Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking Reviews

• Not an idea - a series of curious New Yorker articles

  
  By A3IBOQ8R44YG9L on 2005-01-29
  The mistake was too try and get all of these wild animals onto the same boat. The book a series of semi-socio-scientific articles on insight and intuition. It is not a cohesive theory.
  
  The writing is enjoyable - I read the most of it in a single plane flight. Some of the insights provide building blocks for understanding how certain professionals (people who practice a subject or skill for many years) are able to develop an additional sense about things -- gamblers, art curators, policemen. They are essentially seeing something that doesn't register at the conscious-level but provides them a gut-feel about the thing. Actually, I should say that these articles are how this MIGHT be happening - it's more speculation based on the diverse theories of a number of different researchers. Individually the stories and ideas are believable. Unfortuately, Gladwell fumbles in trying take them into some unified theory that is comprehensible let alone cohesive -- at times you wonder "where is he going with this?". Without that thread the indivudal beads get lost and fade into memory as clever ideas...and not much more. Without confidence in the grand idea, the individual pieces begin to feel simply exploratory. It's a shame because there are some remarkable ideas. He's a good documenter of curiousities of research (sort of like a Ken Burns is to historical things) so the storytelling is good enough for entertainment. Another reviewer likened it the addage about Chinese food, tasty but hungry an hour later. I agree. Flawed but still some interesting ideas to puzzle over.
  
  

• Absolutely enthralling and fascinating throughout.

  
  By AMWSZ61FILX2J on 2005-03-21
  This is one of the most fascinating books I have read in some time. The book centers on the concept of how fast we really do make judgments, called "thin slicing", and how deeper analysis can sometimes provide less information than more. It is all about cognitive speed.
  
  The concept of "thin slicing" is dissected and explained. What I found fascinating, and also common sense, is that we process information on a subconscious level, "behind the door", and process so holistically that to over analyze can actually hinder our ability to make decisions.
  
  Several key points are applicable in business. One of the in depth studies looked at a military leader who was particularly successful. One of his more poignant observations was that a great leader needs to let the people do their work. When deciding how often to follow up "you are diverting them, now they are looking upward instead of downward. You are preventing them from resolving the situation". (Page 118) Further "allowing people to operate without having to explain themselves constantly ... enables rapid cognition" (Page 119). It seems that most micro-management actually prevents people from successful decision making.
  
  Another strange phenomenon occurs when we try and explain how we come to some conclusions. It seems that the more we try to analyze how we come to some conclusions the less reliable they become.
  
  The ability to absorb and detect minute changes in facial expressions allows us to essentially "read minds" if we pay attention. There are several chapters on how reliable we can be in predicting behavior with very little information.
  
  Overall, this book is so well written that I had a hard time putting it down. My only compliant, and it is a minor one, is that the book just ends. No summary or wrap up, just "boom", it's over. However, that is more a testament to how engaging the book is I suppose. Highly recommended!
  
  
  

• A disappointment

  
  By ANO3083DSPP7 on 2005-01-14
  I am a great admirer of Malcolm Gladwell's writing, having read him for years in "The New Yorker" and loving "The Tipping Point," his earlier book. But "Blink" is no "Tipping Point."
  
  The idea here is that people often have intuitive first impressions that are more valid and valuable than carefully considered, well-thought-out, researched conclusions. Except when they aren't, because first impressions of individuals, for example, can be clouded by (and Gladwell even discusses this) such matters as attractiveness, gender, race -- and even height (what Gladwell calls the "Warren Harding" error). And how are we to know when our quick-as-a-blink reaction is valid and when it isn't? Well, that's the problem with the book. Ever experienced love-at-first-sight and then realized the person wasn't really everything you thought s/he was...?
  
  This entire book flies in the face of an excellent article Gladwell wrote in 2000 called "The New-Boy Network" [...] about how worthless the typical job interview is (because it relies too much on gut impressions) and how "structured interviews" are the only worthwhile ones (an excerpt from the article: "This interviewing technique is known as "structured interviewing," and in studies by industrial psychologists it has been shown to be the only kind of interviewing that has any success at all in predicting performance in the workplace. In the structured interviews, the format is fairly rigid. Each applicant is treated in precisely the same manner. The questions are scripted. The interviewers are carefully trained, and each applicant is rated on a series of predetermined scales.")
  
  Even examples he uses in this book are not very on-target, such as the Red/Blue military exercise he spends a considerable amount of time discussing. He implies repeatedly that the victory of the Reds was due to thin-slicing and their quick judgments, but by his own description a lot of well-thought-out strategic decisions about communications, etc., really were at the heart of the victory, not intuitive decisions made in the blink of an eye.
  
  On the other site of the intuition vs. analysis coin, a very good read is Michael Lewis's "Moneyball." Central to that book, with applications well beyond its baseball setting, is the realization that the gut reactions of seasoned baseball scouts are often unreliable, being clouded by how a player looks rather than his actual on-field accomplishments. A more analytical approach has helped Oakland make the playoffs repeatedly with a salary a third (now a quarter) that of the Yankees -- and also was at the heart of general manager Theo Epstein's player moves that helped the Red Sox win the World Series.
  
  Gladwell certainly loves the social sciences, and runs all over the landscape discussing various experiments, theories, etc., but it doesn't really come together here like it did in "The Tipping Point," or in many of his articles. My "thin slice" (as Gladwell would say): a disappointment.
  
  

• Disambiguating the Beginningless Time Starts with a Blink of No Mind

  
  By A1C4PZDQ84I9MA on 2006-12-14
  
  
  This book starts off with an interesting notion: There is a level of circuitry in our brain beyond our consciousness (or rather beneath it), that is capable of making sophisticated statistical judgments far quicker than our conscious minds know. This makes sense if you think about it, pattern recognition being a necessity to survival throughout the generations of any of our mammalian ancestors. If you are skeptical, Gladwell provides some nice experiments that seem to support the premise, lab experiments demonstrating physiologic reactions to patterns before the subjects can consciously verbalize the pattern or even alter their own strategy to these patterns. Somewhere deep in our minds is a great calculator, unshakably logical by design. But the conscious mind complicates things, because we desire certain outcomes and thus, also demonstrable, we are more likely to believe things we want to believe.
  
  Gladwell's suggestion is that we can benefit from training our minds to hear the little calculator, that the best decisions are the ones made in a blink. What we call gut feelings and intuitions are actually the more dispassionate mechanism lying within.
  
  To me it seems that there are certain kinds of analyses that benefit from being made in that logical processor and others that are hindered. After nearly a decade in school or training, my tendency is to think in medical analogies. Any radiologist that has been reading chest X-rays consistently for over ten years is welcome to interpret my films in a blink. And cardiologist who has been interpreting EKG's consistently for over ten years is welcome to eyeball my EKG and diagnose me in seconds. In my field, the answer is more complicated, which is one of the reasons it never gets dull. In Psychiatry, a pharmacologist who goes from symptoms to diagnosis to treatment in a linear fashion can probable do so in the twenty minute visits that are now the insurance industry's dictated standard. Likewise, a well trained psychoanalyst, a specialty equally prone to simplistic reduction, can come up with one of their fairy tales in a matter of seconds. But a broad-minded psychiatrist who employs a combination of psychotherapeutic modalities in the context of prescribing medications, a doctor who integrates thoughts on the mind, the brain, and the body that houses it, should not be coming to conclusions in a blink. Less is more only when less is more. However, Gladwell's book does a universal service in alerting us that this is in fact what we are prone to do whether we know it or not. Good mindfulness is being tuned in to our pattern recognizing processors, but also knowing when to feed it and when to starve it, realistically confronting it when called for and then immediately resetting it so it stands as a linchpin. It stands as the stake that tethers the generous leash of our doggie Buddha Brains, giving us some slack but then snapping us back, always reminding us it's there, the Now that cradles the past and imagines the future.
  
  This is a worthy read. Good food for thought. It's good to once in a while stop and think about how you stop and think about how you stop and think. So thumbs up. Stuff it in the novelty oversized sock of a loved one this holiday season. Along with a couple of those little nip bottles of Tanqueray, a handful of lottery scratch tickets, and some Sudoku pages from last June of your forgotten Sudoku-a-day 2006 calendar. Okay. What else can I tell you?
  
  
  
  

• Don't bother -- a gadfly jumping for headlines.

  
  By ASGN5WD3DI451 on 2005-04-13
  Malcom Gladwell is really eating his own dog food. In Tipping Point he discussed how you create buzz and get your ideas into the mass market and market acceptance. He has executed this plan with Blink -- a book that basically reviews psych studies conducted by others in the 80's and 90's into an interested but uninspiring tale.
  
  Gladwell is pushing the book in every avenue possible -- inclduing a segement on CNN entitled "are you a racist?" A piece of jaundiced journalism if I have ever seen one. Generating buzz by this means is low and beneath any credible author. I stopped reading the book and decided to write this reveiw after seeing the piece on 4/12/05
  
  The material in Blink is mildly interesting, but its not Gladwell's work. He is at best an editor putting interesting ideas and stories together to tell a story, not provide soemthing to help you improve your business.
  
  The Tipping point brought you ideas from the 1970's and this book does much the same. I am not smarter nor more aware after reading this book. It is shameless commerce and promotion for Gladwell's brand that I would rather not participate in.
  
  
• Don't make a snap judgement buying this book
  By AO4XEMYB54IQ7 on 2005-02-24
  Well, as a huge fan of Gladwell's last book, The Tipping Point, I was excited last week to finally get my hands on his new effort: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. This time around Gladwell's basic thesis is that often snap judgements (what he calls "thin slicing") can be more accurate than well researched, careful analysis. Gladwell uses many examples (most are interesting) to demonstrate this behavior such as determining when art is faked, sizing up car buyers, picking presidential candidates and determining the characteristics of a person by observing their living space. This has always been Gladwell's talent: taking just-under-the-radar topics and bringing them into the public's view through great journalism and storytelling.
  
  Gladwell is also careful to examine the flipside of this phenomenon: the times when "thin slicing" misleads us or gives us the wrong results. For instance, he presents examples where the mind works based on biases that don't necessarily enter the realm of conscious thought, but are nevertheless there (age, race, height, and so on).
  
  It's a great topic and Gladwell sets it up with some wonderful examples, but then the book begins to have problems. First, the book is a little too anecdotal. Anyone who has ever had a 200-level psych class knows that what looks like cause and effect may be accounted for by an independent variable that wasn't considered (e.g., concluding cancer rates are higher in some area of the country because of pollution, when in fact the area has higher smoking rates as well). Given this, I found that too often conclusions are made on basic handwaving, or that important aspects of studies are not mentioned. For instance, Gladwell describes a study were observers are asked to determine certain characteristics (such as truthfulness, consciensciousness, etc.) of students by observing their dorm rooms; but, never does he mention how exactly one would determine these characteristics of individuals in a scientific manner for comparison. Such omissions leave the reader a little less than convinced.
  
  Nevertheless, even with this flaw the first third of the book supports the thesis and makes for the usual entertaining reading; but things derail from there. The examples start to seem more peripheral: a rogue commander beating the conventional forces in a war game exercise, an artist known as Kenna who apparently should have made it big but didn't (why this example is interesting I've yet to figure out), and some rehash about coke vs pepsi from one of his older articles.
  
  By the end of the book the whole thing derails into examples that just don't seem appropriate for the topic. Sure a study of why Pepsi always does better than Coke in blind tastes tests is interesting (and you can read his article on this without buying the book on Gladwell's web site), but does a study of "sips" vs "whole-can drinking" - people prefer sweet for sips (Pepsi) - really say something about unconscious rapid cognition?
  
  One of Gladwell's greatest strengths is in recognizing interesting things, and then bringing them into conscious awareness so we actually realize these things are happening (whether it be tipping points or rapid cognition). I think he's partly achieved that in this book, but it doesn't come together the way the Tipping Point does. One gets the idea that this topic may have been better handled in an article rather than a full blown book.
  
  
• Thin Slice this book
  By A2Q56KZT6WHIY7 on 2005-11-20
  After his bestselling book brought the phrase "tipping point" into popular usage, which is that moment when an idea, product or concept suddenly catches fire with the population at large, Malcolm Gladwell now gives us two more phrases that are likely to become equally well-known: "blink" and "thin-slicing."
  
  We "blink" when we think without thinking. We do that by "thin-slicing," using limited information to come to our conclusion. What's interesting is that in our age of information overload, according to Gladwell, we often make better decisions with snap judgments than we do with volumes of analysis.
  
  The book opens with what reads like a heart-racing detective story about the discovery of a statue that initially fooled one group of art experts for being genuine and was later shown to be a fake by another group. The first group had exhaustively studied and analyzed the statue. Members of the second took one look --- "blinked" --- and declared it suspect and ultimately a forgery. And they were right. Why? How did they know? Why was the first group so wrong? Are there dangers in overanalyzing? Are we always right when we blink? Can we be wrong, even dead wrong? What is the science behind blinking? What can we learn from this phenomenon?
  
  Gladwell addresses these questions and gives a wide range of examples of blinking from the worlds of gambling, speed-dating, tennis, war games, the movies, malpractice suits, popular music, and predicting divorce. Interspersed are accounts of scientific studies that partially, but never completely, explain the largely unconscious phenomenon that we have all experienced at one time or another in our lives. Nevertheless, the hypotheses, the scientific experiments, and the examples are very interesting.
  
  A researcher tells the story of a firefighter in Cleveland who answered a routine call with his men. It was in the back of a one-and-a-half story house in a residential neighborhood in the kitchen. The firefighters broke down the door, laid down their hose, and began dousing the fire with water. It should have abated, but it didn't. As the fire lieutenant recalls, he suddenly thought to himself, "There's something wrong here," and he immediately ordered his men out. Moments after they fled, the floor they had been standing on collapsed. The fire had been in the basement, not the kitchen as it appeared. When asked how he knew to get out, the fireman thought it was ESP, which of course it wasn't. What is interesting to Gladwell is that the fireman could not immediately explain how he knew to get out. From what Gladwell calls "the locked box" in our brains, our fireman just "blinked" and made the right decision. In fact, if the fireman had deliberated on the facts he was seeing, he would have likely lost his life and the lives of his men.
  
  It took well over two hours of questioning for the fire lieutenant to piece together how he knew to get out. (First, the fire didn't respond as it was supposed to; second, the fire was abnormally hot; third, it was quiet when it should have been noisier given the heat.)
  
  One take-away from the book is that how we blink is a function of our experiences, training, and knowledge. For example, prejudice is so unconsciously woven into our society that, despite our best intentions, at an unconscious level it can lead to really bad blinks. This is partly why tall people are frequently seen as natural leaders when there is no basis in reality for that belief. And, in the case of the Amadou Diallo killing in 1999, it is why four policemen incorrectly thin-sliced a situation and wound up killing an innocent man by mistake.
  
  Gladwell is obviously fascinated by the phenomenon of blinking. Properly understood --- and properly prepared for --- it is a valid way to make decisions. Gladwell says, "A world where snap judgments and thin-slicing is taken seriously is a better place." I know some people who might object to that viewpoint, particularly when it comes to decision-making in foreign policy, but if you want an entertaining read, fast-paced, rich in entertaining anecdotes and some unusual scientific research, then BLINK is worth picking up.
  
  
• Beautifully crafted nonsense
  By A1RPTVW5VEOSI on 2005-02-02
  There are a number of writers and reporters out there who never fail to impress me with their skill in gathering and presenting information and at the same time never fail to stun me with foolish conclusions. Malcom Gladwell, whose writing graces the pages of the New Yorker, is one such writer. He is such an excellent reporter and writes such beautiful prose that his readers seem to swallow even his most dubious and unjustified conclusions.
  
  Perhaps it's simply a consequence of his narrow education, but Gladwell manages to present the grossly obvious as if it were a brilliant insight while at the same time making inferences that are just this side of nonsensical. In this he reminds me of William Greider, whose "Secrets of the Temple", although the best history and description of the US Federal Reserve system ever written, in full of nonsensical conclusions, i.e., that inflation helps fuel economic recoveries. Tell that to Jimmy Carter.
  
  Gladwell's earlier book, "The Tipping Point", postulated that various phenomena take off once a critical point has been reached. Now put that way, it sounds profoundly obvious, and it is. Ice freezes at a critical temperature. Water boils at 100C. And so on. But Gladwell also accepts, at face value, a number of sociological theories that are without theoretical base, or even data, other than some casual observations. He doesn't, for example, touch on graph theory, which does have some bearing on the spread of phenomena.
  
  In this book, his insight is that sometimes snap judgements are better than well-thought out ones. Again I'm reminded of Samuael Johnson's comment to a writer that "Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." There is a good deal of recent research that looks at the processing between pereception and cognitive awareness, but when Gladwell touches on this he gets both his anatomy and his function wrong. Much of his discussion- like the fact that voters often choose attractive political candidates regardless of their qualifications- has more to do with factors other than the immediate perceptions he's trying to make a case for.
  
  I still often enjoy reading Gladwell in the New Yorker- his recent piece on drug prices was a fine bit of reporting, even if his conclusions were not of the same caliber. But his books don't seem to be in the same category.
  
  
• This review may contain more information than the book...
  By AR5G0BQ9QDPEL on 2005-09-12
  This book suffers from numerous problems. The first is that while it claims to be about "the power of thinking without thinking," this is only one of three ideas that are discussed. The failure to mention the other ideas in the title might have been acceptable if they were mentioned explicitly in the text, but it is unclear that Gladwell realizes the distinction. The second problem is that the book is made up of six distinct essays, and they have been sloppily edited to produce a book that is simultaneously disjoint and repetitive. Though perhaps the second problem is really just a symptom of the third problem, that Gladwell's style is painfully repetitive to begin with. Gladwell does not simply beat dead horses, he beats the dust into which he has reduced their carcasses. The fourth problem is that towards the end of the book Gladwell goes off on a tangent about "situational autism" that is both poorly motivated and very likely to offend the autistic community. And finally, rather than having an introduction and conclusion that tie the book together, these sections present whole new situations; the conclusion in particular seems largely unrelated to the rest of the book.
  The book has four points. First, is that the human mind has an impressive ability to process information at an unconscious level very quickly. For instance, by listening to a brief snippet of a doctor speaking, even if the recording is digitally altered so that all you can hear is the tone, you can very accurately determine whether the doctor has good bedside manner. Similarly, by watching a few seconds of a college professor's lecture, even with the sound turned off, you can make a remarkably accurate determination of whether the professor is a good lecturer.
  The second point is that this ability often leads us astray. Our unconscious can be shown to harbor prejudices against blacks, women, and others, and these prejudices are bad for both us and society. And on a less socially relevant note, people consistently prefer the taste of liquor that comes in fancy bottles. The book gives absolutely no advice about how to improve our unconscious's attitudes towards either minorities or conventional packaging of foodstuffs.
  Without explicitly mentioning it, the book points out the importance of making decisions based on relevant information, rather than large quantities of irrelevant data. The best example of this is given in the introduction. An apparently ancient Greek statue is analyzed with all sorts of fancy chemistry equipment, and the lab technicians come back and say that the marble is indeed from an ancient Greek quarry and that the surface of the marble has a chemical composition that is usually the result of centuries of weathering. On the other hand, any art historian worth his salt can tell you that the feet of the statue are carved in a style never seen in any other Greek statue. While the information from the chemists seems more concrete (their equipment costs more), the relevant fact here is the style of carving in the feet-the statue is a modern forgery.
  Finally, the book talks about ways to improve decision making under intense time pressure, for instance in a military engagement or police shootout. The conclusion, not surprisingly, is that practice making split-second decisions is important. Also, if you can slow down the pace of the engagement in order to allow yourself more time, you should do so, but if slowing down gives your opponents a greater advantage, you shouldn't.
  If you have made it through this review, there is certainly no need to read the book. Every idea Gladwell had has been summarized and clarified here. Which should really make you wonder how he stretched the book past 20 pages, let alone 200!
  
  
  
• Disappointment!!!
  By A1B6ZDJN9CG00K on 2006-06-05
  I am sad to say how disappointed I was with Blink. After reading Tipping point I expected this book to be another phenomenal book, making the complex simple. Alas it did what Einstien warned us about "Make things as simple as possible and not any simpler."
  
  This book tried to argue that we need to let go of the logical thought and analytical thinking in favor of gut feelings. "Think" by Michael LeGault is a rebuttal to this book and I think it is worth reading in conjunction with Blink. Why? because implications of pattern based thinking (whcih is how our brain processes information at the fundamental level) and what Blink argues for, is deeply powerful, yet is a fundamental imperative to use the carefully balanced approach in decision making that uses instinct and mixes it with analytical thinking. Without this balance our society can be regressing towards middle ages as opposed to advancing towards the next creative era of growth.
  
  
• Better as a magazine article
  By A3DHNX91TON5YQ on 2006-10-22
  This was a book club selection that I forced myself to finish. I was very frustrated with this book as it said the same thing over and over again. If I ever hear the term "thin-slicing" again, it will be too soon!
  
  While some of the examples were good, there was just too much repetition. Basically, it reads like a textbook. I expected to learn how to use the information provided, rather than read the same examples over and over again. This information would have been better shared in a magazine article with a handful of examples. There is no way this book deserved the acclaim it has received. Do not waste your money.
  
  
• Blink is Malcolm's Way to Bling
  By A3AYJS40ANHUSQ on 2005-04-22
  Ok! Now I read this book and thought it would be something totally out of this world (considering the buzz about it everywhere and nearly every excutive I meet citing terminology from it), but after reading it, I feel cheated out of the money I spent on it. So what does this book teach you? In one word "nothing" other than relating a whole spread of stories about people who can take instantaneous decisions. It is very ironical that Gladwell who exhorts to not overanalyse things spends so much time himself on the topic.
  
  Bad read for people who aim to learn things, more suited to people who are accustomed to reading publications that provide more gossip and little useful information. I think folks who shop the HSN will identify very well with the Blink way of decision making.
  
  
• Humbug! Nothing but anecdotes.
  By A2Z6BXEMDDLJ5Z on 2007-01-17
  Many psychologists were quick to realize that this book is a bunch of hokum. In fact, there is an entire field of psychology, decision making, that has literally decades of research illustrating that the claims made here by Gladwell are incorrect. Ironically, Malcolm Gladwell was a keynote speaker at a decision making conference a few years back. He was not very well received, and in the Q&A session that followed his talk the scientists present couldn't help but begin pointing out the plethora of flaws in his arguments. He cherry picks examples to back up his claims, relying on what scientists call anecdotal evidence. For example, he tells the story of art experts detecting, in a split second, or, in a "blink," what scientists who spent days analyzing a statue failed to detect: that the statue was a fake. This is not evidence; it is an anecdote. In order to tell if the art "experts" were accurate and the carbon daters were not, a controlled experiment would have to be conducted. The experiment would also have to be double blinded. Both the art experts and the scientists would have to attempt to detect fakes among a whole series of statues, half of which would be fakes and half of which would be genuine. The fakes and the real statues would be randomized. Experimenters would then calculate whether either group could statistically significantly outperform chance. Gladwell ignores countless instances where the art experts were wrong, and museums spent millions on fake pieces, which were later exposed by scientists. Somebody needs to sit Malcolm Gladwell down and explain to him that anecdotal evidence isn't evidence at all. It's the fallacy of person validation; it's the same as relying on a sample size of one!
  
  
• A very good ' blink ' indeed
  By AHD101501WCN1 on 2005-01-11
  Malcolm Gladwell is one of the most brilliant non- fiction writers working today. He is a researcher and a thinker who looks into social phenomena and makes connections between diverse activities and areas of life in startling and interesting ways. While he is most known for the concept of ' the tipping point' I personally found his most remarkable essay to be on key figures in human social networks, and the way one individual may connect hundreds of even thousands different kinds of people together. In this present work which I have read the British edition of he writes about what he calls 'adaptive unconscious' about processes of mind and decision that determine much of our action in life. He opens with a consideration of the Getty Museum's considering the purchase of what seemed to be a great new discovery, a statue of a certain kind called a 'kourous. The Getty went to the greatest experts in scientifically evaluating the materials of the statue and they come up with it as genuine. However when the Getty showed the stature to people who live in the world of art history most of them instinctively recoiled from it. They made the kind of ' blink' split - second decision which bypassed their consciousness. They proved to be right. Gladwell goes on to consider ' thin- slicing' decision making in other areas, that is decision-making which is based on a very small set of experience. In his second chapter he looks at the work of a psychologist John Gottman who has developed a method of predicting whether a couple will eventually divorce through noting certain qualities revealed in a fifteen - minute conversation between them. Stonewalling, criticizing are two of the factors attended to but the key one is the degree of contempt one of the partners may have for another. But for Gladwell the focus is on understanding that it does not take a prolonged process of consciously investigating and collecting data but rather a quick- thin- slice evaluation to get to the truth of the situation. Gladwell investigates other kinds of situations in which in one case a firefighter, in another a Vietnam War veteran and Marine officer show a kind of instinctive ' right action' which would not be possible had they talked or thought too much at the wrong time and confused themselves in the process. Gladwell writes of very interesting characters , finds people of extraordinary abilities even when it comes to selling cars or tasting food. He centers on non- conventional figures who have in one way or another extraordinary gifts in ordinary life. In one chapter he looks at the diagnosis of heart- attacks in emergency room and shows how a method a researcher tried to push and had rejected for years has enabled quick, life- saving diagnosis. In this situation too he shows how too much information, too much conscious rehashing of data can interfere with a kind of quick- decision making a kind of ' in a blink' judgment. Here however it should be pointed out that Gladwell insists that in many areas of life it is only because there has been prior training, study, rehearsal that such wise- snap judgment is possible. All in all this is a richly informative and highly interesting work, a very pleasurable read.
  It will take more than one blink to read, but it will be worth it.
  
  
  
  
• Not in a blink
  By A3NH7PYU4AD5GA on 2007-10-02
  I was about to buy the book, since the subject and the assumed hypothesis look appealing and interesting. Then my Amazon friend Conan wrote a rather lukewarm review and I delayed the purchase. Then I found the book on my daughter's shelf. Thanks to Conan for saving my money.
  I borrowed the book and read it. In a blink I thought it was as interesting as it had promised. It took me more than a blink to find out, that it does not deliver: you learn some interesting anecdotes about marriage predictions and about malpractice suits (my other Amazon friend Joe Neuschatz will be interested) and such things, but you never really get nearer to understanding what the alleged special rapid intelligence process really is.
  The book reminds me a bit of the style of articles in Der Spiegel: journalism well short of science. Sometimes entertaining, but mostly disappointing.
  
  
• Less Than Meets the Eye
  By A7182HXCZT9J5 on 2005-04-26
  This lighweight book is a surprise. You do expect some analysis and content when reading a book on the current state of thinking about brain activity. There is no substance here.
  There are lots of anecdotes about supposedly instant analysis of tennis swings, statues, and the like. The thing that is not credited is the time, effort, study and intellectual training it takes to erect the pattern recognition process that is behind these "instant" decisions. (As if an untrained individuals' instant conclusion about anything would be of any value whatsoever.) There are trained people in many professions who can arrive at a conclusion quickly -- especially on how to categorize a situation or an object which relates to their field. They have internalized the schema of that field, and it is this unconscious competance that makes them an expert. So --- what else is new here?
  Not a piece I would compare with Penrose, Dennett or any of the scholars of brain activity. Sadly, in my opinion, I wasted my time.
  
  
• Why what an original idea...not
  By AN0XOU7UKY8YW on 2006-01-18
  I want the reader to try an imagine something... this is something you live with your entire life, you know about it - but you supress it. This something is cognition...and sometimes your hunches are right and someitmes they are wrong, but here are some cool stories about lucky guesses! That is basically all Gladwell writes about. He tries to impress you with stories of the rogue general who beat the big bad US, and about the classical archeologist who just felt something was wrong. He tries to tell you about the 1920 election and the most perfect yet ugly chair. He tries to explain that all of these ideas are related to a power none of us can control or really understand. Well it is pretty obviousle that Gladwell himself doesn't understand these ideas, so only read this is you want to go no where and learn nothing.
  
  
• Without a Thought !
  By APRB3PVY34XD5 on 2008-03-06
  Blink is a " must read " about the power and accuracy of our first impressions and intuitions about people and events. Malcolm Gladwell skillfully presents several case studies that inspire me to recognize my own intuitive talent and also to notice my tendencies to dismiss my intuitive knowing in favor of analysis and self-doubt.
  He cleverly examines stereotyping and predjudice, and demonstrates how this influences and distorts our intuition.
  As a result of this book, I feel more confident and freer to express myself spontaneously! Tuning in to my first impressions is fun and actually gives me a greater sense of well-being and living in the moment, wow!
  Another great source of well-being and Instantaneous Transformation is Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment by Ariel and Shya Kane. This lovely anthology gives me a window into living with ease and transforms everyday circumstances into life giving opportunities. I can experience enlightenment now! Without any complicated discipline, Guru, or hoops to jump through. Thanks to the Kanes and Gladwell for giving us modern day access to a truly satisfying life.
  
  
  
  
• This book is worth a 2-second read.
  By A56F47DAQ62ZX on 2005-01-17
  Gladwell's "Blink" tells us that we can learn as much in 2 seconds as we can from a detailed study. That summarizes his entire book. Spending any more time on his book will provide no greater insight. Take his advice - accept this 2 second summary of his book, and move on. There is nothing more to learn from reading it. Apply this to Tipping Point's basic idea - if a phenomenon achieves a certain critical mass, it will grow exponentially. Now you don't need to read Tipping Point either.
  
  
• Waiter, Oh Waiter!
  By A2C3E35FDWR8WV on 2005-01-21
  
  It's an interesting topic to ponder: how do we know things in an instant? In fact this topic has been pondered for millennia and studied extensively for the last fifty years. There are wonderful philosophical, religious, and scientific works on this topic. The knowledge and insights available are both broad and deep. This particular book, Blink, The Power of Thinking without Thinking, does not add anything new or insightful.
  
  While reading this book I felt as if I were at a business reception and found myself engaged in a one sided conversation with a nice fellow who went on way too long about how the mind works. My mind works. And what my mind told me was find a waiter, get another drink, and excuse myself. Never ending anecdotes, no matter how well intended, embellish a point, but do not prove it or provide a deeper understanding. That's the way Blink is. I cannot recommend it because it sheds no new light on an old subject and there are better works on the mind and cognition.
  
  
  
• better decisions on less information: don't buy this book
  By A388BW2V7P32K2 on 2005-05-07
  The premise of the book is that "instinct" or hunches can be formed by a first glance (thin slices) of information inputs; this data sometimes is enough as our subconscience focuses on what is really important in that decision long before we can clearly articulate our analysis of the data inputs. On that note, the key thin slice of information you need to know is: don't buy the book as that is the entire message. The remainder of the book is a host of wonderful examples, but no concrete further pertinent information is offered.
  
  Early in the book, the author suggests that sometimes the hunches can go awry, but "for a very specific and consistent set reasons, and those reasons can be identified and understood. It is possible to learn when to listen to that powerful onboard computer and when to be wary of it."
  
  If the purpose of the book was to highlight and divulge in a clear and precise manner "when to listen... and when to be wary of it", it would be a very useful tool to enhance decision making. Having failed to offer this, the book fails to give the reader any real value beyond what we instintively already know.
  
  Ironic, isn't it? We have enough information about the book very rapidly: it is entertaining but lacking value.
  
  
• Only states the obvious
  By A1WG8GQLHDZZJU on 2005-06-05
  This book is well-written and engaging, but it only states what most people already know. One of the book's concluding points is that if you are skilled and experienced in your field, then being able to quickly make decisive and correct decisions will come naturally. Nothing new there. Some people would simply say "with experience comes intuition." The author further notes that unless one is fully trained, the initial gut reaction can be misleading for a number of reasons, such as subconscious bias or stress. An abundance of stories is presented to support all the points in the book, but most adults will have already come across all the issues through lifelong experience.
  
  One thing for which I was hoping was a discussion on how to hone yourself to make better "blink" decisions outside your field of expertise. The author does not address this at all except for one small suggestion saying that it's better to reduce the amount of information one has to process in order to make a good decision. This approach is a good idea, but the author delves no further.
  
  
  
• An Eye-Opener on How People Make Judgements
  By AITIU2DG1MM4A on 2006-01-02
  In education, standardized tests have become a way of life. As a student, I happened to be very good at these types of multiple-choice tests. One reason I was good at these tests was that I realized something early on: my first instinct was almost always right. The few times I thought over an answer and decided to change it, I nearly always changed the right answer into a wrong one.
  
  This experience came to me as I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink. Essentially, this is a book about making snap judgements. As Mr. Gladwell points out, all of us are constantly making choices "in the blink of an eye." The question is, why are some people better at making these kind of snap judgements than others?
  
  The answer, as Mr. Gladwell describes it, seems to be: preparation. All of us make our judgements based on our experience--experience that becomes so ingrained that we can become ultimately unaware of why we know what we know. I was a rigorous student, so I was prepared to make the right judgement on tests and I learned to trust that judgement. In his book, Mr. Gladwell describes a number of interesting instances of this: art critics who can instantly recognize fakes, tennis coaches who can predict a double fault before the serve is complete, the counselor who can tell which marriages will fail from listening to a couple converse with each other. He then goes on to describe research that can pick apart these situations and help us understand what in these persons' experience has given them these abilities.
  
  But Mr. Gladwell is also aware that snap judgements can lead us into error. In Blink, he looks at some great failures of judgement like the Diallo shooting, the election of Warren G. Harding as U.S. President and the introduction of New Coke. What seems to set these events apart is that, whereas in the successful examples the judgements are made by individual experts in narrow fields, in the failures the settings are social ones where the decisions are made by groups. In these groups, cultural influences have colored our experiences and often in a negative, albeit unconsciously negative, way. The subtle associations of African-Americans with crime and charisma with success can lead us down the wrong paths in ways we may not even expect.
  
  How, then, to successfully "thin-slice," as Mr. Gladwell calls it? Awareness. Once we become aware of our prejudices, we can mold our minds and sharpen our experiences. Then we will be better prepared to make choices. In this powerful book full of excellent examples and descriptions of current research, Mr. Gladwell has provided a step to that awareness. It is well worth reading.
  
  
• Implicit Associations Test?
  By A1IHT31N8RLPN8 on 2007-09-16
  The main idea behind "Blink," is how to make fast judgements by examining those who are very successful at doing so. I would suggest reading the conclusion first, then the whole book. The author's thesis has merit, we can learn to make better, & faster decisions when we filter out all the excess data.
  
  Here are some of his examples. Does the new Police procedure benefit the community? Will the new medical procedure do more harm than good? Can we determine a persons character by observing their living space? The author gives various examples where the mind works based on biases that are not always in the realm of the conscience thought. That clearly is true. Mr. Gladwell is good at recognizing interesting things, whether it is rapid cognition, or a tipping point.
  
  A fine example of this was President Warren Harding on pages 72-75, about appearances being favored over substance. But, after page 98 I felt that he posed more questions than he answered. His example about "Gulf war 2" being against a fundamentalist leader, showed historical ignorance. Saddam was always a "secular dictator." He also negates to analyze the politicizing of U.S. intelligence information about the Iraq war. It seemed simplistic not to question the premise for someones actions. His examples about the awful Police shooting in N.Y., & the music of Kenna are isolated to fit his thesis. He tries to hammer a square peg into a round hole. This illogical insistence on using matters of personal taste as proof that someone is an "expert," takes away from the positives of the book. In conclusion, I think forty Percent of the book is a worthy read. The remaining sixty percent was too anecdotal for my taste.
  
  
• A few comments
  By A1MJMYLRTZ76ZX on 2005-02-07
  This is a readable and even engaging book on decision making, but although I sympathize with the author's main thesis about rapid judgments (people are often right about these, but then, they're often wrong, too), he's a little too facile in discussing some of the more technical psychology and neurobiology and whether that evidence truly supports his thesis. For example, as another poster here mentioned, the fusiform gyrus isn't a piece of software but is an anatomical area of the cerebral cortex. But Gladwell not being a trained neuroscientist I can forgive him for confusing anatomy with functionality.
  
  However, Gladwell's theory that accomplished experts in various fields can often intuit, or on the basis of very small "slices" of information, often make quick and very complex decisions is nothing really knew, and it might or might not have anything to do with the ability to make snap judgments in general. It could be that such experts are quite competent in a particular area that taps into their cognitive and analytical strengths but they are incapable of making such decisions in other areas. It's more likely that people who have the ability to make quick judgments in many areas function differently from those who don't. For example, I can make quick analyses and decisions in two or three areas that I know well, but in other areas of my life I have to sit down and think and deliberate more. All this means is that some decisions are information intensive and some aren't, and if you're skilled in a particular area you can function faster than someone who has to work more slowly through the relevant information or decision-making steps.
  
  Another important point to remember is that power doesn't always equate to speed, either. For example, it's said that Einstein wasn't a very quick thinker, but leave him alone with paper and pencil and his mind could go further than any physicist of his generation, because of his powerful analytical and visual/spatial skills. Hence, rapid decision making, although perhaps useful on the battlefield or at the yearly stockholder's meeting, doesn't necessarily equate to quality and depth which is probably more important in the long run. It's also sobering to consider that more and more we seem to be electing politicians on the basis of their ability to come up with facile and great-sounding 20-second sound bytes that are hardly a realistic test of a candidate's ability to actually lead, govern, or come up with new and viable policies and solutions to our social problems. By that criterion Einstein couldn't have gotten elected to his local city council. But he's definitely someone you'd want on your team because of his ability to think creatively and deeply about many problems.
  
  That having been said, much of the organization of the human brain relates to generalized, quick decision making, although mostly on a sensory processing level. The human brain is extremely adept at combining inputs from all the sensory modalities in real time and being able to select and make decisions on the most vital information. This is aided by multi-sensory and multi-associational neurons in the anterior parietal cortex just above and to the side of the visual cortical receiving areas. The technical jargon aside, this makes perfect commmon sense if you think about it. If something is stalking you and may eat you, and you hear a twig snap, well, it could be your buddy, or it could be a big tiger or other predator. All animals (including humans) know when to haul a_s and get the hell out of there when they see or hear or smell something suspicious. These sorts of sensory abilities make such quick, selective responses possible. This is actually the most convincing evidence for the sort of abilities Gladwell is writing about, but it's not discussed in the book.
  
  One other minor technical point, I also agree with the previous writer that I don't understand what the author means by rapid heartbeats shutting down the motor systems. Obviously, certain abnormal cardiac conditions can impair motor functioning (it only takes about a four-second interruption in blood flow to the brain to result in unconciousness, which would certainly tend to interfere with motor control :-)) But other than a heart attack or a loss of blood circulation to the brain or serious arhythmias, such as fibrillation, which, depending on whether they occur in the ventricles or the auricles, can be potentially fatal vs. merely annoying and slightly debilitating, I'm not aware of anything like that. However, I'm not a doctor (I'm a neurobiologist by academic training) so I don't claim to be an authority on that area.
  
  However, I give the book 3 stars for effort, and some of the stories and info was interesting.
  
  
• A One BLINK Waste of Time
  By ABZYT5YJQ2BR4 on 2005-02-23
  In a blink..."BLINK: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" is a rip-off! Malcome Gladwell's "BLINK" had a great review in the New York Times and was (is?) a top seller. However, I was so under whelmed after reading it that I passed the book on, without comment, to a couple of friends, (possibly ex-friends now) for their reactions. It could be that I was missing something. One of my pals later told, me in describing his thoughts on "BLINK", that this tome was exactly what the philosopher Harry Franfurt was describing in his book, "On Bull....". The author of "BLINK" has scraped together some university "studies" to give credence to his dissertation. By puffing out the studies and inserting some personal observations he managed to fill some two-hundred odd pages with pap. I had been scammed. Here, in my opinion, is the encapsulated wisdom to be gleaned from "BLINK" and what you should know before starting the read: If you carefully observe what you are doing while repeating the same process over, and over, and over, you will one day be able to repeat the process without a lot thinking...sort of an intuitive thing. It's kinda like shooting a basketball.It's Pavlov, basic 101 Pavlov. The implied benefit to you will be an ability to recognize these processes within, let's say, maybe, two seconds or a "BLINK" of the eye. Oh yeah, the writer also throws in some personal grievances about an entertainer friend(?) of his who gets panned by critics and trys to lead you into concluding that they must be some kind of music bigots. The only benefit in reading this rip-off is that I should be on my way to recognizing literary nothingness within a "blink".
  
  
  
  
• Blink stinks...
  By A2RAY0FQGJ1IJ0 on 2005-03-23
  I've never seen a more transparent effort to cash in. This is a (really) dumbed down psych lite book about nothing. At times, Gladwell's effort to make a strong point in confusing (I suspect there is no point). At other times, he provides mini-overviews of the examples discussed in the book in case we couldn't remember them...There is nothing interesting and nothing to gain from Gladwell's flimsy theory about "thinking without thinking." If you're interested in the thesis "the power of thinking without thinking is so strong unless it's a situation where regular thinking is required," buy the book. Because that's all there is to it.
  
  
• A new way of seeing
  By A3P7Q9FFHHCW1L on 2007-09-29
  In the blink of an eye we gather huge amounts of information. The author, Gladwell, likens our brains to giant computers capable of processing lots of data in a flash. I found it fascinating how we can use this information either for survival purposes and / or we can apply our intuitive knowledge to any given situation. The author coins the term "thin slicing" to explain the process of applying one's intuition. He states that we are often suspicious of trusting this intuition because it's so quick and easy, even when it's on target. He relays experiments where instantaneous "thin slicing" has amazing results, sometimes in life and death situations, but also explains what can cause the skillto fall short. The reason often being that we are not truly living in the present moment.
  
  Two books that easily guide one into the present moment are Ariel and Shya Kane's "Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment" and "How To Create A Magical Relationship". These refreshingly fun and practical books effortlessly get the reader into the present moment where enlightenment resides. In an instant life can become brilliant and magical. Both of these intelligent books have shown me that life needn't be hard work in order to be amazing.
  
  
• Data, but no interpretation
  By A2FQ0F7ETEX0RJ on 2005-02-06
  I had high hopes when I bought this book, but it turned out to be a big letdown. Rather than a manual about how to refine one's snap judgments, the whole book is a series of how quick decisions can sometimes be better than careful reasoning. As I read, I kept thinking, "Great, snap judgments might work sometimes. How do I improve them?" but he never got to it. The examples were interesting, but to write a whole book about them and only them...it makes you wonder if the author just wants you to go through his book without thinking.
  
  
• Finished before it really told me anything
  By ANKVTDKND6BF7 on 2006-05-01
  I bought the book before a flight after reading the adulatory comments on the front and back.
  
  It started well, with the premise that the subconsious forms a conclusion long before the consious mind is aware of it. I suppose it is obvious, but he makes the point well.
  
  From there things get a bit lost. Reading along I soon realised that I was nearing the end and the number of pages left for a profound and all-encompassing conclusion was rapidly diminishing.
  
  Unfortunately it never came.
  
  This is a very short book which promises much but delivers little. I hope that the author will follow up with something more worthy of the title. It is really just a collection of true stories, mostly about racial or sexual prejudice, which leave a bad taste in the mouth. Each story is drawn out as well, a little like the History Channel.
  
  I'm sure that there is a good book somewhere in this subject matter, but I can't for the life of me reconcile the reviews that this book has received (Compelling, Astonishing, Brilliant) with my experience. Maybe they only read the first chapter. Maybe I missing something.
  
  Since reading this book I have been looking around and found this one:
  
  The Genie Within: Your Subconcious Mind, how It Works And How To Use It (Paperback)
  
  Maybe this would be a better choice for this subject matter.
  
  

• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
• Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
• Outliers: The Story of Success
• Stumbling on Happiness
• The Wisdom of Crowds