Ok guys,
It is time to get started. Who would like to launch the first post of the school year? Please write a prompt of no less than three sentences about one particular aspect of the book that you really enjoyed or disliked. The more technical you get, the more points you can earn (although you should all get a perfect 10). Keep the conversation on point, and let's engage in a meaningful conversation of the power of a blink!
Students can earn up to a 100 points -- 25 points max per entry. Please give me four responses by Sunday. You can piggy back what others are saying, but you must write at least four times. Don't forget they must mention specific book passages or psychology terms as a result of the book to get credit.
71 comments:
I'll be first, and i just want to say that Blink is great. I learned so much about the unconcious mind, and snap decisions that u don't even know you are making. If I become a psychologist...I want to be the kind that does experiments like John Bargh at the beginning of the book on page 52. I find it amazing that you can tweak the way someone thinks with just a few lines that dont make sense. The real question about that thati would like to find out is: could you write sentences that will make athletes better at there sport if they don't know what they are reading? But those are just some of my thoughts.
I am really enjoying Blink. I started reading and I could not put it down. One of the parts that I found interesting was John Gottman's experiment with the married couples (starting on page 18). It fascinates me that just from a 15-minute observation of a couple, Mr. Gottman can predict 95 percent of the time whether that couple will be together in 15 years. After reading this part of the book, it made me realize that we give off messages and vibes of how we're feeling without even noticing it. I believe that a lot of people, including myself, do not know what we look like while we talk to another person. I think it would be very interesting to be recorded during a conversation like one of Mr. Gottman's couples, just to see what emotions and messages are being sent. In conclusion, I was wondering if we could use John Gottman's system for other relationships? Could we eventually modify it for things such as: should this person be working for this particular boss? and other things along those lines.
Great point Amanda, perhaps that is something that can be worked into your capstone. Looking at verbal and non-verbal cues and see if we (laypeople) can make accurate predictions.
What I found most interesting about the book is how far psychological examination and processes have come since Freud. I also find it amazing that the unconscious controls that much of our day-to-day processes. Who knew that something so involentary could control that much of our systematic responses?
I haven’t finished blink yet (100 pages to go) but I am also enjoying it. I really enjoy how the book uses so many different stories and examples to illustrate ideas within the field of psychology. I also really liked reading about Gottman's experiments on couples. It makes sense to me though...Wouldn't everyday communication ultimately reveal the way communication (which is vital in a relationship) is usually used between partners. Of course, it is very important to rank the emotions as positive and negative, because even when something one of the partners said seems positive...it could be negative.
Blink rocks! I gobbled it up soon after we got it. It was full of opportunities for capstone projects--I too, like Amanda, was intrigued by the idea of recording and observing relationships (not just romantic ones) with Gottman's principles in mind. Another topic I found fascinating was the Pepsi vs. Coke debate. Blink's exploration of the biases of sip tests (inclinations towards the sweeter), as well as the "triangle test" challenged the concept that what we perceive as strong preferences in ourselves may not be as subjective and personal as we like to believe. Though I consider myself to be a diehard Coke fan, I likely wouldn't be able to back it up within the structure of the "triangle test". It'd be pretty nifty to test that.
Chelsea,
I love the idea of a taste test capstone. Perhaps doing a double-blind experiment (much like the Pizza Hut pasta commercial) where the objective is to find out if what people say they like matches up with what their taste buds say.
I have to agree that the Pepsi vs. Coke sip test was quite interesting. So much so that I was tempted to try it for myself. But the part in Blink that really caught my attention was the story of Amadou Diallo in the South Bronx. This innocent man's life was taken away from him on February 3, 1999, all because a group of police officers assumed he might be a robber or a rapist. Diallo just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and because of that his life ended. The officers assumed that Diallo was up to something, assumed he was guilty of some crime, assumed he had a gun in his hand when, in fact, all Diallo wanted was a breath of fresh air and all he had in his hand was a wallet. It's fascinating how a few assumptions and a couple moves made based on those assumptions can literally take an innocent life. The officers clearly misunderstood the situation, and illustrated how one's rapid judgments can sometimes be completely inaccurate.
I really loved Blink. I must admit, I usually stray away from books like this, but Blink has changed my entire literary outlook. I never thought that my decision making process was based mostly intuition. I found the marriage/relationship examples to be very interesting. It was amazing that Gottman could accurately predict whether a couple was going to make it based on a mathmatical equation. It made me realize- as Abby wrote- how much psychology has changed since the days of Freud. I would love to pursue picking apart conversations as a capstone project.
Blink is an incredible book and it opened my mind to many new thoughts. I especially was fascinated by the part about when we are forced to make quick decisions we become "temporarily autistic". It is interesting to see what happens when we must make quick decisions but our prejudiced and thinking get in the way. The examples Gladwell gave on this subject such as, having people try to decide whether the image being shown to them was a wrench or a gun, had interesting results. When people started letting assumptions and prejudices get in the way they started making terrible decisions as the police did in Michelle's example of Diallo. I wonder if it is possible to precondition children and human beings in a way that allows them to avoid such rash mistakes.
Love the posts -- keep it up!! This is the book review, an ongoing analysis of the book by y'all. I changed my mind, ten posts is too much, I am looking for four per topic (25 points each). If your post is unacceptable I will email you as to why it is not acceptable for credit.
I'm seriously considering that taste test capstone idea! Eating doubling as an experiment? It doesn't get much better than that! On an another note, I found the Harvard study on unconscious racism to pose some serious concerns. How well do we know ourselves if our unconscious can hold different opinions and biases than we are consciously aware of? It's frightening to think that though most people will attest that they aren't racist, in the ongoing implicit study conducted by Harvard over 70% are shown to have from a slight to strong preference for European Americans as opposed to African Americans. This poses the problem of secret biases so secret that we aren't even aware of them. Is it possible to consciously change your unconscious opinion, or are we our own worst enemy? Do you think such biases stem from a more societal or personal nature, from environment or hereditary factors?
I love Chelsea's last comment. I found the unconscious racism section quite concerning also. I was questioning whether my unconscious holds biases that I am not necessarily aware of? Gladwell pointed out that studies show a lot of people have unconscious biases. People may say that they do not judge anyone or they at least try not to, but their unconscious could act in a totally different way. Ayres's car dealership experiment is one that I found extremely interesting and eye-opening. After reading this section I was wondering if there was a way that we could change the way we have judgments or biases, and then I read on page 97 that you can. Gladwell explains that our first impressions are generated by our environment and experiences. He then says that we can change the way we thin-slice by changing the experience that make our impressions or judgments. Thin-slicing is very powerful!
Blink was definately an eye opener. This book made me look at things differently and taught me a lot about the unconscious mind. It's amazing that we can make snap decisions without even knowing that we are doing so. One of the most interesting parts to me, as to a lot of you, was Gottman's experiment with the married couples. I am not quite done the book, I have about 90 or so pages to go, but it is definately one of my favorites.
I found Blink to have some really interesting ideas but I also found it to very contradictory at points. In the Introduction of the book when the Getty had the problem with the kouros the message behind it all was "trust your instincts. Use your judgement and don't look too deep into it. Basically just listen to your first choice." Later in the book the experiment between married couples was posed and the major message behind this was that "you can't always trust your first instinct. Sometimes you have to listen to the verbal and non-verbal cues and dig deep into the situation to actually decide what the couple's marital outcome will be." Other than this, I found the book extremely interesting with a lot of information that changed my perspective in many ways. The one test that affected me the most was the Harvard experiment about race. If you can't control your unconscious racial thoughts, then how will rascism ever end?
I loved how the "ESP" that people were expeiriencing was nothing more than a sudden realization of the unconcious. The ideas that suddenly "came to people" was simply the unconcious realizing something and alerting the concious mind. It makes me wonder how much of our "human intuition" and "great inspirations" are actually just our unconcious preforming a simple task.
The theme of these topics seem to center on the fact that we don't know ourselves as well as we think. We have trouble distinguishing between our favorite colas in the "triangle taste test", we believe we aren't racist/sexist/fill-the-blankist while our unconscious claims otherwise, we often misjudge our unfamiliarity as disgust or revulsion (as in the case of the Aeron chair, All in the Family, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show). While initial consumer research on these products indicated absolute failure, the test of time has proven them to be extremely popular. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series was turned down by publisher after publisher, and yet those same books caused an international phenomenon. I guess that's why adults love to say corny little phrases like "Don't let anyone stop you from achieving your dreams".
One of the most interesting points I found was how when the researchers made the facial expressions, that's the emotions they get. Such as when they made a face that depicted anger, they became angry, and their blood pressure rose. This proved that it isn'tjust the mind and mental proccesses that control the emotion, it's actually the muscles and body. It's very intriguing how the body has just as much control over the mind as the things that make us feel that emotion do.
So far, I really enjoy reading Blink. I find some of the concepts hard to wrap my brain around though. Take the first chapter on marriage for example. The author talks about marriage as if it were some sort of mathematics problem or something. I just don't see love and relationships as cut and dry as this. The whole marriage-Morse code thing sounds pretty bazaar. I know Gottman's predictions are almost always accurate, but I just don't see how he can analyze something as complex as love within a 5 minute video. My argument is this: Gottman basis most of his predictions on facial expressions made by the couples. But often a person can learn to hide their true emotions. If somebody wants, they could display feelings completely opposite of what is truly going on inside them. There's no way for Gottman to detect those feelings. Assigning numbers and codes and systems to relationships like this just seems wrong to me. I believe that love is more complex than that, and that nobody can understand it at a single glance.
I have found my future job! Although it doesn't sound like much, the experiment on page 162 is what i want to do with my life. Louis Cheskin did an experiment with products and packaging. When he taste tested these 2 kinds of brandy, they were basically equal, with one a bit over the other. But when they put the bottle of the brandy in the backround, the other brandy won. He also did the same kind of experiment with margarine and the color of it. I say all this is what i want to do because it just sounds fun proving people and big companies wrong, and teaching people that two products can be the same, but the right packaging can completly change the views on one product over another. And i could probably make a killing with those big companies if i did my job well enough.
In the first chapters of "blink", i was amazed at what your mind can do without you knowledge.
One of the most interesting studies was, in the chapter on "marriage and Morse code" John Gottmam can tell if a marriage is going to fail in the first 15 minutes of watching the couple. He has created a Morse code to understanding couples.
Another topic of Blink that I found interesting was the doctors and being sued. I was surprised when I read that "patients don't file lawsuits because they've been harmed by shoddy medical care (Gladwell, 40)." The patients sue because they were not treated well by their doctors on a personal level. This sort of makes sense. It just makes me think that poeple will let a doctor, that hurt them because they did not know what they were doing, off the hook of a lawsuit. I do not know if I would feel the same way. Yes, I might like the doctor of they treat me kindly, but that is not an excuse for poor performance due to inexperience or some other reason. I go to the doctor to get better, not to be hurt more. So if I was a victim of malpractice or a mistake, I am not exactly sure that I would not sue.
One story in Blink that I found to be quite interesting was the was with Vic Braden and the tennis match. Braden could call any double faults in any tennis match, professional, collegiate, etc. and be extremely accurate on when the player would double fault. I found this to be very weird. I know that as a tennis player it is sometimes very difficult to know when your opponent is about to double fault, and for Braden to be so accurate on this made me very questionable. How is it that Braden's unconscious had the ability to decide if a serve would double fault and my unconscious or anyone else's does not?
I have just finished up Blink but the most interesting aspect of the book for me was experimenting with the IAT's. Going into it I never thought that I would associate "good" and "bad" with any different types of race, but apparently I did. It was amazing to me that Gottman could also predict whether or not marriages would last based solely on characteristics or emotions displayed within minutes or even seconds.
I agree with Chelsea on the eating double as an experiment, I am very curious to see if it will work if I do it not being a psychologist or even familiar with understanding and developing a conclusion from these types of experiments. And when the black man was falsely accused of being a rapist because of his skin color was appalling. However I cannot blame the decision of authority solely on "it must have been because he was black that they assumed that" there must have been other variables in the situation that maybe the author did not know, or did not add.
In the author interview in the back to of the book, he says he got the idea for the book because he grew out his hair, and he started noticing he was getting traffic tickets, getting pulled out of airplane security lines, and then stopped by police who thought he looked like a rapist. I used to have big hair, kinda like his, and to me, it was just hair. I looked in the mirror and i saw my hair, nothing else. But other people must have seen something else because with my hair adults i didn't know were cautious towards me, one time a friend said she saw my brother, but it turned out just to be another kid with long curly hair. In paris this spring on a school trip, at the hotel i knocked on the door of a friends room, the room next to it thought i was knocking on their door, they answered it and since this had happened a couple days earlier when i was with someone else, she said back to her roommate something in spanish, but she said pelo, which because of my spanish 1 education i know means hair. When something as ordinary as hair is in any way memorable, it changes things way more than it should. Its too bad Gladwell didn't include his hair as an example in the book. Especially considering how he did an entire section on first impressions, ect.
Did anyone else take those IAT tests he mentioned in the book? I took the Race IAT, the Gay/Straight one, and the election 08 one, (not right after another) and turns out I have a moderate europian american assumption, no assumptions when it comes to sexual preferance, and a moderate barack obama preference. I'm not really surprised, a little disappointed about the race one, but I almost expected that. I don't consider myself a racist, and i make a conscious effort to be open minded, but this test shows what i think of myself doesn't mean a thing. Our actions define who we are, so if my actions here show that i have biases, those biases should not be ignored. Of course changing subconscious behavior is difficult, but i think this behavior is learned, so it can be changed. Maybe after a year of psych, I'll have a better idea of how to change my subconscious behavior.
So far, I have found Blink to be a very interesting book. I think the whole concept of learning less about a person to gain more information is profound for the society we live in today. I thought this was first very interesting with the discussion of the divorced couples and the IAT testing, and then when I read section 4 in chapter 4 I was also very surprised. Imagine the time that could be saved by simply following Goldman's algorithm and diagnosing heart pains with the help of a tree chart. And not only would this save large amounts of time for everyone, but it could also save thousands of dollars, which is vital for hospitals such as Cook County Hospital. So basically, the adaptive unconscious of our brain can be working to save us more time and money then our normal brain at some points? That, I think, is very interesting.
I recently read chapter 6, Seven Seconds in the Bronx. This chapter was about 'rapid cognition', or mind reading; its the snap judgments we make when we meet new people or asses a situation. If we meet someone new and they have brightly colored hair, we are going to take away an impression from that- even if their personality is completely different than the visual impression we got from our rapid cognition. In the case of the police shooting in the Bronx, things went wrong and the police were not able to correctly asses the situation, some aspect of the event messed up their rapid cognition, and the result was a senseless death. The policy incorrectly decided that Diallo was suspicious, brazen, and dangerous...in reality he was none of these...
Though a smaller subject of the book, I thought that the concept of learned spontaneity was an intriguing, if seemingly oxymoronic, one. Blink explains that what may seem like chaotic improvisational comedy actually operates on a predetermined set of rules, that fast-paced medical decisions can be boiled down to an algorithym, that there is a method to every madness. Though the situations are ever-changing, the algorithyms behind life's moments remain static. With practice, any system of life can be learned and adapted to. Though it would seem like the counterpoint to that argument lies in the ability of Paul Van Riper's and his men to make accurate military decisions without foreknowledge, this is due to their previous training, training that practices them in the art of making uninformed decisions. From that standpoint, Van Riper's own methods are also an instance of learned spontaneity. Since military situations shift constantly due to new devolpements, as soon as one has gathered all possible information about one moment, the moment is gone and a new situation is thrust into the army's lap. Hence the power of snap decisions. In addition to my previous rambling, I was wondering if anyone else wanted to try Ekman's 35 minute training tape crash course on facial expressions mentioned on page 239? I think that'd be a pretty interesting way to spend a half hour.
I am still having a hard time really buying into not only some of the subconcious behavior that Blink is talking about but the fact that it can actually be determined accurately by very slight emotions or characteristics that are being observed in seconds. During a tennis match I can't understand how someone can actually tell whether or not the tennis player is performing a double fault every time they serve the ball. It is nearly impossible to do this even when you try. The wierdest part about all of this is that even though this is all second nature to him he cannot seem to figure out why he knows, or how he knows. He cannot figure out what it is about the double fault that makes his subconcious create this behavior.
I am still having a hard time really buying into not only some of the subconcious behavior that Blink is talking about but the fact that it can actually be determined accurately by very slight emotions or characteristics that are being observed in seconds. During a tennis match I can't understand how someone can actually tell whether or not the tennis player is performing a double fault every time they serve the ball. It is nearly impossible to do this even when you try. The wierdest part about all of this is that even though this is all second nature to him he cannot seem to figure out why he knows, or how he knows. He cannot figure out what it is about the double fault that makes his subconcious create this behavior.
I really thought this book was interesting. I learned a lot about the unconcious mind. I think that it is amazing that we make snap decisions without the realization. Also, the experiment with the married couple was very interesting. The mind works in different ways and most of us don't even realize it.
(IAT's cont'd)
So I have just taken the last bit of the IAT experiments. Supposidly I have a very strong Mccain preference but a very strong straight preference. I am a huge fan of Barack Obama, and I definetly do not have any bad feelings towards gay people. So why is my subconcious saying that I like John Mccain when I don't? However, I don't know if it would be the best idea to try and control my subconcious behavior by paying more attention to it because I don't want to change the way it works and mess with my thought process and ultimately change my behavior altogether. Could that happen?
The unconcious talked about in Blink is, indeed, very different than the one I am familiar with. It is not just a murky, boiling pot of passionate influences, wishes and beleifs and schemas, but as the author puts it, a massive, effecient but fallible super-computer that makes life and decision making for we humans possible. As I have read, without it we would take forever to choose things. But the style that Gladwell is very good. He economically and elegantly makes his case. Further, he is able to make this unconcious super-computer a very real thing that effects are daily lives in drastic ways. It's some distant, vaque little concept. Something like oh say, the global demand for paper clips of China-Taiwan relations, but a living thing.
Gladwell does well to show the unhappy truths of the unconcious. That it can lead us a astray. It's riddled with racial prejudices, illogical biases, is vulnerable to stress. And he uses real life cases to illustrate them. The case of Mr. Diallo, killed by strained, wet behind the ears officers, Kenna, misjudged by the a bewildered public and reseachers. Then there's the legendary Chicago cars salesmen, who does better because he doesn't leave his judgements to his unconcious(something we are recommended to do throughout the book). Another technique he uses is to never add too much detail, almost like it was intended to not loose stressed out high school students along the way.
I do have falt the book for one thing: while it is mostly well organized, sometimes it jumps back and forth. I only wished it had discussed and possibly connected itself to other theories of the unconcious, but I can't criticize it for something it was never meant to do. That would be like saying soccer is bad because it doesn't use quarterbacks.
Well, that's the end of my long-winded response. I just figured I would put all I had to say in oneor two responses, instead of four.
So I'm a little behind on the whole posting thing but...I loved Blink. I thought it was probably the most interesting while still being educational. One of the subjects that caught my attention most was when Timohty D. Wilson wrote that the "adaptive unconcious does an excellent job of sizing up the world, warning people of danger, setting goals, and initiating action in a sophisticated and efficient manner." This goes against everything I have personally been taught; the whole don't judge a book by it's cover" principle. The snap judgements are often as correct than if given a long amount of time. It's sort of summed up in the book on pg. 14 when it says "The first task of Blink is to convince you of a simple fact: decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately. I know that there have been tests to prove this, but I think it would personally be really interesting to experience making correct snap judgements vs. making a decisions with a longer time frame.
Reading about the experiment that Ian Ayres conducted (Pages 92-93)surprised me! I could not believe that Warren Harding errors are a LARGE part of the car-selling industry. However, now that I have read this book, it makes sense. Our unconscious holds opinions that we do not necessarily know we have. It is kind of sad to read that out of 242 car dealerships, all of the salespeople gave higher offers to the women and African American men. It is sad to know that a lot of people hold biases and that people are not treated fairly. Do you think that if people were educated about their unconscious, say through reading Blink, then equal treatment might be possible? I know it would not completely stop unfair treatment, but it could be a start!
Blink for me, has been interesting... but I do think it has its flaws. First, the beginning of each chapter is really interesting, and I find the topic really interesting. But then he goes off with five other examples that go on and on for pages and pages. I understood the concept of thin-slicing after the first discussions of the relationship experiments. Though I suppose that the more information Gladwell shares, the more it stays with us. In general however, I have found the discussion of the unconscious mind very fascinating. It’s refreshing compared to all the biology and science that gives definite cause and effect for every function of the body. I like how our snapped decisions still remain a mystery. We have yet to crack that closed door. And though it would be very intriguing to open this door, I sort of like it closed. It’s more mysterious, more human almost that way.
There was one story in Blink that made me realize how prejudice people can be. It's not that people are intentionally prejudice, it's the fact that people sometimes automatically associate one thing with another. In the conclusion of Blink, Listening with Your Eyes, the classification of women in classical music was explored. Women musicians were made to feel inferior towards the men. Many people held the belief that a woman just could in no way play a classical instrument as skillfully as a man. But once the gender aspect was taken away, once people had to judge on just the sound of the music rather than the gender of the person, women were more successful in the classical music world. It's interesting how one element makes such a difference in the future of many. Skilled and talented women had to face many more obstacles than men in this field. That's due to the snap judgements of the ones who have the power to decide who makes it and who doesn't. Simply because women were women, the judges automatically, consciously or not, judged them based on their gender. This gender factor hindered many women in classical music, until the judges learned to shut their eyes and listen purely to the music. That's what a lot of people need to start doing; putting aside their snap judgements and prejudices and focusing on what really matters in the world.
Here’s a specific thought that sort of occurred to me while I was writing. I wrote it down weeks ago but haven’t gotten around to posting it yet. We have now read this book that talks all about the unconscious mind, something we’re not supposed to be aware of. But now, we are aware of it. We are aware of our snap-decisions, the closed door whose contents we innately know but can’t understand. So the question is, now that we know all this, will it affect our decisions? Now that we know the power of a blink of an eye, a sudden flare of judgment or knowledge, will be stay with it knowing how accurate it can be? Will we ever look at long term decisions the same again? Will we have the courage to go with our first, gut instinct over analysis and research of a situation?
I've been reading Blink on a regular basis and it is a very addicting book. I think it is interesting how the unconscious is always working even though we don't realize that it is like the experiment that Norman Maier performed with the ropes. At the same time all this is very interesting I also find it a bit creepy because it isn't within our control. I wonder if there will ever be a way to manipulate our unconcious.
What I found most interesting about Blink is the chapter based on the Warren Harding Error. Before actually reading about this topic it never clicked that so many people make decisions without realizing why they made them. It is extremely interesting that we have biases "programmed" into us that we are completely oblivious to. I wonder now that if knowing this information I will be more aware of the decisions that I am making and I wonder if others who've read this too will. I completely agree with Amanda when she says that this could be the start of the end of discrimination.
Some great comments!! To those that are skeptical of Gladwell, good for you... skepticism is a key part of any research (you'll see next topic!). Remember though, the concept of thin-slicing is that what we know is instinctual, not learned. Sam mentioned that he is a tennis player and he can't tell when a player is going to double-fault, that because he is a player and not a prodigy. Ted Williams could predict based on the pitch and location his batting average!
I agree with Shannon's comment left on 9/11 at 6:00 pm. I get easily hooked into the chapters with the beginning story and then it seems as though the author just tries to squeeze as many examples of the topic into the chapter as he can. That aspect of the book really annoyed me because I would have liked to focus on a few examples and completely understand the concept. One example that comes into mind is the story of Vic Braden who could call the faults in the tennis match every time but never knew why. Then, suddenly, the author stops telling that story and begins another one. So Shannon, I could not agree with you more.
I have always been curious about why we're attracted to certain people. One part that touched upon my curiousity involved the speed-dating found on pages 65-66. It makes sense that we can say we want certain things in a partner but we become completely attracted to someone who doesn't fit the description. I've experienced this before. It seems easy to say I want this and this and this in a person, but it's also as easy to fall for someone who doesn't meet any of your "criteria". This section also disproved something I've been saying for a long time: opposites attract. It is safe to say that I have been led astray for many years because of this statement. My hat goes off to Mr. Gladwell for satisfying my curiousity about our attractions towards other people.
Blink opens up a lot of questions, and then gives multiple examples, all with their own piece of the conclusion. And since the individual examples are a lot more memorable than the whole picture, its hard to remember an unbiased opinion. I read this book last spring by coincidence, and after going through it a second time, things come back to me, but their all little things. There are no universal answers in this book.
Like when it comes to when do you trust your intuition, and when is it better to stop, think, and make a reasoned judgement? Even after reading Blink it is still just a judgement call in my mind. Of course prior knowledge is huge in successful thinslicing,which is why so many true experts can do it well. They have a context to see the small amount of information through. I guess although i don't trust thinslicing very much, this book showed me that it should not be written off or ignored.
Another piece that I found to be extremely interesting involved the car sales situation. I actually found it appaling that women and Aftrican Americans receieved less of an opportunity to negotiate the price with the car sales man. Thank God I'm a caucasian man because I want to receive the lowest price possible for the car I'm going to buy. Either way this is ridiculous and shouldn't still be happening in America. Many people claim that rascism has come to an end, but that is not completely true. I wonder what it will actually take for our unconscious to get rid of the concept of rascism. Maybe after the population most involved in rascism (our parents, grandparents, teachers, etc.) dies out than concept will windle down until it finally ceases. Hopefully at least.
So, how do we see people for who they really are? Its so hard in todays world. I know I do it on a daily basis; we judge based on superficial details..consciously and subconsciously. Maybe that guy with blue hair is actually a gentleman in disguise? Perhaps when you ex looks at you from across the room its not with angst, so much as curiosity or just boredom. Give people a chance- people you wouldn't normally expect to be kind, or fun, or interesting. Our subconscious is an amazing tool, but it so often leads us astray.
Just like the example of the orchestra try outs..."There is always this dissonance between what you see and hear" its saying the same thing as "Don't judge a book by its cover". This is also why first impression are so important. Consciously they may not matter, but our rapid cognition or spontaneous thinking creates that impression; which is sometimes an important factor to how we actively behave. Dress nice the first week of school. Lay it on thick when you meet your girlfriends mom.
I think its awesome that you can, with time and effort train your subconscious thinking to perform better. I would also love to practice reading expressions to improve my mind reading skills. "Why is he looking at me?" Read the face. "Is she okay?" read the face.
One more thing. Stress inoculation- soo cool. It makes sense...like desensitizing. The more the stimulus is received, in this instance...the more reduced the response becomes.
The chapter in Blink which affected me the most was when it spoke of law suits involving doctors. One day I hope to be a doctor and this gave me much insight on how to act around patients to steer clear of any unexpected law suits. Doctors that had extremely nice, polite, and kind doctors that had a genuine care for their patients were less likely to be sued than Doctors who did not show a genuine care. This really gave me insight on how to treat my patients some day if I ever want to avoid the hassle of any unwanted court dates. All you have to do put some effort and show some love and you won't get sued.
When Gladwell talks about the speed dating, I got to thinking. This may sound totally cliché, but, is there any reasoning behind love at first sight? Iyengar and Fisman are easily able to tell through body language who at their speed dating events is hitting it off and who is suffering through the longest six minutes of their lives. How can some people become so instantly attracted to one another and another two people feel nothing? And what is there to this attraction? What makes it change? What makes it last forever? Though I have absolutely NO IDEA how I would do this, this topic is something I'm really interested in trying for my capstone.
Part of this book really hit home with me. The part in chapter 6, when Gladwell is talking about Peter, the autistic man who was extremely bright, but failed to pick up on simple gestures or facial expressions. Gladwell called it "mind-blindness". This caught me attention so much, because one of my best friends is slightly autistic. He was tested for the disorder when he was younger and though he never was officially diagnosis, he definitely exhibits some of the behaviors of an autistic person. He is always just the little bit behind when it comes to getting certain jokes that involve specific body language or facial expressions. Or he has a hard time understanding something unless you really explain it technically, using a lot of words. And just like Peter in the book was obsessed with light switches, my friend was obsessed with stuff too. It changed from mushrooms to vacuum cleaners, to school buses. He was particularly interested in the noises the vacuum cleaners and school buses made. And up until now, I had never been able to really describe what my friend was like. But now, Gladwell's term of mind-blindness really fits. It has helped me better grasp my friend's behavior and the concept of autism in general.
I also thought the chapter about speed dating was interesting. We are always told to "never judge a book by it's cover" but when you're given only 5 minutes to get to know a person, what choice do you have? However, I'm curious as to how many of the couples that do feel a connection actually end up with a long term relationship. Is it really possible that you can choose the perfect person for yourself in such a fast-paced and anxiety filled environment? I think that perhaps this new form of dating could be a huge part of the recent increase in divorce rate, because some people can become so desperate to find true love that they become solely concerned with speeding up the process instead of finding a sole mate.
I was also surprised when I read the section entitled "The Secrets of the Bedroom". The fact that people can know so much about you just by glancing around your room is shocking to me. Although parts of it do make sense, such as a cleaner section of the dorm may show that the person is conscientious toward his or her roommate. However, it does seem like there could be a possibility of bias if the students are trying to describe themselves (considering that many people may think of themselves differently than how they actually are). Besides that, though, it does seem fascinating that something such as your level of organization can lead to conclusions about your openness to new experiences. Perhaps Gladwell is right in that there is no real need to bother with an actual interview!
Blink was quite interesting in the ways that it allowed me to interact with it. There were many tests within the book that allowed me to better connect and understand it. For instance, starting on page 52, Gladwell starts explaining "priming" to his readers. To illustrate this, he has his audience complete a "scrambled word test." There are 10 sets of words and it is the reader's job to make sense of those words by unscrambling them. While doing this test I was focusing on making sense of the sentences as I was told to, not even considering what was actually happening in my "adaptive unconscious." After I read what the point of the test was, I was kind of puzzled because I hadn't at all even vaguely considered that certain words like "wrinkle," "bingo," and "gray" could make me actually think about being old without my knowledge. The test supposedly makes you act older, makes you walk a little slower than you did before. Does the test have the same effects on everyone? I'm not entirely sure. But one of the major points of Blink is to show us that our unconscious effects us in ways we never imagined, and I certainly wouldn't have guessed that several words scattered through some scrambled phrases could make me act older than I am without my knowledge.
Another experiment that focused on priming people was carried out by John Bargh, Mark Chen, and Lara Burrows. In one group, they gave college students a scrambled-sentence test with words like "rude," "disturb," and "infringe." In a second group, they gave students a scrambled-sentence test consisting of words that were the exact opposite of the other test; words like "polite," "considerate," and "respect" (54). Then the students were asked to go down the hall to talk to someone, who would purposely be preoccupied. The main test was to see if the ones who were primed with rude words would interrupt more than the ones who were primed with polite words. The test proved that those who were primed with rude words were more apt to interrupt, and the majority of those primed with polite words didn't interrupt even slightly, even though they had been waiting for five minutes or more. This proves that priming does indeed have an impact on us that we are not entirely aware of. And it's kind of intimidating to think that we, personally, don't have complete control over how we think and act.
I've kinda worked backwards with these posts, starting with specific sections, and getting more general. But as for the book as a whole, I enjoyed it. Gladwell works/worked for the new yorker, and his background is in journalism, so the book reads like a good article. He also does a great job at incorporating other peoples ideas into his book. I was surprised on how cleanly all his ideas came together. It made it a more entertaining read, but it was almost too perfect. All his examples supported his thesis so much that i wonder what, if anything, he's not telling (I don't know if he ever talked to both sides, ie the US government would probably have a different story about Paul Van Riper and Project Millennium). Also, could a little bit of research disprove some of his claims? Maybe after a year of psychology, I'll know more about how accurate he was, but even if he did stretch the truth, his book still explains split second thinking very well, which i assume was the whole point.
Shannon, I think its so great that you were able to connect with the book like that! I love the feeling when connections between real life and random bits of curriculum form...
anyway.
I was thinking "what else am i going to blog about?!" and I remembered the part of blink talking about speed dating, and how when people speed date they often are more attracted to people who dont match their conscious expectations or desires.
"The description she starts with is her conscious ideal: what she believes she wants when she sits down and thinks about it. But what she cannot be as certain about are the criteria she uses to form her preferences in that first instant of meeting somone face to face. That information is behind the locked door" pg 67. Im pretty sure that very few people actually date others that they would consider 'their type' the first time they met.
I also wonder about how different relationships work. For example in my life, it would be very hard to imagine dating my best friends. What is it that attracts us to these people differently than the way we are attracted to people we want to date?
I think another part of what attracts people to one another are pheramones. They just scream out lewd things during conversation. I dont know enough about them to reall write anything, but i hope to learn more about them during this course, do they make an entrance during biopsychology?
As much as I have loved Blink, it tends to confuse me. It makes me think about whether or not I should think decisions through, or if I should just trust my immediate judgement.
On another note, I like what Gladwell said. It's refreshing to have someone show the "bad" side of the unconcious. I'm glad somone enlightened me about the racial and/or sexist prejudices among many others, that are part of our subconcious. This part didn't turn me off of reading the book though, I became more intrigued espeically by some of the real-life examples he used.
As I have said earlier, I think it would be amazing to be able to conduct our own research and prove or disprove some of these points, just for the hell of it.
Going off of what some other participants have said, the part about Vic Braden and the tennis matches. I just have a really difficult time believing that he can make a decision about a tennis serve, instantaneously. I mean if that is really possible, than that should be possible for so many other things, which could open up a lot of doors, and get really confused???
And while I loved this book, I realized that it was repetative in a way, and that he always came back to the same subject, which got a little tiresome by the end of the book. But considering that I was intrigued and read the whole book says something pretty admirable for the author.
Blink was amazing in the idea that it opened my mind to new thoughts and allowed me to understand myself much better and understand how my mind works. I am the type of person who over thinks and over analyzes absolutely everything and when Gladwell talks about thin slicing I realized that this strategy is not altogether helpful. When Gladwell used the example of the Kouros and explained how in a moment he was able to decipher whether or not the kouros was authentic. I wonder if taking advantage of this knowledge of thin slicing will help in lif. Gladwell gives examples for everything he says and therefore the reader is more likely to believe him. He is very thorough and I believe he tries to portray a valuable lesson. I know in my personal life I will give more credit to my instincts.
Overall, I really did enjoy reading this book. I was glad to learn more about the unconscious thoughts taking place in our brain, and how we can see the connections to every day life all around us. It also helped to explain some things to me- such as, what Rachel commented about, the racial stereotyping. I like to consider myself as not being racist at all, but I felt sadly mistaken after reading that chapter. I know that I would probably make the same mistake as many other European Americans taking the test. So, as much as I was angry with myself, it was also enlightening to know that I could actually blame this upon my unconscious mind.
I really enjoyed learning about the importance of those crucial moments in our lives when we have to make split second decisions. It has definitely changed my perspective on many parts of life, and I think Gladwell did a good job in getting his point across about rapid cognition.
starting around page 200, there is an experiment that has to do with facial expressions and it is amazing. I think it's incredible that you can learn all these facial expressions and what they really mean. I think it would be a great elective in high school because knowing things like that would really help in everyday things. for example: when talking to anyone, you could figure out if their being sincere or not. Things like that would make life so much easier because even when you try to hide your real emotions, theirs that split second where your real feelings come out.
The other thing i found that is pretty cool in this book is the part about improvisition plays around page 100. I've been to an improv play and they are hilarious. I never really understood the whole psychological aspect of the plays, but now that i know about the way the group works as a team when they can't really tell each other what they are thinking is crazy. Also, I never really thought about how much practice goes into the plays and how planned the plays are instead of just spontaneous wrecks of snap decisions.
I agree with the comments made about the experiments with the married couples being amazing. Even though the couples don't sense what the trouble may or may not be or even know they are there, he can study every aspect and find it out. i just find it amazing how he can learn more about a relationship then those in it.
I always thought there wasn't much to improv plays either. I mean realing how much more to them there was just makes me respect those actors on a whole different level due to the psychological differences i realize now between an improv play and a normal play.
my overall favorite part of the book was the speed dating experiment. when all the couples qould know who they liked or not after so much time, but subconsiously they may or may not know why they like the people, but they just have that GUT feeling. i find it very interesting because it makes me think wow people may never know what they are looking for until there gut tells them.
I agree with Amanda when she talked about the doctor's being sued. I find that totally amazing. People have always said to be nice or it will come back to get you, and this proves it. Body Language and tone can deffinently can make a difference, but its hard to believe that it makes THAT much of a difference. I've never been in that situation, but mentally i wonder how it would be to think "wow he didn't do anything wrong as a doctor, but i mean WHY is he acting like this". Its confusing, to think about it as a person, but it makes sense at the same time.
I find the part in Blink where Gladwell talked about the Aeron chair and how it was incredibly unsuccessful before it became successful. Gladwell brings up many interesting points in his writing. When he wrote the Tipping Point he also gave fantastic details for all of the points he made. When it comes to the Aeron chair, Gladwell shows us the fleeting aspects of human preference. No one liked the chair based on it look, even though it was very comfortable. People believed that the chair was horrible, but important people started to buy it and the chair was suddenly very popular. We are influenced by those around us and what we believe is a preference may not actually be. Gladwell talks about how we instantly think something is ugly because it is new and different when in fact it is beautiful. Sometimes our judgement can be misleading as well as helpful.
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