This book isn't at all what I thought it would be. I was hoping it would be a sort of self help book to pare down my overthinking. It wasn't great for that purpose, but it was great in other ways. One of the things I love most about Malcom Gladwell is that he looks at practical solutions to long standing problems rather than trying to blame them on a person or a group of people. Here he looks at how experts in a subject can often make excellent unconscious decisions but even those experts can also be affected by bias, especially in adrenaline producing situations. There's a lot more too it, but as always he doesn't aim to make you mad at anyone, but rather to make you think about solutions. He has some great ideas here, but sadly it's been 16 years since he wrote this and no one has tried them.

From page 265: “The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.” (So true! What good is all the world’s info at our fingertips if we don’t have the wisdom necessary to properly execute it?)

As an empirical psychologist by training, I get very annoyed at journalists who simplify things to the point that its no longer even remotely accurate. Such is the case for Blink. This is especially annoying to me, because the book describes my area of research specialization. If you're interested in a fun read, Gladwell is certainly an engaging author. If you're looking for something that accurately describes the research, I'd recommend looking elsewhere.

For example, Scott Plous's "the psychology of judgment and decision making" (which, despite the title, is not textbook like), or the Heath brothers' "Made to stick".

super repetitive and surface level, literally just a book of anecdotes supporting the idea that we don't consciously analyze everything we do. very offensive/dehumanizing toward people with autism near the end for some reason.

LOVED this book. I read "The Tipping Point" awhile ago and found both books equally fascinating. The short subject studies that the author uses are interesting, easy to follow, and compelling evidence of his "theory" or study in first impressions. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys sociology, psychology, or who spends a lot of time interacting with people. You will learn how and when to trust your "gut feeling" or first impressions of people, situations, and products. A great read!

This is pop psychology, pages and pages of narrative prose describing civil war battles, musical careers, and police chases in support of the premise that we underestimate the part of our mind that makes snap judgments.

Gladwell did some sort of research, but research in relation to psychology implies a thesis tested against authoritative sources. Assembling a series of cool stories and presenting them as case studies seems a little disingenuous.

The conclusion I reach is that OK we might benefit from viewing social prejudice as a scientific fact. We might benefit by becoming aware of situations where "rapid cognition" can improve our on the job perfomance. However, I think the reason this book is a bestseller is that people (myself included) tend to wander around Borders bookstore looking for some sort of shortcut to social insight. I regret to say I had my thumb up my ass to the extent that I felt it was important to read Blink.

راقني تعبير أحد القراء Matt Kosinski
هنا طرفة عين باختصار:

يمكن أن تكون القرارات السريعة جيدة ؛ أفضل من القرارات التي نأخذ فيها الكثير من الوقت لموازنة خياراتنا بعناية واستخدام الأدلة العلمية.

لكنها قد لاتكون كذلك.

الإدراك السريع هو وسيلة مثيرة وقوية لاستخدام قدرات عقلك السريعة والبديهية لاتخاذ قرارات دقيقة بشكل مذهل ، ويمكن أن تقودك إلى تحقيق نجاح أفضل في الرياضة والأعمال والسياسة.

لكنه قد لا يكون كذلك.

يجب أن نتعلم الثقة في أحكامنا الآنية ، حتى في المواقف التي تبدو معقدة حيث ليس لدينا الكثير من المعلومات.

ما عدا في الواقع.

نعم هكذا بالضبط تركني كلادول في حيرة
ما الذي يريد أن يصل إليه ؟ لم يطرح الفكرة ثم ينقضها ولايتوصل لنتيجة معقولة ؟
حسب علمي، التفكيرالعلمي يمر بثلاث مراحل : جمع المعلومات، ثم تحليلها ، ثم نتيجة البحث .
هذا بطبيعة الحال ماتوقعت من الكتاب، قوة التفكير بدون تفكير ،لكن ما تبين لي هو أن الكاتب قد علق في المرحلة الاولى من البحث ولم يتخطاها . فنقرأ الفصل تلو الفصل وتتكاثر المعلومات علينا ،ومالكوم قد بذل بالفعل جهدا كبيرا في البحث وجمع القصص
القصص
هذا الكتاب عبارة عن قصص من كل ما تشتهي
والكاتب يفخر بذلك :)
وكيف لا
هذا بالطبع هو نوعية الكتب التي ستحقق أعلى المبيعات وتشتهر
قراءة سهلة مليئة بالمتعة ،من تشخيص الازمة القلبية ،الى الفرق بين بيبسي كوكاكولا الى جرائم ضباط الشرطة الى محاولة اغتيال ريغ��ن الى اختيار شريك الحياة الى الموسيقى الكلاسيكية الى تكتيكات الجيش الامريكي الخ..
لقد أجهدتني متابعة كل تلك القصص في الواقع
ان مالكوم غلادول لا يتحدث بشيء من عنده الا نادرا
فهو يبدأ الفصل بقصة ويحللها ويبدأ بالثانية وينهي الفصل بثالثة وهكذا
ولا ينسى ان يذكر اسم كل شخص كأنني سأهتم بشخصية الضابط مثلا
وهكذا تعم الفوضى الكتاب !
يحاول كلادول ان يشد القارئ ويفهمه من خلال الأمثلة ، لكنه قد أفسد الأمر
أنا بت أنهي الفصل تلو الفصل ولا أفهم ما يرمي اليه الكاتب
وآمل ان الفصل القادم أوضح ،اتوسل اليك قل لي ماتريد من غير ان تقحمني في الف قصة تافهة ! هذا تعذيب

My first Malcom Gladwell book!! Got it on audio from the library, read by the author.

We make so many unconscious decisions! Interesting theory will great stories to back it up. The key part for me touched on how you can decrease unconscious racist tendencies by exposing yourself to a more diverse group of people, and it really works!

مالكولم غلادويل "حكواتي شاطر" يجيد حبك القصص بشكل مثير جداً، ولو سمعتَ أو شاهدتَ له مقطعاً مصوراً لما أصابك الملل أبداً في تتبع قصصه.
لعل هذا الأمر لا ينسحب على كتبه ( التي يكون عمادها 80% قصصاً متنوعة ) ويدسّ في كل قصة حكمة أو لفتة نفسية أو تجربة اجتماعيّة.

في هذا الكتاب يريد أن يقول رسالة واحدة: ما تظنّه للوهلة الأولى ( الانطباع الأول ) في غالب الوقت يكون صادقاً.
ويضرب لها الأمثلة.

مما يعيب الكتاب التطويل الممل في بعض القصص، وتكرارها على أكثر من فصل لتوضيح فكرة قد توضحت في مثال أول.

Probably the best among Gladwell's books. He still stands true to his success mantra - "Gladwell - The Power of Inductive Reasoning." But, it was still a well researched and informative book. Blink.

I like this author. I love his writing and they way he can relate two things (or more) in such an intimate manner when at first they appear as just random events. That is a gift. This book is the 6th one that I've read by this author. I didn't like it as much as some of his other books. It didn't have the same edge as the others. It did however have some of the same entertainment appeal, so 3 stars.

I seem to be destined to be disappointed by every book that I pick up these days. Perhaps I am just in a reading funk, but this book, too, left me a bit unsatisfied. I'm not quite sure what I expected, but the book was essentially a series of anecdotes about instinct. Gladwell may call it "thin-slicing" but the book is really about making snap judgments, stereotyping, if you will. It's the judgment that we make in the first few seconds of an interaction, a judgment made in the "blink" of an eye. Often, if not always, these judgments are more true than the ones made with greater reflection and we ignore these "thin-slices" at our peril. That, in a nutshell (or a thin-slice), is the thesis of this book. It is an interesting theory and one that I find amicable. My personal experience seems to confirm it. Still, I would have liked to see the whole thing fleshed out just a bit more. It just seemed a bit lightweight overall, but interesting as pop science.