Blink

by Malcolm Gladwell

book data

23,203 ratings, 3.66 average rating, 3,355 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		19%
4		39%
3		31%
2		8%
1		1%

edit

published

April 3rd 2007 (first published 2005) by Back Bay Books

binding

Paperback, 320 pages

isbn

0316010669 (isbn13: 9780316010665)

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,...more

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | compare prices ($6.98)…

new topic
discuss this book

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Next Best Boo...: OFFICIAL SUMMER CHALLENGE 2009	3845	4474	3 minutes ago

friend reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

Best Books of the Decade: 2000's

645 books | 2695 voters

Best Non-Fiction (non biography)

303 books | 395 voters

More lists...

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 32,848)

sort: default (?) | date
filters: all | text-only

10/18/07

Matt Kosinski rated it:

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in October, 2007

Here's Blink in a nutshell:

Split decisions can be good; better than decisions where we take a lot of time to carefully weigh our options and use scientific evidence.

Except when they're not.

Rapid cognition is an exciting and powerful way to use your brain's quick, intuitive capabilities to make stunningly accurate decisions, and can even lead you to have better success in sports, business and politics.

Except when it won't.

We should lea...more

Like this review? yes (34 people liked it)

3 comments

09/03/07

Laurie rated it:

bookshelves: non-fiction, self-help

Read in January, 2007

The funny thing is that I don't consider myself to be a literary or intellectual snob at all but I really feel that it is not reality television, not celebrity talk shows, and not pop punk records but instead this genre of books that will be the downfall of our civilization. The studies referenced in this book are sometimes fascinating (the only one I really remember is the online racial profiling test, that blew my mind) but are usually poorly cited. At best, they must leave even the most ind...more

Like this review? yes (20 people liked it)

9 comments

05/13/07

Nina rated it:

Read in July, 2007

For anyone who is thinking about reading this book, I highly recommend it. However, I also recommend reading it as a series of fascinating, well-told stories. It is really nothing more and nothing less.

One of the criticisms I heard about this book before I read it is that Gladwell lays out his theory in the first chapter, and the rest of the book is just example after example supporting his theory. I agree, however it would be a serious mistake to only read the first chapter. The...more For anyone who is thinking about reading this book, I highly recommend it. However, I also recommend reading it as a series of fascinating, well-told stories. It is really nothing more and nothing less.

One of the criticisms I heard about this book before I read it is that Gladwell lays out his theory in the first chapter, and the rest of the book is just example after example supporting his theory. I agree, however it would be a serious mistake to only read the first chapter. The pleasure of reading this book is in those stories- he talks about interesting psychological experiments and unbelievable examples of where snap judgement trumped long and careful research and analysis, and where snap judgement failed because of unconscious prejudices. The problem with this book is that his argument is not cohesive.

I kept reading on and on expecting his argument to become clear, but that never happens. Instead, one story after another contradicts his original theory, and he keeps changing his mind about what that theory is. For example, a point he makes is that someone's intuition can lead to the right conclusion, while deliberate analysis by experts considering all information available can be completely off. However, in all his stories where someone made a good snap judgement, that person was an expert and was able to use his judgement under a high-stress situation precisely because of his long career of careful study or of many experiences in that situation. Another problem is that he seems to think that one can know ahead of time when to use their snap judgement or when to carefully research something and consider all information available. The problem with that part of his argument is that, in all the examples where the person's snap judgement failed, that person was not aware of his subconscious prejudices because they were, obviously, subconscious. In the afterward he wrote after the book was published, he tried to reconcile these contraditions, but it was still not convincing.

Regardless, his examples really are fascinating, and he really is a great story-teller. I think if you read this book without the expections that I had, and without trying to mentally place each example in a larger framework of what you think his argument is, you would very much enjoy it.(less)

Like this review? yes (12 people liked it)

1 comment

01/14/08

Carolyn rated it:

Read in January, 2008

Equally as fascinating as Gladwell's other book The Tipping Point. Really makes you think, consider your decisions differently.

Quotes:
But in the end it comes down to a matter of respect, and the simplest way that respect is communicated is through tone of voice.

Of the tens of millions of American men below five foot six, a grand total of ten in my sample have reached the level of CEO, which says that being short is probably as much of a handicap to corporate succes...more

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

1 comment

08/13/07

Margaret rated it:

(review of isbn 1586217194)

I think this book wins my prize for Most Easily Misinterpreted to Serve Personal Agendas. Gladwell gets so into the interesting details of the case he's building, he really doesn't emphasize the final conclusions of the book at all, leaving people to think that the interesting details are the whole point, which is unfortunate. But then again, I'm not 100% sure I got the whole point.

Most of the folks I know think that this book is about how a person's gut instincts can be a better rea...more

Like this review? yes (7 people liked it)

add a comment

12/06/07

Snezan rated it:

Read in December, 2007

recommends it for: anyone with an interest in human interaction

This work is worth a read, if not more than one. I hesitate to say too much, since I believe the conclusions it reaches are explored in the very beginning and will immediately inform the reader of its relevance. I don't know why that came out so long winded, the reader will find out how interested they are by the first or second chapter.

I found the book fascinating for its close look into social interactions, particularly between two people, and for explaining why i sometimes I think...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

3 comments

10/15/07

Ashley rated it:

bookshelves: year-2007--oct--thru-dec--only-

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: everyone

I would put this book in the category of "Freakonomics" and "The Tipping Point." By the same author as the latter title, Malcolm Gladwell, the purpose of this book is to weigh the advantages as well as the disadvantages of the power of the mind's ability to unconsciously leap to conclusions based on what is seen in the proverbial blink of an eye.

While I have read some negative reviews of Gladwell's book, mostly citing that he fails to inform the reader how to k...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

1 comment

07/16/07

Sheila rated it:

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: Everyone

This book was really interesting. It discusses the way in which people can "thin-slice" a situation in a matter of seconds and make a judgement. This is where pre-conceived notions such as stereotypes can affect the way we react to something under a time constraint. It's about how our unconscious mind figures things out and affects how we feel or affects our actions before we even realize what is happening. Even if you aren't a racist, you can be programmed to act as a racist by the th...more This book was really interesting. It discusses the way in which people can "thin-slice" a situation in a matter of seconds and make a judgement. This is where pre-conceived notions such as stereotypes can affect the way we react to something under a time constraint. It's about how our unconscious mind figures things out and affects how we feel or affects our actions before we even realize what is happening. Even if you aren't a racist, you can be programmed to act as a racist by the things you are exposed to in society. Even if you don't think you are sexist, you are more sexist than you think, due to programming. We associate things like home with mother and work with father. Examined in the book are police brutality, predictions of whether a couple will stay together (just by examining 15 min. of conversation), reading facial expressions, how one firefighter was able to thin slice a situation so quickly that he was able to save his men.

The study I found most interesting was the analysis of an autistic man. We have a part of our brain we use for facial recognition and another part we use for object recognition. The autistic man used the object part of his brain for both facial recognition and for things like recognizing that an object was a chair. The autistic man would watch a movie and not "get" the emotional things happening because he barely paid attention to faces and didn't distinguish meaning from them. A new police officer, for example, in a time of distress where his heart is racing, he just finished chasing a man in his car for an hour, will become "autistic" so to speak because he ignores all cues and shoots a man to death. All he perceives is a threat and he forgets the person. A police officer with more experience will be able to "thin slice" the situation better in a matter of seconds and avoid an unecessary shooting.

In order to be a good "thin-slicer", you probably have a lot of experience with what you are examining and it just becomes second nature. Some people are just naturally good at reading faces, predicting outcomes, and making those snap decisions that happen in the blink of an eye. Others, well, not as good! I feel that the book could use more focus, but overall, a good read.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the mysterious ways our minds work. (less)

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

add a comment

05/13/08

Max Stone rated it:

Read in February, 2008

The general topic was how powerful our initial impressions are because we can process stuff really quick at a subconscious level in some cases.

Blink was well written and pretty entertaining. I thought the author did a good job of coming up with interesting examples of good or bad information processing and I enjoyed reading those.

However, aside from writing style and some fun examples, I thought the content was quite neatly separable into two parts:
(a) st...more The general topic was how powerful our initial impressions are because we can process stuff really quick at a subconscious level in some cases.

Blink was well written and pretty entertaining. I thought the author did a good job of coming up with interesting examples of good or bad information processing and I enjoyed reading those.

However, aside from writing style and some fun examples, I thought the content was quite neatly separable into two parts:
(a) stuff that was interesting and seemed true and which I knew already, and
(b) stuff that seemed untrue or at least incoherant and that I hadn't previously heard before. but maybe that was just my closed mind at work.

Examples of (a) were how you one's initial impression (lke in the first 5 seconds) of a teacher or an interviewee are pretty highly correlated with your opinion after an hour.

There were lots of examples of (b). Like it was weird that one of his first and favorite examples was this guy who had studied videos of couples interacting in intense detail for decades, and had created a list for how someone could score such videos to predict odds that the marriage would last. It was supposed to be an example of "blink" processing because the expert could recognize it quickly, but to me it seemed more like the opposite since (1) non-experts (including the author) all had inaccurate instinctive reactions to watching the videos, and (2) the best way to get the right answer was a mechanical scorecard -- kind of the opposite of blink.

And in general, there were examples of when you should trust your blink instinct and when that was wrong, but all the examples of when it was right or wrong seemed very post hoc (e.g. if your heart rate is over some threshold you shouldn't, but I don't think that would have come up unless he needed some explanation for why accidental police shootings occured), and he didn't really have a consistent framework for when it would be right or wrong, which made it kinda useless. and some seemed random, like the part about some musicians that musical experts liked but that did poorly in the musical equivalent of blind taste tests -- seemed likely that it was a friend of the author or some musician he liked (it was clear in the book that we should take as a given that it was a good musician and that the taste tests were wrong -- I was never quite clear why) and he was just trying to think of some way that might connect to his thesis.

I liked the description of how orchestras started doing blind auditions to avoid discrimination against women. wasn't sure that it supported his thesis, but it was interesting. that was more or less my reaction to the whole book.

(less)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

03/31/08

Sarah rated it:

bookshelves: look-ma--its-educational

Read in April, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I really enjoyed this book - an interesting perspective on how we process informationa and what our "unconscious" tells us. My sister, the scientists, tried to read it but could not finish it, and I think the reasons for that are interesting. As a scientists, she thought the conslusions were not very startling and she wanted to know what what going on in the brian (i.e. what procees were firing) when the snap judgments were made. Since that type of information would have made me gou...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

09/13/07

MacKenzie rated it:

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: bored travelers and people who think WAY too much.

so i bought this book in boston's logan airport about 10 minutes before i had to board a flight to seattle. the bookstore was limited; i didn't want to have to work to get interested. and the first 100 pages or so did the trick... until i realized that gladwell wasn't so much building an argument as telling stories about a certain topic. don't get me wrong, i finished the book. later. back in boston, on the T. and it did cover some interesting studies, or i wouldn't have done so. but i su...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

01/05/09

Amy rated it:

Read in January, 2009

Fascinating book! I would describe Blink as promoting self-awareness more than self-help. It's a captivating exploration of the ability of our unconscious minds to accurately(much of the time)read the world around us. The psychological studies featured offered refreshing evidence that it isn't always in our best interest to slow down and think rationally. I wouldn't base an investment strategy on Gladwell's "thin-slicing" methods, but when it comes to matters of life and death, love, t...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comment

10/16/06

Otis Chandler rated it:

(review of isbn 0316172324)

bookshelves: business, nonfiction

Read in October, 2006

A must read - really interesting stories about how people process things unconsciously.
- for instance, you can't hide your feeling about race from your unconscious - take the Race Test (http://www.understandingprejudice.org/ia...). It said I (and 13% of test-takers) have a 'moderate automatic preference for European American compared to African American'. It also said 48% of test-takers have a "Strong automatic preference for White people" - crazy!
- I loved the bit about...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

03/13/09

Sarah rated it:

Read in March, 2009

LOVED this book. I read "The Tipping Point" awhile ago and found both books equally fascinating. The short subject studies that the author uses are interesting, easy to follow, and compelling evidence of his "theory" or study in first impressions. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys sociology, psychology, or who spends a lot of time interacting with people. You will learn how and when to trust your "gut feeling" or first impressions of people...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

01/08/09

Kiri rated it:

Read in January, 2009

Fascinating! I have to admit, in the first chapter I had a little knee-jerk reaction when I thought he was saying that our intuitive reactions are invariably correct. As I continued to read I appreciated his skill in outlining the complexity of his theory, and the fact that only one who is trained in a particular field can really articulate what is happening in his or her unconscious decision-making process. He also explained how that unconscious reaction can be skewed by unrelated factors, t...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

2 comments

09/01/08

Zinta rated it:

Where does it all go, after you are done experiencing the experience, thinking the thought, feeling the feeling? Nothing is ever lost. The subconscious is like a vast warehouse, limitless, in fact, and as Malcolm Gladwell illustrates in Blink, we access all that is stored in that warehouse with every blinking and waking moment.

Usually, we call this instant access - gut instinct. Or, the inner voice of wisdom. Instinct, however, is nothing magical or mysterious. It is simply our accum...more Where does it all go, after you are done experiencing the experience, thinking the thought, feeling the feeling? Nothing is ever lost. The subconscious is like a vast warehouse, limitless, in fact, and as Malcolm Gladwell illustrates in Blink, we access all that is stored in that warehouse with every blinking and waking moment.

Usually, we call this instant access - gut instinct. Or, the inner voice of wisdom. Instinct, however, is nothing magical or mysterious. It is simply our accumulated and stored knowledge over a lifetime. If there was ever an argument for listening to those who have some serious and well-lived years under their belts, this is it. Blink illustrates with numerous and widely varied examples how life experience, the more the better, contributes to our ability to make quick, yet sound decisions. In fact, the quicker, the better.

Blink is about what the author calls "thin slicing." He defines this process as the moment of time in which we all make snap judgments. Two seconds, two minutes ... and we make an assessment of a situation or a person or a circumstance. The fascinating thing is - these snap judgments are, more often than not, precise ones. It is when we begin to over analyze and rationalize that we tend to go awry. The trick is to allow the accumulated wisdom rise up and do its magic, trust in it.

Then again ...

Gladwell never does make a concluding statement in his book, and perhaps it is up to the reader to decide (do it quickly?), but his many fascinating examples and his reports on various studies can lead one to think these snap judgments are the way to go - or, then again, thinker beware. For all the many situations in which that moment of initial wisdom is uncannily precise, there are other times that our deeply ingrained biases muck up the clarity of that process. Gladwell cites data to illustrate how stereotypes, for instance, persist - no matter how gallant our conscious efforts to overcome them. Telling yourself you don't really think what you think simply won't work. Only exposure to experiences, or positive visualizations, will change the false ideas and images our subconscious has absorbed over time. All of which is a strong argument for "garbage in, garbage out." That is, be careful of what entertainment you choose (e.g. pornographic images, violent movies or games, etc.), because no matter how hard your conscious mind tries to guide you toward decisions and behavior that is more appropriate, your subconscious will always, but always win out.

The idea of what you present to your eye is what you will later project out to the world is a convincing one, as the author finds himself unable to beat the test on stereotypes when he has to react quickly. Only exposure to more positive images over time can change his test results and dislodge his prejudices.

Gladwell discusses this phenomena of instant response-true response in a manner of ways. How patients respond to their doctors (we sue the physician who has a lousy bedside manner, even if more skilled, but remain loyal to the physician who spends as little as three extra minutes talking with us); how facial expressions, when viewed on slowed down video, will without fail, always reveal deceit (there are facial movements that arise from our subconscious that we cannot control, and no matter how quickly we think we have our facial mask in place, there is always that instant that our faces tell the truth); the intricacies of marketing and advertisement and why the obvious ad, even when based on feedback of focus groups, may not be the effective choice; how military decisions by experienced military leaders are successful, but fail miserably when they are constrained by strategic analysis; how micro-managing in workplaces can only lead to mediocrity while suppressing creativity and innovation; how speed dating may be most effective in finding potential lifelong connections (we read about research that can pick out successful, longterm relationships in observing as little as two minutes of interaction between a couple - and no, it isn't the couple that argues that breaks apart); how our societal subconscious biases for certain physical characteristics, such as height or gender, often mislead us to make dangerously faulty snap judgments (Gladwell observes that most of our leaders are tall and male, and that our corporate world pays tall men higher salaries, factoring dollars down to the inch, regardless of intelligence or ability). On and on, in one fascinating example and study after another, Gladwell intrigues with his findings.

And you know he's right. You know it ... in your gut. But if the author doesn't make any overall conclusion from all of this fascinating data, then the reader is left to her own wiles. Experience counts more than credentials. What we expose ourselves to on a regular basis molds who we are, how we view others, what choices we make and how we behave. Biases and prejudices are far stronger than our conscious will to overcome them; we must align our environment to align our subconscious. Our deepest self forgets nothing. All we have ever done and been and seen and observed leads to who we are today and tomorrow.

All of which gives one pause. But don't pause too long. It is that initial millisecond that may matter most of all.
(less)

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

12/31/08

Carolyn rated it:

Read in January, 2009

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I was surprised to find that this book is not a discussion of our innate ability to intuit the truth of things given only small amounts of information: to come an accurate judgement of something in a "blink." A few comments from friends led me think that this was the thesis of this book. Not so.

Rather, all of the studies Gladwell describes and almost all of the various cases he cites and "experts" he interviews prove the opposite: our raw intuition is usually wron...more I was surprised to find that this book is not a discussion of our innate ability to intuit the truth of things given only small amounts of information: to come an accurate judgement of something in a "blink." A few comments from friends led me think that this was the thesis of this book. Not so.

Rather, all of the studies Gladwell describes and almost all of the various cases he cites and "experts" he interviews prove the opposite: our raw intuition is usually wrong. Those who are able to make accurate snap judgements of others usually can do so as a result of long, painstaking research into which factors will predict a certain outcome, followed by rigorous training to recognize those factors. In any case, not to come to erroneous conclusions about other people requires, at a minimum, conscious self scrutiny (for example, he describes one car salesman who avoids charging black customers more than white customers, unlike most car salesmen [and who knew? but a large number of studies show that they do] only by consciously taking care not to do so), and, more optimally, by blinding ourselves entirely to the appearance of the person we are judging.

In some cases, it's impossible for even the experts to judge. The only way doctors in an ER know who is at highest risk of having a heart attack, it turns out, is for them to follow a printed algorithm which was designed based on a mathematical analysis of the factors which put patients at highest risk. Even the most experienced, senior doctor's sense of a patient's condition is a terrible guide to who is the sickest, in this case. A piece of paper taped to the wall does a better job.

I was eager to read this book because I'm interested in our tendency to overestimate our ability to make judgments of others, and there is a partial description of the some of the types of error we tend to make when we're sizing one another up. (Another fascinating book which touches on this topic--but which is unfortunately more deeply flawed in some ways than this one--is The Spirit in the Gene.)

There are a few large-ish problems Gladwell's arguments, however, and in some cases the interesting research or cases he cites actually undermine his point. Rather than acknowledge this, the author does a little bit of hand waving at times. (The doctors, for example, cannot make good judgements because they have "too much information.") This undermined my enjoyment of an otherwise engaging book. But it's a very quick read, and you're likely to be amazed at some of the very surprising insights that some ingenious researchers have recently gained into the way our brains work, and the way we think.

I'm putting it on my list to reread. I'd like to take a look at some of his primary sources, especially 1. the work of the psychologists who do the "thin slicing" of interactions between married couples, and 2. the study which revealed that being reminded that one is black at the beginning of an examination tends to have profound, adverse effects on the outcome of the examination.
(less)

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

09/21/08

Anood rated it:

(review of isbn 0141014598)

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in October, 2008

AWESOME!!!!
Definitely one of the most amazing books that anyone might read.
I don't know… what am i fascinated by ?? The concept of this book or the author's cleverness !!

This book is about the power of the first impression of- the first two seconds-, how it affects our decision making and therefore our life as a whole. The author demonstrates how a human's subconscious mind functions, what the influential factors are and how we can take advantage of it.
What I l...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

2 comments

05/11/08

Soma rated it:

bookshelves: favorites

Read in May, 2008

Both "Blink" and "The Tipping Point" are nonfiction writings that deal with social structures and human tendancies and the unassuming look at these.
"Tipping" is more a look at society on a large scale. It has to do with trends: what makes something popular and who is involved in that process and why it works. This isn't a look at advertising or corporate businesses (although the does look at those, too) but rather a journey into the dynamics and parts of these ...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

05/11/08

Mike rated it:

Read in May, 2008

A very fast read, with enough intriguing anecdotes and stray, smart claims to merit a look. But I do find it ironic that a book about the merits of snap judgment would be so aggravatingly repetitive, constantly reminding readers about anecdotes from earlier in the novel, constantly repeating its argument. (I enjoy Gladwell's essays in the New Yorker, and perhaps he just plays better in such small doses, where the emphasis is more on the well-polished narrative than on the analysis built theref...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment