Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
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By: Malcolm Gladwell
Format: Paperback
From: Penguin Books Ltd
Pub. Date: January 2006
From: Penguin Books Ltd
Pub. Date: January 2006
Product Details:
Catalog: Book
Release Date: 2006-02-23
Media: Paperback
Number Of Pages: 288
Ean: 9780141014593
Isbn: 0141014598
Catalog: Book
Release Date: 2006-02-23
Media: Paperback
Number Of Pages: 288
Ean: 9780141014593
Isbn: 0141014598
ABOUT THE BOOK
EDITORIAL REVIEW
: For Blink, Malcolm Gladwell, author of the bestselling The Tipping Point explores the extraordinarily perceptive and deceptive power of the sub-conscious mind. Gladwell's major claim is that decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as a decision made cautiously and deliberately. What we are actually doing is what Gladwell calls `thin-slicing'. When we leap to a decision or have a hunch our unconscious is sifting through the situation in front of us looking for a pattern, throwing out the irrelevant information and zeroing in on what really matters. Our unconscious mind is so good at this that it often delivers a better answer than more deliberate and protracted ways of thinking. Much of this is utterly mysterious but some of the most astonishing and useful examples of thin-slicing can be learned.
Gladwell hopes to convince us that our snap judgements and first impressions can be educated and controlled so instead of merely praising the mysterious process of instinct and intuition he is interested in those moments when our instincts betray us, the situations where our powers of rapid cognition can go awry, where we fail to read the signs. Most disturbing of all is the degree to which culturally determined preconceptions and prejudices control us. Without reducing matters to racism and sexism Gladwell shows us that there are facts about people's appearance—their size or shape or color or sex—that can trigger a very similar set of powerful associations which explains why utter mediocrities (such as U.S. President Warren Harding) can sometimes end up in positions of enormous responsibility; or why tall people earn substantially more than their shorter colleagues; or why car salesmen unconsciously charge prices according to race and gender.
Gladwell's conversational prose style is concise, informative, accessible and entertaining. The stories, scientific findings and psychological tests are consistently surprising whether he is dealing with speed-dating, record promotions, police shoot-outs, the human face, or the reasons doctors get sued. --Larry Brown END
Gladwell hopes to convince us that our snap judgements and first impressions can be educated and controlled so instead of merely praising the mysterious process of instinct and intuition he is interested in those moments when our instincts betray us, the situations where our powers of rapid cognition can go awry, where we fail to read the signs. Most disturbing of all is the degree to which culturally determined preconceptions and prejudices control us. Without reducing matters to racism and sexism Gladwell shows us that there are facts about people's appearance—their size or shape or color or sex—that can trigger a very similar set of powerful associations which explains why utter mediocrities (such as U.S. President Warren Harding) can sometimes end up in positions of enormous responsibility; or why tall people earn substantially more than their shorter colleagues; or why car salesmen unconsciously charge prices according to race and gender.
Gladwell's conversational prose style is concise, informative, accessible and entertaining. The stories, scientific findings and psychological tests are consistently surprising whether he is dealing with speed-dating, record promotions, police shoot-outs, the human face, or the reasons doctors get sued. --Larry Brown END
USER REVIEWS
"I am sorry but a book that discussing making good judgemnts on minimal information that then goes into page after page of repeating the same tired old examples and gives too much information. As the book says I knew it was right in the first few pages - why would I need the rest of it - now thats ironic"
~ Written on 2008-05-19
~ Written on 2008-05-19
"I really enjoyed reading the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. It is an easy read yet very profound. I said to myself "wow! How many times have I known in an instant that I was right about something but because it was inconvenient at the time to acknowledge it, I disregarded what I knew". In the end my initial hunch was correct!
I really enjoyed the chapter "Seven Seconds in the Bronx: The Delicate Art of Mind reading". It was about the NYPD's encounter with Amadou Diallo but it really hit home the concept of "the judgments we make and the impressions we form of other people". In the case of Amadou Diallo the policemen's "mind reading" was way off base. Many times people rely on past experiences to dictate how they should act NOW and ignore the
information right in front of them. Simply put, they were not present.
A book I really enjoyed about being present is Ariel & Shya Kanes, "How To Create a Magical Relationship". One powerful chapter in the book was "You are not the story of your life". It reminded me of all the times that my expectations of how something should turn out caused it to turn out exactly as I had expected, as if it were a self-fulfilling prophecy. I realized it was my unconscious expectations that determined the outcome of something, rather than seeing what was truly in front of me and making the appropriate choices. I highly recommend both of these books.
"
~ Written on 2008-05-16
I really enjoyed the chapter "Seven Seconds in the Bronx: The Delicate Art of Mind reading". It was about the NYPD's encounter with Amadou Diallo but it really hit home the concept of "the judgments we make and the impressions we form of other people". In the case of Amadou Diallo the policemen's "mind reading" was way off base. Many times people rely on past experiences to dictate how they should act NOW and ignore the
information right in front of them. Simply put, they were not present.
A book I really enjoyed about being present is Ariel & Shya Kanes, "How To Create a Magical Relationship". One powerful chapter in the book was "You are not the story of your life". It reminded me of all the times that my expectations of how something should turn out caused it to turn out exactly as I had expected, as if it were a self-fulfilling prophecy. I realized it was my unconscious expectations that determined the outcome of something, rather than seeing what was truly in front of me and making the appropriate choices. I highly recommend both of these books.
"
~ Written on 2008-05-16
"Really enjoyable & easy read. I found it very insightful and opened my eyes to the power of my subconcious!! "
~ Written on 2008-03-20
~ Written on 2008-03-20
"With roughly 260 pages and seven chapters (including the conclusion), "Blink" is a well-written and insightful book on the subject of accurate "snap judgment" or two-second of "looking." This book gives us, the reader, a great deal of information about our "moment" to see things accurately, either in quick reaction, warnings, reading strangers, as it is very much like "gut" feelings or first impressions.
I personally found this book to be quite fascinating and insightful to which I enjoyed both Gladwell's flowing writing style and his clear organization. It took me a good few hours to read it as I could not put the book down. To understand our "snap" judgment is to reach an understanding of how basic a human being really is. Today's world, with all the media and overwhelming information, we tend to lose this kind of sense in ourselves.
I would very much recommend this book."
~ Written on 2008-03-12
I personally found this book to be quite fascinating and insightful to which I enjoyed both Gladwell's flowing writing style and his clear organization. It took me a good few hours to read it as I could not put the book down. To understand our "snap" judgment is to reach an understanding of how basic a human being really is. Today's world, with all the media and overwhelming information, we tend to lose this kind of sense in ourselves.
I would very much recommend this book."
~ Written on 2008-03-12
"The brain and thought analysis are always interesting subjects. Gladwell uses quirky anecdotes to present his hypotheisis which is essentially that visceral or instinctive thinking can sometimes out perform rational analysis. Although some of the anecdotes are interesting and thought provoking (particularly the one on racism), I found the lack of scientifc methodolgy in his arguments extremly annoying. Something is either appropriate for scientific analysis or it is not. One would think thought and brain analysis fits perfectly into the scientific remit. But this book subsituites science with psuedo science. All too often anecdotes are used. But anyone can cherry pick anecdotes to argue anything, so what's the objective of this book? Is it a scientific hypotheisis or just some writer looking for a "wow".
I think the art of popular science writing is the ability to explain something complicated, in simple terms and thus bring something which is esoteric to the masses. There are many talented writed who can do exactly this: Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking or Robert Winston.
However, I am always a bit apprenhensive when a journalist with little or no scientific background enters the scientific paradigm. All too often, they substitute the scientific approach for the "wow wow wow" approach. By the end of this book, Gladwell didn't make change my mind. "
~ Written on 2008-02-19
I think the art of popular science writing is the ability to explain something complicated, in simple terms and thus bring something which is esoteric to the masses. There are many talented writed who can do exactly this: Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking or Robert Winston.
However, I am always a bit apprenhensive when a journalist with little or no scientific background enters the scientific paradigm. All too often, they substitute the scientific approach for the "wow wow wow" approach. By the end of this book, Gladwell didn't make change my mind. "
~ Written on 2008-02-19