I just finished reading Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. Simplifying somewhat, one can say that Blink is a book about how we humans make snap decisions, how extremely powerful they can be, how subtly our unconscious thinking manifests itself and how horribly wrong our snap judgements can sometimes lead us – and how to learn to use the ability better.
The book offers fascinating insight into, for example, how first impressions work and how we really end up thinking and processing much, much more information that than we consciously are aware of. A number of remarkable examples show how amazingly fast these unconscious processes work and how fascinatingly accurate they can be – can be. Some of the most interesting things I learned were that first, thin-slicing is heavily context-dependant and second, that it can be learned without extraordinary efforts. Also interesting was to learn how mere introspection can destroy peoples’ abilities to solve insight problems.
But when thin-slicing successfully, remarkable insight can be gained in just a blink of an eye – given the correct circumstances, we can find out something in a few seconds that months of intensive research possibly fail to find. The implications are, of course, huge. If we all studied where, how and when we can successfully apply everything that is discussed in this book, a whole bunch of things would be much better.
However, as is the problem with many interesting books, this one just sparked further interest in a number of new topics (as if there weren’t many enough already). In any case, I now need to learn more about FACS, thin slicing, IAT, AUs and many more subjects. Luckily a good Notes-section with references to multiple sources was included so that aids in the search for more information. The last sentence on the back of the book hits home: Never again will you think about thinking in the same way. Indeed.
As an extraordinary book that I can recommend to anyone. I’ll rate it 5 or at least 5- out of 5.
Next up, a look at humans from a very different angle – Critical Mass: How one thing leads to another by Philip Ball is the next book chosen for summer reading.
