| Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking |  | Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
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Rating:  101 reviews
Sales Rank: 365
Media: Paperback
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0141014598
EAN: 9780141014593
Publication Date: February 23, 2006
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: 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
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 101
 Shockingly unimportant March 3, 2010
Harry the book monkey (Citizen of the world)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Blink is an enjoyable read which contains no ideas whatsoever. It is not that the book contains noting interesting, there are many interesting facts and interesting research mentioned throughout the book; however, the most important fact is not mentioned at all. That fact is that experts in a field use information in an economic way because they are experts. An expert in any field will be able to separate the relevant facts from all the information available and make good decisions rapidly without having to evaluate all the information available. If you want to know how a good general quickly evaluates a battlefield it is worth considering that in order to make the rank of general you will already have amassed a great deal of battlefield experience and it will be this experience that will inform the decisions you make. If you're wondering why a layman might struggle to do the same, it might just have something to do with the fact that they lack the experience or perspective to identify the relevant facts in the same situation.
The short conclusion chapter of Blink demonstrates the superficiality of both Gladwell and Blink. What are the lessons of Blink? They are that we should be wary of situations we find ourselves in where we might express an unconscious racial preference or unconsciously acting in a sexist or chauvinistic way. However, Gladwell gives no guidance on how this might be achieved or how we might become better decision makers. The conclusion of Blink would be the starting point of a good book on how we might become better decision makers and learn to control the impulses that lead us unintentionally in to the wrong thinking that expresses unconscious preferences to race or gender, but without anything to say on the matter, Blink is nothing more than a collection of interesting stores about thinking. If you are at all interesting in the things that Gladwell writes about in Blink you could so much better than to read Blink.
 Not so good! February 22, 2010
Beenham Reader (UK)
I much preferred Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell as it provoked some interesting analysis and thought. I found Blink tedious and repetitive as Gladwell seemed to struggle to find anything interesting to write about the theory he was putting forward.
 Love it! January 15, 2010
Joseph Augustine (Cambridge, UK)
Malcolm Gladwell is a gifted communicator and researcher who never sounds trite or dull to my ears. He has an uncanny knack of making fresh critiques of popular culture that are deliciously absorbing.
The main premise of Blink is that there is "behind the locked" door of the mind an adaptive unconscious or 'independent' thinking-feeling entity always aware, in the moment, and can really only be genuinely discovered (it seems) through the channel of the Self, which is a rather mystical notion. For some mere mortals, the subconscious talks very loudly, such as George Soros (Speculator) who gets a pain in the back before an important change of financial position, or the example of a heroic Fire Officer who walked into a burning building with his men, and knew instinctively that something was wrong in just enough time before the room went up in flames.
For others access to this inner knowing is much harder to obtain, and for many still it is clouded in misjudgement. The fascination for me reading this book was how to make the intuitive science of Blink serve in making better decisions when it is of course not always that simple or obvious; further, if our relationship to inner knowing is such a personal one are there any objective clues or exercises that could assist towards a more intuitive approach to life?
In answering these questions I think Blink goes some way but, frustratingly and maybe teasingly, left me with more lines of investigation than I would have hoped for, which is not a criticism, just too much of a tall order!
One of the areas Gladwell explores is the idea of `thin slicing' or the ability of rapid cognition in a fraction of a moment. The basis for coup d'oeil (the power of the glance) is very much akin to a flickering flame; it is fragile, subtle and at the same time very powerful but can be easily snuffed out by external stresses, especially pressures of time and persuasion, as well as internal prejudices which have a subliminal component. One of the overriding conclusions is that a snap decision does not always equal clarity of insight, though they are easily confused. And more insidiously it seems our subconscious has a darker side - it is prone to the influence of powerful cultural discourses. For much of the legacy of politico-sociological and cultural media theory in the last 50 years, this last point is staple fare. Though in this case from a psychological point of view that might suggest there is some inner measurability for the human condition's sheep-like existence! Gladwell quotes the famous Harvard Implicit Test and other psychological experiments that reveal the very hidden extent of our more cynical motivations, extremely influential in the way we think and act..
In a similar vein Gladwell draws on current research into the mind that has a direct bearing on the topic of well-being. Psychological findings show that we subconsciously assess the mood of others as well as whether we are liked, which I guess is no big revelation. However the channels of communication that go about achieving this feat are not so obviously conscious and in order to unravel the mystery, researchers have employed a matrix of micro-body gestures for eliciting our true emotional states. Through careful and trained analysis (See the work of Silvan Tomkins and Paul Eckman) of a 30 minute video tape, for example, it can be shown that the body language of a couple discussing a contentious issue reveals whether their relationship will last longer than 15 years, with a 90% success rate.
Overall the book creates the impression that you can actually learn to be more aware, though without much of a self-help point plan. It instead offers a series of anecdotes backed up by psycho-sociological research that aims to breakdown the instinctive and seamless processes naturals seem to do in the blink of an eye. A very illuminating and enjoyable read.
 A book to change the way you think ... all in the blink of an eye! January 7, 2010
Mark House (Essex, UK)
If you are familiar with Malcolm Gladwell, he is a great author who breaks down the things we unconsciously do every day, and lets us know why.
Tipping point was his starter, and he has moved onto Blink, a book of anecdotes and tales about what we decide to do in the blink of an eye. His theory is that our brains and bodies intuitively know what to do, but that we seek further assurance before listening to that intuition, and, that we often miss out because of that delay.
It is an important point, and one we should all pay attention to, as we all often underestimate just how much experience we have in every day matters. Personally, I really enjoyed the tale of the card players, and if you do frequently play cards, this is a must read.
Even if you don't play cards, this book is for you if you are interested in what makes you tick, and if you want a distinct advantage over those who haven't read this. It's also a very entertaining read, so as Gladwell might say, don't delay, you know you want to buy this book!
The worst book of Gladwell, by far November 19, 2009
Roberto (Seville, Spain)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
After reading outliers and the tipping point I was eager to grab "Blink" but I was deeply disappointed with this one. I was fooled by the first chapter (not bad) but going through the book it gets more and more twisted
It didn't make much sense the whole book, not funny at all (unlike the previous ones), pretty boring in my point of view.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 101
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