This book was really interesting. It discusses the way in which people can "thin-slice" a situation in a matter of seconds and make a judgement. This is where pre-conceived notions such as stereotypes can affect the way we react to something under a time constraint. It's about how our unconscious mind figures things out and affects how we feel or affects our actions before we even realize what is happening. Even if you aren't a racist, you can be programmed to act as a racist by the things you are exposed to in society. Even if you don't think you are sexist, you are more sexist than you think, due to programming. We associate things like home with mother and work with father. Examined in the book are police brutality, predictions of whether a couple will stay together (just by examining 15 min. of conversation), reading facial expressions, how one firefighter was able to thin slice a situation so quickly that he was able to save his men.

The study I found most interesting was the analysis of an autistic man. We have a part of our brain we use for facial recognition and another part we use for object recognition. The autistic man used the object part of his brain for both facial recognition and for things like recognizing that an object was a chair. The autistic man would watch a movie and not "get" the emotional things happening because he barely paid attention to faces and didn't distinguish meaning from them. A new police officer, for example, in a time of distress where his heart is racing, he just finished chasing a man in his car for an hour, will become "autistic" so to speak because he ignores all cues and shoots a man to death. All he perceives is a threat and he forgets the person. A police officer with more experience will be able to "thin slice" the situation better in a matter of seconds and avoid an unecessary shooting.

In order to be a good "thin-slicer", you probably have a lot of experience with what you are examining and it just becomes second nature. Some people are just naturally good at reading faces, predicting outcomes, and making those snap decisions that happen in the blink of an eye. Others, well, not as good! I feel that the book could use more focus, but overall, a good read.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the mysterious ways our minds work.

مالکوم گلادول می‌آموزد که گاهی همانند ماجرای مجسمه‌ی کورو یا شبیه‌سازی جنگ، باید به حس خود اعتماد داشته باشیم و تجزیه و تحلیل اضافی جز خراب کردن تصمیممان، فایده‌ای ندارد. (مصداق خطایی که دیگران مانند دوبلی، کانمن و نسیم طالب به عنوان خطای اطلاعات اضافی مطرح می‌کنند)
گاهی هم مانند قضیه‌ی نوشابه‌های پپسی و ماجرای دیالو باید از ناخودآگاه پیروی نکرد و بررسی دقیقتری نمود. البته که تمرین زیاد ممکن است باعث ‌شود متخصصانی بوجود بیایند و مهارتی کسب نمایند که ناخودآگاهشان از خودآگاهشان دقیقتر باشد.
در ماجرای کوک‌کانتی زمانی را توضیح داد که کم، زیاد می‌شود و براساس اطلاعات غیرضروری اضافی پزشکان ممکن است تصمیمهای نادرستی گرفته شود؛ پس نیازی به اینهمه اطلاعات جانبی بیهوده نیست.
یاد داد گاهی باید چشمان را بست و به صدای نواختن ساز گوش داد تا موسیقی را درک و از پیشداوری پرهیز کرد.
گفت زشت و زیبا نسبی هستند و چیزهای عجیب معمولا زشت به نظر می‌رسند ولی ممکن است بعد از مدتی که عادی شدند، نهایت زیبایی باشند و دیگران در تقلید آن از یکدیگر سبقت بگیرند.
توضیح داد برای سنجش لذت بردن یا عدم لذت بردن از بعضی چیزها همانند نوشابه و موسیقی، جرعه‌ای نوشیدن و لحظه‌ای گوش دادن فایده‌ ندارد؛ بلکه باید با آنها زیست.
گلادول اثر هاله را برایم تکرار کرد؛ جایی که وارن هاردینگ که دیگران از روی ظاهر و رفتار تردیدی نداشتند رئیس جمهور بزرگی خواهد شد و ناخودآگاه لقب رئیس جمهور بزرگ را برایش بکار می‌بردند، در زمره‌ی روسای جمهور بد و ناموفق آمریکا درآمد.
شمّ اقتصادی و تواناییهای ذاتی افراد را به رخ کشید تا خواننده حواسش به استعدادهایش باشد؛ جایی که موفقیتهای جک ولش و افراد مشابهش را مدیون تصمیم‌گیریهای فوری و قدرت نگاه آنها معرفی کرد نه مدیریت، کار زیاد و روشهای مناسب. (البته که بی‌تأثیر هم نیست)
کتاب نسبتا خوب ترجمه شده بود ولی ای کاش مترجم، نوشتار لاتین اسامی فراوانی که در کتاب نام برده شده‌اند را به صورت زیرنویس می‌آورد تا مراجعه به اطلاعات تکمیلی آسانتر باشد یا حداقل بتوانیم این اسمها را درست تلفظ کنیم. ضمنا بعضی جاها می‌توانست توضیحات تکمیلی ارائه کند که جایش واقعا خالی بود. برخی اغلاط تایپی هم در چاپ کتاب مشاهده می‌شد.
شاید بعضی از موضوعات برایم تکراری بود به این دلیل که آنها را از زبان دیگران خوانده بودم ولی برایم ارزشمند بود چرا که اینقدر باید آنها را مطالعه و در آن تفکر کرد تا به مهارت تبدیل شوند.

"We can learn a lot more about what people think by observing their body language or facial expressions or looking at their bookshelves."

Wow, this book definitely changed the way how I view myself, other people and things that have been happening around me.

Basically, Blink tells us to trust our instinct, because instinct or first impressions are often more accurate than conclusions arrived at after much study and analysis. But be careful, though, because: When we make a second split decision, we are also very vulnerable to being guided by our stereotypes and prejudices, even ones we may not necessarily endorse or believe.

So what is the practical solution to make a split second decision? This ability improves with practice. Apparently, our unconscious thinking is no different from our conscious thinking: in both, we are able to develop our rapid decision making with training and experience.

Probably one of the best psychology books that I’ve read. A well researched and insightful read. Blink.

I went into Blink thinking I was going to learn to think faster and more effectively. Nope. Instead, Mr. Gladwell spent most of the book giving anecdotes on people who follow their first instincts and whether it bore good or bad results. He just goes back and forth. So do the studies he cites.

The book was interesting but not really helpful. Not one of the author’s better works. I recommend reading The Tipping Point instead.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell is a book about snap judgements, split second decisions and what we call the gut feeling and how sometimes we must listen to thoughts that come to us in a BLINK. This unconscious decision making that the author calls ‘thin slicing’ is something we all partake in day to day.

These snap decisions, the author warns can be harmful because of the biases and prejudice we carry with us, citing the shooting of Amadou Diallo, the election of Warren Harding, the New Coke and research that I have come to associate with Gladwell. .
Blink isn’t perfect, kinda difficult to review but I love how it made me see certain things differently, how we should trust our gut even though we cannot explain it but should use this power judiciously as there are a lot of factors to consider when to give that good old gut feeling a miss.

Pick this book for something quintessentially Malcolm Gladwell and I loved every bit of it! I’d recommend it for anyone who loves interesting facts and thorough analysis as I do.

Friends don't let friends read Blink. It's an awful book.

Blink is an interesting read. The book is about making decisions in the blink of an eye, to be precise. The author says that decisions which are made instantly are far more fruitful than those made with long drawn research and logical thinking. He cites many examples which are also interesting to read. For example, the description of the Amadou Diallo incident where police officers shot an unarmed black immigrant in New York with forty-one bullets was stunning. Equally interesting was the last example of Abbie Connant playing the trombone traditionally played by a male in the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

However, somehow the theory did not appeal to me. It is almost akin to relying on sixth sense, although the author tries to prove this scientifically. The book might appeal more to psychologists or psychiatrists.

This book explores the concept of unconscious thinking as evidenced by snap judgments and gut reactions. Quite frankly, I found the book to be based on research that is totally bunk - such as the Implicit Association Test which has been proven to be neither a reliable nor a valid test. The first chapter or two were somewhat interesting, but it quickly wore out its welcome when it started making huge claims that aren’t supported by broad and diverse case studies or comprehensive and reliable evidence.

I generally distrust anyone who says that they ‘go-with-their-gut’. But when the company I work for announced a major decision a few years back, I instantly said, “This is going to be a huge mistake.” Smart people had examined the deal backwards and forwards for months and thought it was a great idea. I had a bad feeling about it that I could only later explain, and I was far from the only one. And we were right. The entire thing turned out to be a huge disaster.

I kept thinking about that incident when I read Blink. The book has a pretty obvious point. People make snap decisions that they can’t consciously explain. Sometimes these decisions are correct and amazing based on the limited amount of information available. Art experts who instantly know a statue is fake despite scientific tests indicating otherwise. A fireman who appears to be fighting a routine small fire suddenly orders his men out without really knowing why and the floor collapses a second later. And sometimes these decisions can be wrong and have tragic consequences. Four cops think a guy has a gun when he’s pulling his wallet out and shoot him multiple times.

We’ve all made quick decisions and later been amazed at how good or bad they turned out, but what makes Blink interesting is that Gladwell does some examination of the science behind how we arrive at these conclusions, and his thoughts on how the data we’re processing can either give us incredible insight or lead us horribly wrong.

Thankfully, Gladwell is not making an argument against logical thinking or analyzing a problem. What he is doing is pointing out that instinct or intuition can be a powerful tool IF the people involved have trained themselves to make good decisions, and if we know when to trust it. He’s got a lot of great examples of doctors, military officers and police officers who often have to make life-or-death decisions in a matter of seconds with limited information. They have to trust their instincts, and Gladwell makes some common sense points that the right kind of training and education can make a huge difference. He contrasts the story of the four New York cops who killed the guy with a wallet versus a patrolman who did not fire on someone who actually had a gun but was attempting to surrender it.

What made this book fun to read was the variety of examples that Gladwell uses and the scientific research done with them. Art dealers, doctors, marriage counselors, cops, military officers, car salesmen, a tennis coach, and classical musicians are all used as examples of the strengths and weaknesses of snap decisions. There’s also some simple experiments included that let you play along at home. This is a book that will make you think about the way you think.

Great book with great ideas
But I don't know why it took him so long to deliver them.
Too much details and unnecessary examples.

Gladwell continues his exploration of counter-intuitive ideas about decision-making in BLINK! He opens with a 1983 incident at the J. Paul Getty Museum. The Museum acquired a rare statue from the Greek archaic period. To this day, the Museum maintains that the authenticity of the statue is uncertain. At the time, however, the Museum was certain enough to acquire the piece for just under $10 million. Documentation, and scientific analysis had been relied on as support. However, numerous experts including Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas Hoving pronounced it a fake. It was an intuitive pronouncement which presaged problems later uncovered with both the documentation and scientific analysis. This is the first of many stories Gladwell uses to illustrate how an intuitive reaction can trump logic and analysis.

Among the factors that cloud logic is something he calls the adaptive unconscious. It's an unrecognized emotional bias. In the Getty example, the officials wanted the piece to be authentic. It would have been a spectacular acquisition for a newly established museum. This desire diverted critical scrutiny of the supporting evidence. Such an adaptation need not even be emotion based. In an explanation of priming, Gladwell cites psychological studies that illustrate the subconscious effect of pre-conditioning through word lists. Extrapolating from these examples, one might conclude that the casual reader will be highly influenced when reviewing a book by his mood or even surroundings at the time of reading.

Gladwell explores other impediments to logical thinking, logic being a type of perceptual filter. Face recognition, he points out, occurs in a completely different part of the brain, and is an integrated reaction as opposed to the kind of multi-step processing that occurs in dealing with language. Athletic and musical achievement rely on these non-verbal neural processes. His own example cites Paul Van Ripper's success against a team backed by the Pentagon's most sophisticated computers in a war games exercise. The Pentagon team was actually hampered in their decision making by information overload.

Initial reaction, Gladwell points out is not always accurate. He tries to explore this downside as well by citing studies on bias.

Gladwell is an entertaining storyteller as well as an energetic researcher. He draws examples from market research, Chancellorsville in the Civil War, the assessment of heart attacks at Cook County Hospital, speed dating, fire fighting, the auditioning of professional musicians, and the Diallo Incident in the Bronx to illustrate his points. By drawing from such a wide variety of experience, he insures the interest of a broad audience in this book.

NOTE: It's always fun to re-encounter characters from other books. I knew of Thomas Hoving from his book, KING OF THE CONFESSORS. The idea of thin-slice thinking was also explored in HOW WE DECIDE, by Jonah Lehrer. The deconstruction of flavor is discussed from a neurophysiological standpoint in Gordon Shepherd's NEUROGASTRONOMY.

Fascinating! I have to admit, in the first chapter I had a little knee-jerk reaction when I thought he was saying that our intuitive reactions are invariably correct. As I continued to read I appreciated his skill in outlining the complexity of his theory, and the fact that only one who is trained in a particular field can really articulate what is happening in his or her unconscious decision-making process. He also explained how that unconscious reaction can be skewed by unrelated factors, thus completely disproving my knee-jerk disagreement.