Blink (book)
Paperback edition
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| Author | Malcolm Gladwell |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Psychology, popular psychology |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Back Bay Books, Little, Brown |
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Publication date
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January 11, 2005 |
| Media type | Print, e-book, audiobook |
| Pages | 320 p. (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 55679231 |
| 153.4/4 22 | |
| LC Class | BF448 .G53 2005 |
| Preceded by | The Tipping Point, 2000 |
| Followed by | Outliers, 2008 |
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005) is Malcolm Gladwell's second book. It presents in popular science format research from psychology and behavioral economics on the adaptive unconscious: mental processes that work rapidly and automatically from relatively little information. It considers both the strengths of the adaptive unconscious, for example in expert judgment, and its pitfalls, such as stereotypes.
The author describes the main subject of his book as "thin-slicing": our ability to use limited information from a very narrow period of experience to come to a conclusion. This idea suggests that spontaneous decisions are often as good as—or even better than—carefully planned and considered ones. To reinforce his ideas, Gladwell draws from a wide range of examples from science and medicine (including malpractice suits), sales and advertising, gambling, speed dating (and predicting divorce), tennis, military war games, and the movies and popular music. Gladwell also uses many examples of regular people's experiences with "thin-slicing," including our instinctive ability to mind-read, which is how we can get to know a person's emotions just by looking at his or her face.
Gladwell explains how an expert's ability to "thin slice" can be corrupted by their likes and dislikes, prejudices, and stereotypes (even unconscious ones). Two particular forms of unconscious bias Gladwell discusses are implicit association tests and psychological priming.
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