Blink
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences
We rely on our subconscious mind for a significant amount of activities - it is how the mind operates efficiently - like a jet on auto-pilot.
We live in a world that assumes that the quality of the decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it. When doctors are faced with a difficult diagnosis, they all do more tests, and when we are uncertain about what we hear, we ask for a second opinion. But, we can make very good subconscious decisions.
This is a journey into the wonders of the subconscious - there is so much value in the blink of an eye.
🎨 Impressions
This book reverses everything we know about decisions. Through telling stories about art-dealers, Pepsi and rock stars by the end of the book the power of a blink and our sub-conscious becomes clear. The story unravels compellingly throughout.
How I Discovered It
This was the first Malcolm Gladwell book I read. Having heard lots of great reviews of his writing style and ideas I was keen to see for myself - and it definitely did not disappoint.
Who Should Read It?
If you make big decisions, and value lots of information, this will provide a great alternative viewpoint to trust your snap judgements. If you don't trust your instincts, this book will allow you to see their power.
✍️ My Top 3 Quotes
The key to good decision-making is not knowledge its understanding. We are swimming in the former we are desperately lacking in the latter.
They can be so much value in the blink of an eye.
Insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.
📒 Summary + Notes
The mind operates most efficiently by regulating a good deal of high-level, sophisticated thinking into the unconscious, just as a modern jet plane is able to fly on automatic pilot with little or no input from the human pilot. The adaptive unconscious does an excellent job of sizing up the world. We tend to think that there is less danger in setting goals and initiating action in a sophisticated and efficient manner. Blink challenges us on this.
How long did you look at the blog post for before reading it? Two seconds? And yet in this short space of time the design associations with the name and title and the first few sentences all generated an impression, a flurry of thoughts and images of pre-conceptions, this has fundamentally shaped the way you have read the blog so far. This book is about what happens in those initial two seconds.
We live in a world that assumes that the quality of the decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it. When doctors are faced with a difficult diagnosis, they all do more tests, and when we are uncertain about what we hear, we ask for a second opinion.
Common phrases are banded around like 'stop and think' and 'don’t judge a book by its cover.' We believe that gathering more information and spending as much time as possible in deliberation results in the best outcome. We only really trust conscious decision-making.
Blinks aims to show:
Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously deliberately.
When should we trust our instincts and when should we be wary of them as when our powers of rapid cognition go awry it’s usually for a very specific and consistent set of reasons that can be identified and understood.
Snap judgements and first impressions can be educated in a controlled way.
People when asked to explain themselves with words when solving a problem ended up solving 30% less problems then those who weren’t. In short, when you write down your thoughts, your chances of having the flash of insight you need in order to come up with solutions are significantly impaired. Although the rules are different with more logical problems.
When we make a split-second decision we are really vulnerable to being guided by stereotypes and prejudice, even ones we may not necessarily endorse or believe.
Why are we sometimes oblivious to the corruption of snap judgements? Because we are often careless with our powers of rapid cognition. We don’t know where our first impressions come from or precisely what they mean, so we don’t always appreciate their fragility. Taking our powers of rapid cognition seriously means that we have to acknowledge the subtle influences that can alter or undermine or bias the products of our unconscious.
We need to take control of the environment in which rapid cognition takes place, then we can control rapid cognition.
If you’re an entrepreneur gambling on a new product, how do you rate the intelligence you get from a rational analysis of the existing marketplace against your own instincts about the potential of your new idea?
If you’re a teacher and you want to make a decision about how to treat a student, how much do you weigh the results of standardised tests, and how much do you weigh your own judgement about the students motivation and attitude and prospects?
The key to good decision-making is not knowledge, it's understanding. We are swimming in the former but we are desperately lacking in the latter.
