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Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

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Overview

In his landmark bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant - in the blink of an eye - that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error How do our brains really work - in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?

In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing" - filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology and displaying all of the brilliance that made The Tipping Point a classic, Blink changes the way you understand every decision you make. Never again will you think about thinking the same way.

Editorial Reviews

Editorial Reviews for this product are not available at this time.

Author Information

Bio of Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell was a reporter for the Washington Post from 1987 to 1996, working first as a science writer & then as New York City bureau chief. Since 1996, he has been a staff writer for The New Yorker.

Customer Reviews

  • 5 stars out of 5Blink

    Posted March 16, 2009 by outlandr13, St. Paul, MN

    It was one "aha" moment after another. I enjoyed hearing someone articulate all the little things we observe in our daily lives and add the science to support it.
    I really enjoyed it...

Additional Info

Imprint

Back Bay

Filesize

630.14 KB

Number of Pages

320

eBook ISBN

9780316025348

Excerpt from: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

"Some years ago, a young couple came to the University of Washington to visit the laboratory of a psychologist named John Gottman. They were in their twenties, blond and blue-eyed with stylishly tousled haircuts and funky glasses. Later, some of the people who worked in the lab would say they were the kind of couple that is easy to like ' intelligent and attractive and funny in a droll, ironic kind of way ' and that much is immediately obvious from the videotape Gottman made of their visit. The husband, whom I ' ll call Bill, had an endearingly playful manner. His wife, Susan, had a sharp, deadpan wit.

They were led into a small room on the second floor of the nondescript two-story building that housed Gottman ' s operations, and they sat down about five feet apart on two office chairs mounted on raised platforms. They both had electrodes and sensors clipped to their fingers and ears, which measured things like their heart rate, how much they were sweating, and the temperature of their skin. Under their chairs, a ' jiggle-o-meter ' on the platform measured how much each of them moved around. Two video cameras, one aimed at each person, recorded everything they said and did. For fifteen minutes, they were left alone with the cameras rolling, with instructions to discuss any topic from their marriage that had become a point of contention. For Bill and Sue it was their dog. They lived in a small apartment and had just gotten a very large puppy. Bill didn ' t like the dog; Sue did. For fifteen minutes, they discussed what they ought to do about it.

The videotape of Bill and Sue ' s discussion seems, at least at first, to be a random sample of a very ordinary kind of conversation that couples have all the time. No one gets angry. There are no scenes, no breakdowns, no epiphanies. ' I ' m just not a dog person ' is how Bill starts things off, in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice. He complains a little bit ' but about the dog, not about Susan. She complains, too, but there are also moments when they simply forget that they are supposed to be arguing. When the subject of whether the dog smells comes up, for example, Bill and Sue banter back and forth happily, both with a half smile on their lips."