In the Blink of an Eye

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	• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking Malcolm Gladwell Back Bay Books, 2007 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 956 reviews view larger image
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In the Blink of an Eye

This book is a really quick read and easy to read. I enjoyed the anecdotes that pulled Gladwell's premise together. The ten million dollar Kouros fraud and the serial dating actually have something in common. Both use split second analysis to decide if the statue or the prospective date are phonies.

Why is it some people turn everything they touch into gold while others can never make a go of something?

We have all had those hunches about someone or something and then later when it all comes to light, we say we knew that the moment we laid eyes on someone or something; we just knew they were no good or we just knew we liked them from the start.

Gladwell writes that we very often make very important decisions within a few minutes and often in just seconds. He helps you see how just being aware of these split second decisions can make a positive influence in those decisions.

He also points out how easily we can be persuaded by subliminal messages for good or for bad. He made me realize I need to quit listening to National Public Radio as my radio alarm clock. It really puts me in a funk and now I know why... It is depressing and it really does flavor my day and up until now all without my being aware of the influence... "The Dow Jones was down today, gas prices were up, cost of living soared to record highs, the entire planet is heating up and we are all going to die because of it." CLICK!

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Intriguing

While it sounds by the title like it's a self-help book for the decisionally challenged, the book is actually a compendium of information about attitudes, prejudices, information and decision making, and what constitutes an expert decision maker.

The book is interesting but somewhat rambling in character. The information seems a little disconnected, and I was at times hard put to it to decide if I were being encouraged or discouraged from using the unconscious part of my decision making apparatus for making judgments. By the end I could hear the distinct echoes of the Delphic Oracle's famous "Know thyself" reverberating through my mind.

Like so much offered advice, in the end the distillation of all the information the author provides us is that sometimes it's a good idea and sometimes it's not. In the sometimes it's a good idea I can definitely find a resonance. As a college student I found that if I didn't do what I thought I "should" be doing I didn't do anything at all. By the time I had gotten to graduate school however, I had discovered that my subconscious mind was able to dictate when I needed to get busy with classroom projects, and it was always right too. I finally decided that it knew what I had to do, how much time I had, what my resources were, what the likely expectations of the professor were, and what my abilities were. Once I grew to rely on this subconsious sense of "do it now," I no longer felt guilty about doing other things and got a whole lot more done in the bargain.

Certainly the author's information on the research into default setting prejudices like black equals bad and white equals good was an eye opener. I have no doubt that despite my pleasant interactions with black individuals as friends and coworkers I also harbor an embarrassing default setting. When I realize how much a part the media play in this programing, I am amazed that race relations aren't worse than they are. It would appear that most of us are able to deal rationally with our irrational prejudices, thank God. Definitely the sketch of the disastrous death of an innocent black man in New York City at the hands of the police was a horror story about rational thinking short circuited. The tragedy was so appalling, it's difficult to realize how complex and physiological it all must have been and how totally out of control. Likewise the description of violence that occurred in Florida was also frightening and makes one understand how group behavior can so thoroughly take over. That the frenzied speeches of Adolph Hitler and the charged mass behavior could lead to a world war is not quite so surprising when one realizes that crazy things can happen with as few as four or five people under unusual conditions. What's truely sad is that much of the data on predjudice and group think and authority figures has been known for decades with very little done to change it.

More surprising still was the study of military fact finding and its effect on decision making. The Red-Blue war game was especially informative. That the complexity of war should make it unpredictable should hardly be surprising. Murphey's Law should see to that, goodness knows. I was surprised that the author didn't discuss emergent properties or some of the findings on chaos theory. Surely Stuart Kaufman's or Per Bak's names should have arisen at least once, but--as I recall, anyway--they didn't.

All in all, while the book seemed like a string of observations rather than a coherent whole, I found the information of great interest.

Intriguing.

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Doesn't deliver

"I believe . . . there can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis". Gladwell promises to show the reader that quick decisions can be "every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately", when we can and can't trust such snap judgments, and how they can be "educated and controlled". He fails. Entertainingly and informatively, but he still fails.

Blink analyzes decision making in everyday life, sport, crime, war, and emergencies of various kinds. Each individual case study is presented admirably, showing how experts make their decisions in that particular field. The problem is that the lessons are usually not transferable. What can we learn from the following?

-An art historian, with one glace, identifies as fake a statue that months of scientific tests had pronounced genuine. She can't say exactly why. It just doesn't look right.

-A decision tree based on a few simple questions gives better results than the expert clinical judgment of doctors in an emergency room. The tree is derived from extensive statistical analysis.

-Psychologists can make good predictions about the durability of a relationship (not perfect, but much better than chance) after watching a couple interact for only a few minutes. They do this by watching for signs they have picked up by watching hundreds of hours of slow motion videotape of other couples.

-Professional tennis and baseball players believe in and teach techniques that they do not use in practice ("roll the wrist" and "watch the ball onto the bat" - the former causes injury and the latter is physically impossible!).

-People who believe themselves unprejudiced reveal unconscious bias (with regard to race, sex etc) in word association tests and auditions.

All of the brilliant "blink of an eye" decisions are grounded on knowledge of many previous decisions and their outcomes. (With a formal decision rule, the decision maker need not possess the knowledge personally, but it is guiding their actions all the same.) It seems an almost inescapable corollary that there is no generalised skill called "good judgment". One heart attack or statue is enough like another to permit useful generalisation, but heart attacks and statues are different enough that the rules for one are useless for the other. Sometimes decisions are made quickly because they have to be, and sometimes because there is no gain from waiting for more information or analysis. Sometimes the logic of the decision can explained rationally to a non-expert, and sometimes it can't. Expertise can come from formal training, or years of practical experience, or just following the instructions, dummy. And prejudice based on irrelevant information can bias even the most expert.

(Scene: foot of bodhi tree. The Author, sitting in great serenity, is approached by a worshipful Reader.)

Reader: So, Mr. Gladwell, can I learn to make quick, accurate judgments?

Author: Of course. Just make sure that you consider all relevant information (but not irrelevant information, which might cause prejudice), and take as much time as you need (but no longer).

Reader: How do you know which information is relevant and how long is long enough?

Author: Well . . . you just know! You are an expert.

Reader: But I'm not an expert. That's why I bought the book! [Reviewer's confession: I actually borrowed it from the library.]

Author: Well, in that case I suggest you work and study hard for many years, and then you will be an expert.

Reader: In decision making?

Author: No, just in whatever subject you spent years studying.

This is just how the world is, so it might seem unfair to blame Gladwell. But the whole book is explicitly about "the power of thinking without thinking", one might say intuition for short. The promise was insight into decision making in general, not just about the authenticity of art or heart attack treatment. An impossible promise, maybe, but all the more reason it should not have been made.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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