Blink : The Power Of Thinking Without Thinking By Malcolm Gladwell

18. a form of selective perception the involves seeking only those cues in a situation that support a preexisting opinion

Thoughts can be fleeting, however some of the feelings resulting from thought and can have a long lasting impact on the mental state of a person. In my metacognitive exploration I found an interesting comparison between the way in which I think and approach my past feelings and the methods which Tim O’Brien, from The Things They Carried, and Paul D from Beloved express their thinking about the past. I have discovered that the expression of thoughts, including memories and feelings, is the key to a healthy mental state of a person.

Everyone aims to fulfill the American Dream, achieving prosperity through hard work. Society loves the ideology that anyone can become successful and that we all have the same opportunities and chance of success, if enough work is applied. With this ideal, people can blame their failure on not working hard enough or having an adverse life. However, Malcolm Gladwell sees success in contrast to the common people. Gladwell believes that success is mainly caused by having the right opportunity and circumstances rather than by working hard. David Karp, founder of the international social networking site Tumblr, is an individual who embodies Gladwell’s phenomenon by having extended advantages that were rare among his peers and having a supportive, relatable lineage that not only lead him to success, but also makes him an Outlier.

In Chapter Three, “The Warren Harding Error,” Gladwell focuses on what he calls “the dark side” of thin-slicing—the way that our unconscious minds tend toward Gladwell by arguing why our minds subconscious automatically assumes things based of stereotypes using the art of persuasion. Throughout this book you constantly hear of the idea of how we make snap judgements of everything and everyone and how we can be more aware of it in our lives. It also explains the good and bad side of "thin-slicing." (AKA snap judgements) In the book it says, "...to convince you that our snap judgements and first impression can be educated and controlled." (Gladwell Pg. 15) In chapter three of the book, Blink, it reflects on how snap judgements tie in with stereotypes. It says in the book, "We make connection much more quickly between pairs of ideas that are already related in our minds..." (Gladwell Pg. 77) The chapter starts off with exemplification when Gladwell gives the Warren Harding example which also explains the bad side to thin slicing. He then goes into classification and definition with the example of the IAT tests. The IAT tests are the perfect example as to how thin slicing is not always a good thing. This test measured that second level of attitude in an unconscious level, so it is our immediate associations that tumble out before you have time to think about them. The test also shows the unconscious attitudes that you might have even if they are completely opposite of what your

Gladwell began the book by describing a “thin-slice”, and then refers to that definition after each example. For instance, when Gladwell describes the “Warren Harding error” -- or the phenomenon where people are selected for jobs simply because they look like they are qualified – he says,

In Blink by Malcolm Gladwell presents and creates very fascinating terminologies to describe split-Second processes that human mind undergoes to make important decisions. One of the term that he uses in Blink is “thin slicing”. Malcolm Gladwell defines this term as “the ability of our conscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slice of experince”(23). What this means is your brain is able to “subconsciously gathers the necessary information for sophisticated Judgments”(23) from previous experience. In Blink Gladwell presents a lot of examples to make you better understand the meaning of thin slicing and when it takes place. Also In are lifes we use thin slicing in daily basis but we do not know when thin slicing

Most people normally bring about personal qualities when they think for the main components of success. However, Malcolm Gladwell, a famous writer, contradicts the assumption of people through the book, Outliers. Gladwell insists that extrinsic factors define success rather than the personal qualities. Nonetheless, Gladwell himself goes against the topic of Outliers in his assertion about hard working “if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires”. Although people should work hard to seize the opportunity for success, success actually came from extrinsic factors because opportunity of relative age gives physical and emotional advantages through appropriate timing for birth, opportunity to raise under the concerted cultivation increases one’s practical intelligence, and opportunity to fulfill 10,000 hours of practice guarantees time to achieve success at every field.

In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, people in the book show lack of emotion,feelings,interest or concern especially regarding matters of general importance or appeal wishing we had lack of apathy, my prediction is that people will no longer have strong emotions about anything important.They will become apathetic about most issues.We are convinced that one individual doesn’t matter. We can’t really make a difference in anything we believe in. That’s one of the reasons why people have started to lose interest in many aspects of their lives because they can’t do anything to change that. However,this only applies to a certain part of the population. To be honest in my opinion I personally think most of our generation thanks to social media

Can we know something without knowing how we know it? This is precisely the question that Malcolm Gladwell sets out to ponder in his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Looking at scientific experiments from laboratories nation-wide, Gladwell explores the fascinating phenomenon of “thin-slicing”, or making snap-judgments without consciously engaging in the decision making process. These “thin-slices”, Gladwell asserts, are surprisingly accurate—sometimes even more so than the decisions we make after long hours of careful consideration and reflection. One particularly interesting question raised by this study is the implications it brings to bear on the process of thought.

Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” is radical because he talks about how the environment can change people behavior. The environment could have caused people to change for better or worst. For example: When people were placed in an environment of filth they are more violent and hectic causing the crime rate to increase. When you come from a bad neighborhood you are statistically more likely to be dangerous and belligerent. If you were to place people into a different environment, you can expect change (not saying it always work). Throughout the story Malcolm gives many examples of change. He starts off by talking about four young men who were on a New York train. They had asked a man for five dollars when unsuspectedly the man shot them. The author then goes on to talk about the variables that went into the shooting making it more specific. They said the cause was the graffiti and dirty train. But then he goes to explain the bigger picture by explaining this current situation through other situations if not similar.

In The Moral Instinct, Steven Pinker cites Haidt’s “primary colors” of the moral sense (329). Pinker believes that all moral decisions can be categorized with these primary colors and, though everyone can see these colors, they are prioritized differently by different people. Haidt identifies five primaries—harm, fairness, community, authority, and purity—all of which make up the moral spectrum. These recurring moral themes can be found everywhere from cultural norms to the decisions and beliefs of individuals. Though the themes can be identified in works regarding ethics and morality, they—if applied correctly—can also give insight into the way the author prioritizes the moral colors.

This distinctive book called, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, is one of very few exquisite readings I’ve completed so far. Daniel Kahneman is a psychologist in Princeton University, and due to his research, he won a Nobel Prize in 2002 in economics. In the beginning of his book, he speaks of our cognitive System 1 and System 2 ways of thinking. System 1 generates feelings, impressions, and memory. It is very instinctive, automatic, and is considered quick thinking. System 2 on the other hand, is alert during complex problem solving, while dealing with facts and knowledge, and is attentive while working with difficult calculations. For example, a problem such as 24 x 13, this takes more time and knowledge to figure out (System 2), rather then recognizing an emotion from face expressions (System 1). When System 1 is strained, your System 2 steps in to help you process through that specific instant. Now aside from the psychological portion of this book, Mr. Kahneman divulges about a consolidated economic analysis with elemental intuitions from the psychological perspective; such as, luck and skill, overconfidence, risks in the stock market, factors of success and the decision making process. This book is overall concluded with the understanding of behavioral economics, which is the social and cognitive components on economic decisions that are defined by individuals and have consequences that reflect from making those decisions and taking those risks.

information is being skewed. Fragmented perspective can also be labelled as being an unreliable narrator, which at

Thinking, fast and slow written by an empirical researcher and psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, The book tells us how we can afford to think while we’re not even paying attention. It offers us the paths to better understanding ourselves, how to think automatically and common, instead of difficult and rare.

The essay “The Naked Face” written by Malcom Gladwell is about the ability of recognizing the meaning behind someone’s facial expressions. He starts the essay with a life or death situation between an inner city police officer and a suspect that both are pointing guns at each other. The officer clearly has the right to shoot the suspect, but decided not to base on a hunch that the armed suspect was not a threat (Gladwell 24). Gladwell then demonstrates that the police officer is one out of a thousand people that scored really well on a psychology test to determine if someone is lying or telling the truth based on facial expressions (Gladwell 59). Gladwell’s essay then continues with