Book Review

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Book Review

• BLINK

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• Malcolm Gladwell has been a staff writer with The
  New Yorker magazine since 1996
• The Tipping Point How Little Things Make a Big
  Difference," (2000)
• "Blink The Power of Thinking Without Thinking"
  (2005)
• A "Malcolm Gladwell story" is an idea-driven
  narrative, one focused on the mundane rather than
  the bizarre. It takes you on a journey in and out
  of research through personal, social, and
  historical moments, transports you to a place you
  didn't know you were going to end up, and changes
  the way you think about an idea.

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• It's a book about rapid cognition, about the kind
  of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye.
  When you meet someone for the first time, or walk
  into a house you are thinking of buying, your
  mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series
  of conclusions.
• "Blink" is a book about those two seconds

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• (1) Decisions made very quickly can be every bit
  as good as decisions made cautiously and
  deliberately

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• (2) Our unconscious is a powerful force. But its
  fallible. Its not always that we always get the
  "instant truth" of the situation . It can be
  thrown off, distracted, and disabled. So when
  should we trust out instincts answer when should
  we be wary of them?
• When our powers of rapid cognition go awry,
  understanding the situations and set of reasons
  for it.. Learning when to listen to that powerful
  onboard computer and when to be wary of it.

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• (3) To convince you that snap judgments and first
  impressions can be educated and controlled. As we
  can teach ourselves to think logically and
  deliberately, we can also teach ourselves to make
  better snap judgments.

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• "rapid cognition Snap judgments
• Many decisions make, are based on previously
  formed impressions and are competing with
  subconscious biases such as emotions and
  projections.
• Once we become aware of this, we can learn to
  control rapid cognition by extracting meaning
  from a "thin slice" of information.

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• Great decision-makers aren't those who process
  the most information or spend the most time
  deliberating, but those who have perfected the
  art of thin slicing' knowing the very few
  things that matter."

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• Thinking' gets premium attention but don't
  discount the unconscious, on that score, because
  it is "a powerful force", though fallible owing
  to distractions.

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• Frugality is a virtue in decision-making, and so
  less is more'.
• Don't, therefore, overload the decision-makers
  with information, because they'd find it tough to
  pick up the signature' or pattern.
• "To be a successful decision maker, we have to
  edit." That happens unconsciously, even as you
  time-slice and recognise patterns and make quick
  judgments.

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• Theory of thin slicing
• Thin slicing" refers to the ability of our
  unconscious to find the patterns in situations
  and behaviors based on the very narrow slices of
  experience.

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• when we leap to a decision or have a hunch .
• It's sifting through the situation in front of us
  , throwing out all that's irrelevant while we
  zero in on what really matters. And the truth is
  that our unconscious is really good at this, to
  the point where thin-slicing often delivers a
  better answer than more deliberate and exhaustive
  ways of thinking.

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• If you are given too many choices, if you are
  forced to consider much more than your
  unconscious is comfortable with, you get
  paralyzed.

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• Statue that didnt looked right.
• experts felt that "intuitive repulsion" which
  took team of Getty museum 14 months to
  understand.

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• University of Iowa card game
• We have some experience..
• We think them through ... We develop a theory ..
  and then we put two and two together...
• That's the way learning works. logical
  definitive.. took 80 cards.. slow and requires
  lot of information.
• Unconscious is Quick , smart. Problem. it
  operates entirely below the surface of
  consciousness
• sends the message through indirect channels.

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• Adaptive unconsciousness
• The only way that human beings have survived as
  species for as long is that we've developed
  another kind of decision making apparatus that's
  capable of making very quick judgments based on
  very little information..

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• "The mind operates most efficiently be relegating
  a good deal of high level, sophisticated thinking
  to the unconscious. The adaptive unconscious does
  an excellent job of sizing up the world, warning
  people of danger, setting goals, and initiating
  action in a sophisticated and efficient manner.
  We toggle back and forth between our conscious
  and unconscious modes of thinking , depending on
  the situation. "

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• We are innately suspicious of rapid cognition .
• We live in a world that assumes that quality of
  a decision is directly related to the time and
  effort that went into making it . When doctors
  are faced with difficult diagnosis, they order
  for more tests, and when we are uncertain about
  what we hear , we ask for a second opinion.
• we believe that we are always better off
  gathering as much information as possible and
  spending as much time as possible in
  deliberation. we really only trust conscious
  decision making.

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• Getting to the bottom of the question of how good
  a product is requires a more searching
  exploration of the intricacies of our snap
  judgments.

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• Sensation transference---
• when people give an assessment of something they
  might buy in a supermarket or a department store
  without realizing it, they transfer sensations or
  impressions that they have about the packaging of
  the product to the product itself.
• Louis Cheskin, believed that most of don't make a
  distinction -- in an unconscious level --between
  the package and the product. the product is the
  package and the product combined.

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• Testing a product having minor variations on the
  product that they have seen before.. and the
  ideas that are truly revolutionary is another
  matter .
• The first impressions of their consumers need
  interpretation---
• MR provides certainty-- a score ,a prediction -
  a number,

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• Improvisation isnt random and chaotic. it is an
  art form governed by a series of rules.
  Basketball, intricate, high speed game filled
  with split -second decisions , spontaneous
• But thats possible only when everyone first
  engages in hours of repetitive and structured
  practice.
• and agrees to play a carefully defined role on
  the court.
• How good people's decision are under the fast
  moving , high stress conditions of rapid
  cognition is a function of training and rules and
  rehearsal..

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• verbal overshadowing
• left part think in words right think in graphics
• when you start becoming reflective about the
  process , it undermines your ability .
• One loses the flow, there are certain fluid ,
  intuitive , non verbal kinds of experience that
  are vulnerable to this process. As human beings ,
  we have incredible abilities of insight and
  instinct, but they are fragile. Its a flickering
  candle , and now a lightbulb