Book Review

BLINK

 Malcolm Gladwell has been a staff writer with The

New Yorker magazine since 1996
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big
Difference," (2000)
"Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking"
(2005)
A "Malcolm Gladwell story" is an idea-driven
narrative, one focused on the mundane rather than
the bizarre. It takes you on a journey in and out of
research through personal, social, and historical
moments, transports you to a place you didn't know
you were going to end up, and changes the way you
think about an idea.

 It's a book about rapid cognition, about the kind

of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye.
When you meet someone for the first time, or
walk into a house you are thinking of buying,
your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a
series of conclusions.
"Blink" is a book about those two seconds

 (1) Decisions made very quickly can be

every bit as good as decisions made
cautiously and deliberately

 (2) Our unconscious is a powerful force. But its

fallible. Its not always that we always get the
"instant truth" of the situation . It can be thrown off,
distracted, and disabled. So when should we trust
out instincts answer when should we be wary of
them?
When our powers of rapid cognition go awry,
understanding the situations and set of reasons for
it.. Learning when to listen to that powerful
onboard computer and when to be wary of it.

 (3) To convince you that snap judgments

and first impressions can be educated and
controlled. As we can teach ourselves to
think logically and deliberately, we can
also teach ourselves to make better snap
judgments.

 "rapid cognition Snap judgments

Many decisions make, are based on previously
formed impressions and are competing with
subconscious biases such as emotions and
projections.
Once we become aware of this, we can learn to
control rapid cognition by extracting meaning
from a "thin slice" of information.

 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'
knowing the very few things that matter."

`Thinking' gets premium attention; but don't

discount the unconscious, on that score,
because it is "a powerful force", though fallible
owing to distractions.

 Frugality is a virtue in decision-making, and so

`less is more'.
Don't, therefore, overload the decision-makers
with information, because they'd find it tough to
pick up the `signature' or pattern.
"To be a successful decision maker, we have to
edit." That happens unconsciously, even as you
time-slice and recognise patterns and make
quick judgments.

 Theory of thin slicing

Thin slicing" refers to the ability of our
unconscious to find the patterns in situations and
behaviors based on the very narrow slices of
experience.

 when we leap to a decision or have a hunch .

It's sifting through the situation in front of us ,
throwing out all that's irrelevant while we zero in
on what really matters. And the truth is that our
unconscious is really good at this, to the point
where thin-slicing often delivers a better answer
than more deliberate and exhaustive ways of
thinking.

 If you are given too many choices, if you

are forced to consider much more than
your unconscious is comfortable with, you
get paralyzed.

 Statue that didnt looked right.

experts felt that "intuitive repulsion" which took
team of Getty museum 14 months to
understand.

 University of Iowa : card game

We have some experience..
We think them through ... We develop a theory .. and
then we put two and two together...
That's the way learning works. logical definitive.. took
80 cards.. slow and requires lot of information.
Unconscious is Quick , smart. Problem. it operates
entirely below the surface of consciousness
sends the message through indirect channels.

 Adaptive unconsciousness
The only way that human beings have survived as
species for as long is that we've developed another
kind of decision making apparatus that's capable of
making very quick judgments based on very little
information..

"The mind operates most efficiently be relegating a

good deal of high level, sophisticated thinking to
the unconscious. The adaptive unconscious
does an excellent job of sizing up the world,
warning people of danger, setting goals, and
initiating action in a sophisticated and efficient
manner. We toggle back and forth between our
conscious and unconscious modes of thinking ,
depending on the situation. "

We are innately suspicious of rapid cognition .

We live in a world that assumes that quality of a
decision is directly related to the time and effort that
went into making it . When doctors are faced with
difficult diagnosis, they order for more tests, and when
we are uncertain about what we hear , we ask for a
second opinion.
we believe that we are always better off gathering as
much information as possible and spending as much
time as possible in deliberation. we really only trust
conscious decision making.

 Getting to the bottom of the question of

how good a product is requires a more
searching exploration of the intricacies of
our snap judgments.

 Sensation transference--when people give an assessment of something

they might buy in a supermarket or a department
store without realizing it, they transfer sensations
or impressions that they have about the
packaging of the product to the product itself.
Louis Cheskin, believed that most of don't make a
distinction -- in an unconscious level --between
the package and the product. the product is the
package and the product combined.

 Testing a product having minor variations

on the product that they have seen
before.. and the ideas that are truly
revolutionary is another matter .
The first impressions of their consumers
need interpretation-- MR provides certainty-- a score ,a
prediction - a number,

 Improvisation isnt random and chaotic. it is an art form

governed by a series of rules. Basketball, intricate, high
speed game filled with split -second decisions ,
spontaneous
But thats possible only when everyone first engages in
hours of repetitive and structured practice.
and agrees to play a carefully defined role on the court.
How good people's decision are under the fast moving ,
high stress conditions of rapid cognition is a function of
training and rules and rehearsal..

 verbal overshadowing
left part think in words right think in graphics

when you start becoming reflective about the

process , it undermines your ability .

One loses the flow, there are certain fluid , intuitive ,

non verbal kinds of experience that are vulnerable to
this process. As human beings , we have incredible
abilities of insight and instinct, but they are fragile. Its
a flickering candle , and now a lightbulb