaches to creating understanding, and both analysis and intuition may be performed well or badly. However in some instances, particularly in a rapidly changing world, there is simply not the time for the laboured analysis required in an attempt to understand everything, and the only viable course of action is to thin slice.

The good news is that thin slicing skills can be learned and honed. We all collect this information, all of the time, the subtle skill is in being able to use it effectively.

This is a fascinating book with ideas of relevance to everyone dealing with change. What makes it particularly engaging is the breadth of examples used to illustrate the ideas. Many of these may have you rethinking not only what you think, but how you think.

For example there is a study made by insurance companies of the risk doctors face of being sued. The study identified that the risk had little if anything to do with the quality of the doctor, or even the number of mistakes they made. Rather the level of risk was a direct result of how much the doctor was liked by their patients. The risk was not a function of what the doctor was doing, but how they were being.

Another example brings into question the confidence we may have in conducting any kind of customer testing. There’s a fascinating account of the testing of types of brandy which deduced that the stated taste preference of customers had nothing to do with the brandy at all. Subconsciously and unbeknown to them it was the shape of the bottle that made the brandy taste better.

Once we become aware of this priming of our subconscious, we can use it to our advantage. For example studies have shown that test scores can be dramatically influenced simply be priming our minds with thoughts of success. Students answering questions from the Trivial Pursuit board game scored 55.6% after they had spent five minutes thinking what it would be like to be a professor. In contrast when they spent five minutes thinking about football hooligans they scored 42.6%. Just thinking about professors, primed them to achieve more.

Profoundly disturbing is the example of what can happen when we are pressured to rely on our subconscious when it has been miss-primed. The case of Amadou Diallo who was shot by four police officers is used to illustrate the effect similar to autism that is created when our intuition is inappropriately primed.

This is an engagingly written account that had me hooked as I read it cover to cover. It develops an interesting idea using examples that will set your thinking running in new directions. An enjoyable and stimulating read. It leaves you at one and the same time seeing things as far less and yet far more simple than they’ve ever been before. show less

Jeepers this was an annoying book.

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 show more 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. show less

(49) This was an interesting book by an author I hear a lot about but that I have never read. It is sort of 'pop' psychology - taking about human behavior in an accessible way with lots of little interesting stories. This is about the power of our unconscious thinking and how it often knows a truth before our conscious brain does, or perhaps our conscious brain will never come to the same conclusion. I learned a great new phrase - 'paralysis through analysis' - I sure see a lot of that at my work. Just make a decision already!

While interesting, Gladwell then goes on to relay stories where unconscious thinking leads to disaster - death of innocent black people, discrimination against female musicians, etc. So then his thesis re: show more harnessing the power of your unconscious thinking starts to break down. I never felt he really presented a case for 'training' your unconscious and/or when to analyze and when to go with your gut so to speak. My 'gut' tells me this book gave me conflicting information.

I would potentially read this author again though I am not quite convinced that he is deserving of such popularity. After all, haven't we always known the things he set forth in this book. Sometimes your first impressions are the right ones, sometimes they are not. Not so mind-blowing after all. show less

This book was such a fascinating read. Although the title is a bit misleading as it sounds like some pseudo-scientific 6th sense crap, this book is nothing of that sort. In fact, this book is exactly the opposite of that; the content of the book is extensively researched with the aid of psychological case studies and isolated experiences that scientific evidence backs up. This book feels more like a meta-analysis of multiple reports written in a story-like narrative to make it more digestible to the readers.

The science behind how our brain is able to crunch unimaginable amounts of data and stimuli to accurately (and sometimes falsely) come up with a decision in a split second, is extremely interesting.

The author also tackles sensitive show more issues such as racial stereotyping and sexism through real-life examples which successfully provides an alternative perspective to scenarios which we will otherwise perceive as being black and white.

I would highly recommend this book to people who are interested in psychology or anyone who is looking forward to learn something new about themselves. Cause that is what this book exactly does; it takes a concept that you feel as if you are extremely familiar with, and provides a fresh angle that forces you to reconsider your preconceived notions. Extremely intriguing and captivating. show less

Malcolm Gladwell's book is about one of the two different ways of thinking - the fast or intuitive. He is a masterful writer of this type of book, popularising the original work or thoughts of others. He writes such clear and lucid sentences, and has a wonderful knack for choosing the telling example. But, you can also see the formulaic aspects of his style - the frequent repetition of the instances mentioned earlier in the book can become a little tedious.
I read this book in 2012, some 6 years since its publication. In that time, Daniel Kahneman has released Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman has the advantage of being the source of much of the research into the different ways of thinking, and he also writes in an engaging style with show more wonderful clarity. Reading Gladwell after Kahneman made Gladwell appear a little shallow. But this is an unfair comparison - Gladwell seems to have pioneered the writing on the topic for the masses, and his book achieves its target.
I remain a Gladwell fan, and appreciate him bringing interesting ideas to my attention, and for his slick writing on such topics. A good read. (September 2012) show less