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| Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking |  | Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Creator: Brooke Williams
Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.
Category: Book
Buy Used: $1.01
New (8) from $9.08
Avg. Customer Rating:  967 reviews
Sales Rank: 492429
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Pages: 285
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5 x 0.2
ISBN: 073945529X
EAN: 9780739455296
ASIN: 073945529X
Publication Date: 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Blink is about the first two seconds of looking--the decisive glance that knows in an instant. Gladwell, the best-selling author of "The Tipping Point", campaigns for snap judgments and mind reading with a gift for translating research into splendid storytelling. Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on the golf course, selling cars, and military maneuvers, he persuades readers to think small and focus on the meaning of "thin slices" of behavior. The key is to rely on our "adaptive unconscious"--a 24/7 mental valet--that provides us with instant and sophisticated information to warn of danger, read a stranger, or react to a new idea. Gladwell includes caveats about leaping to conclusions: marketers can manipulate our first impressions, high arousal moments make us "mind blind," focusing on the wrong cue leaves us vulnerable to "the Warren Harding Effect" (i.e., voting for a handsome but hapless president). In a provocative chapter that exposes the "dark side of blink," he illuminates the failure of rapid cognition in the tragic stakeout and murder of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx. He underlines studies about autism, facial reading and cardio uptick to urge training that enhances high-stakes decision-making. In this brilliant, cage-rattling book, one can only wish for a thicker slice of Gladwell's ideas about what Blink Camp might look like. --Barbara Mackoff
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| Customer Reviews: Read 962 more reviews...
 pretty much goes nowhere November 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I found this a tremendously interesting read: during two days or so it took me to read it, I really couldn't put it down. (A teacher, I put my students to work doing a bunch of soul-crushing busy work so I could finish reading it during classtime.)
It's full of great anecdotes, and Gladwell has a lucid and engaging style.
The problem is this: as far as what Gladwell's actually saying, his observations don't sum to much.
The basic thesis -- as I'm sure you know -- is that people in certain walks of life are frequently found to exhibit eerily reliable snap judgments, whereby they can arrive at the core of (what seem to us) monstrously complex problems in only a second or two.
Fair enough. The phenomenon certainly exists. Gladwell documents it well and you find yourself convinced that he's not making this up.
Alas. The book attempts to go further than that, and that's where it falls flat.
Gladwell never successfully articulates exactly how it is that his various "thin-slicers" actually work their magic. Further, he fails to give proper weight to the counter-evidence: loads of cases where snap judgments fail. Offhand, I would imagine that judging situations based on one's initial impression is, on average, a dumb way to go most of the time (even perilous in some contexts).
But so enthusiastic is Gladwell about the laundry-list of exceptions he has collected that it's almost to the point where he's implying that preternatural snap judgments are USUALLY reliable, rather than OCCASIONALLY reliable. Which is quite the daring claim.
Finally, Gladwell fails to provide any guidance on the question of how one could systematically learn to hone such a skill, assuming that it can even exist in one's discipline (I remain to be convinced that snap judgments have a role to play in all walks of life).
The end result of these shortcomings is that the only thing "Blink" does effectively is point out that the phenomenon exists. By itself this is not terribly useful.
 BLink and you'll fall asleep.. November 10, 2008
Blink! what seemed like a fascinating subject pulled me in and then after 100 pages I put it down. Just like that, in a flash of a moment or a blink, I decided I can't finish this book. Might have made a fascinating magazine article in New Yorker magazine but like that magazine this book just started boring me. Blink.
 Blink and maybe you'll miss this one November 8, 2008
The basic idea is interesting and held my attention for a while, but eventually lost my interest.
 blink...and then it's gone October 28, 2008
There's not much substance to this book. Rather than being a resource of information, it is merely a book of examples. There is no broad takeaway you can gather from it after reading except to say perhaps that many of our decisions are based on split-second thoughts. But did you really need to read this book to find that out?
Waste of time October 23, 2008
This book was, by far, the most redundant thing I have ever read. It would have made for an interesting article in a newspaper or magazine; however, the book itself is way too long and repetitious for its topic. I am very disappointed that I spent money on this item. Too bad my "thin slicing" is apparently terrible and could not help me on this purchase.
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