Book Details

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

• Malcolm Gladwell
• Little, Brown and Company
• January 2005

Top

What is "Blink" about? (Web)

http://www.gladwell.com/blink/index.html

What is "Blink" about?

• It's a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye.
• "Blink" is a book about those two seconds, because I think those instant conclusions that we reach are really powerful and really important

  and, occasionally, really good.

• You could also say that it's a book about intuition, except that I don't like that word. In fact it never appears in "Blink."

  Intuition strikes me as a concept we use to describe emotional reactions, gut feelings--thoughts and impressions that don't seem entirely rational.

• But I think that what goes on in that first two seconds is perfectly rational.

  It's thinking--its just thinking that moves a little faster and operates a little more mysteriously

  than the kind of deliberate, conscious decision-making that we usually associate with "thinking."

• In "Blink" I'm trying to understand those two seconds.

How can thinking that takes place so quickly be at all useful?

Don't we make the best decisions when we take the time to carefully evaluate all available and relevant information?

• We live in a society dedicated to the idea that we're always better off gathering as much information and spending as much time as possible in deliberation.
• As children, this lesson is drummed into us again and again: haste makes waste, look before you leap, stop and think.
• But there are lots of situations--particularly at times of high pressure and stress--

  when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions offer a much better means of making sense of the world.

• There's a wonderful phrase in psychology--"the power of thin slicing"--

  which says that as human beings we are capable of making sense of situations based on the thinnest slice of experience.

Does "Blink" talk about when rapid cognition goes awry?

• Yes. That's a big part of the book as well.

  I'm very interested in figuring out those kinds of situations where we need to be careful with our powers of rapid cognition.

• With "Blink," I'm trying to help people distinguish their good rapid cognition from their bad rapid cognition.

What kind of a book is "Blink"?

• There is a lot of psychology in this book.

  In fact, the core of the book is research from a very new and quite extraordinary field in psychology that hasn't really been written about yet for a general audience.

  But those ideas are illustrated using stories from literally every corner of society.

What do you want people to take away from "Blink"?

• I guess I just want to get people to take rapid cognition seriously.
• "The Tipping Point" was concerned with grand themes, with figuring out the rules by which social change happens.

  "Blink" is concerned with the smallest components of our everyday lives--with the content and origin of those instantaneous impressions and conclusions

• I think its time we paid more attention to those fleeting moments.

Top

Don't Think --- Blink! (Cover)

• Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most itme 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, Blink changes the way you understand every decision you make.

  Never again will you think about thinking the same way.

Top

Intro: The Statue That Didn't Look Right

Blink is a book about those first two seconds.

Fast and Frugal