Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell tells of many people and events that had disastrous or incredible outcomes because of the power of the subconscious to make decisions that the conscious mind is unaware of. Throughout Blink, Gladwell presents many ways to show that the mind and body give off hints to one’s true feelings in the “blink” of an eye. One of his many compelling arguments is the idea of “priming,” while one of his less compelling arguments is the idea of anyone having too much information to make a correct decision. Priming is such a compelling argument because it can account for such a large change in mindset. However, the idea of having too much information is misleading and confusing. Both arguments have the potential to change how one looks at their own …show more content…
It is the act of using key phrases or words to subconsciously influence how one’s mind acts and thinks in a certain way. The study done by two Dutch researchers where two groups of people were asked to answer questions from the game Trivial Pursuit after having thought about either being a professor or soccer hooligans shows the difference priming can make. The group of people who thought of being a professor, being in a “smart” mindset, answered the 55.6% of the questions correctly, while the soccer hooligans group answered only 42.6% correctly. Priming could open the door to many different ways to look at testing in schools or the effects of everyday life on students. Such as, if a student is told repetitively that they are not capable of a certain grade or other achievement, that will instill in them the idea that they truly are incapable. Priming can also be used to encourage students and help them with their grades or other achievements. The connection between priming and a better mindset, therefore result creates potential for opportunities to be handled in a way that benefits everyone
All children are not raised the same exact way. There are many different parenting styles, ranging from authoritative to neglectful parenting. Along with those many different styles also come many different opinions on which ones are better or worse for children. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is a book that essentially looks into many factors that contribute to people's successes. In chapter four, Gladwell writes about how different parenting philosophies impact how successful the children will be when they are older. Gladwell claims that there are essentially only two main parenting philosophies, “concerted cultivation” and “accomplishment of natural growth” (Gladwell 104). Gladwell goes on to also claim that between those two parenting philosophies, children raised from concerted
In Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Power of Context,” includes a series of short anecdotes in which are all defined by environment and how society shapes mankind. While reading these short stories Gladwell put into the novel, the audience can conclude that the rules of society have the power to shape a person or community. When reading “The Power of Context,” the reader must be able to grasp the understanding of how environment can affect an individual. One would say nature is the setting in which a person is brought up, nurture is the care variable one has the power to influence how they behave or how the setting can define who they are. In this style of writing Gladwell uses, shifts in societies behaviors tell stories of how the setting can influence behaviors of the main characters.
Criminal case is always tedious when it involves little or no information about the offender, like in the 9/11 terrorist attack which annihilated most of the workers in and damaged the New York Trade Center building. However, in an attempt to identify the offenders, government officials and investigators try out different ways such as criminal profiling and others. Thus, in the New Yorker article, “Dangerous Minds” by Malcolm Gladwell; the author informs the deeper problems with FBI profiling and argues that it is ineffective. He questions the usefulness of criminal profiling, “But how useful is that profile, really?” and uses other criminal cases, group research analyses, and analogies to refute
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is a book written by Malcolm Gladwell. This book introduces the concept of “thin slicing”. The concept refers to how in a split second or blink of an eye people can make an unconscious and accurate assessment of someone. Using the concept of thin slicing we can determine what is really important within the first few seconds when meeting someone. Malcolm Gladwell explained that first impressions or spontaneous decisions can be just as important as decisions that are made carefully and planned out. According to Gladwell, people make better decisions with quick judgments than they do with a lot of analysis. Gladwell believes that the power
Priming is a way of molding someone's way of thin-slicing. For example, when given a compliment the subconscious mind remembers this as a reward for the brain releasing endorphins that make you feel good. By smiling and complimenting someone, you are priming their subconscious thoughts to think happy. It also works the other way around. Insulting and demeaning will prime the thoughts to be angry or upset. Priming does not have to be verbal. Tall individuals are known to have a positive effect on the way they are perceived. Therefore being tall is a non-verbal primer. Priming is often considered as a form of “brainwashing” as the goal is to alter the decision of the mind. Personally I do not believe that priming is a form of brainwashing because a conscious mind has more control over the subconscious. Even though instinct might come first, everyone has the ability to control their decisions. Priming just makes that step more
In the book, blink The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell, he talks about Paul Van Riper, unconscious reactions, and mind reading. Throughout chapter four, five, and six,Gladwell explains and gives examples as to why Paul Van Riper red team won against the Millennium Challenge Blue team. How are unconscious reactions come out of the locked door and introduces the idea of mind reading. In chapter four,“Paul Van Riper’s Big Victory,” Gladwell compares decision making to rapid-fire decision making.
Critical thinking is defined as purposeful, reflective judgment that manifests itself in giving reasoned and fair-minded consideration to the evidence, conceptualizations, methods, contexts, and standards in order to decide what to believe or what to do (Facione, 2011). I believe that Malcolm Gladwell is trying to tell readers of Blink that critical thinking can be done in just a few short minutes. “What is Blink about? It’s a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in the blink of an eye.“ (Gladwell, 2005). You don’t need to take hours or days to do it. We have always been told that spending time to gather all the information is better, but is that necessarily true? Blink has several stories in it where we see
What is Blink about? This book is talking about the first two seconds that happened when people buy something or when they meet a new friend. Their mind takes about two seconds to jump. The main character Malcolm Gladwell, wants to see how people understand the world around them and to see how¬ they think without thinking. People can solve a problem in the real world by, knowing what the problem is, and trying to find a solution.
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell is a book intended to inform the readers about the vast mystery of the mind. The book goes off to talk about science projects and/or tests, that were conducted on humans which essentially allows the reader to learn a little more about the mystery of the mind. The mind has exposed itself to the public many times, and it’s the first thing the book doesn’t fail to do. Blink has been intentionally written to be easier to understand by the public, it is a combination of many stories that as an end result gives a closer look on how the brain works. For the most part, each chapter is designed to inform the reader of the many different ways the brain can function. The chapter The Locked Door: The Secret Life of Decisions,
This chapter from Blink by Malcolm Gladwell provides some very intriguing points on how we as consumers perceive images and how this can differ from the way developers and experts do. One of the things that truly caught my eye when I was reading this chapter was the last section called the gift of expertise. In this passage the author talks mostly about having lunch with two expert taste testers and how their experience with food differs from the average person. He goes on to relate this to the business world and how experts in their field can tend to lack the awareness of the empathy to see a product or service in the eyes of the consumer or the average person. For me personally, I have had similar problems with this mentality. While no expert
In this excerpt from the “The Sure Thing“ by Malcolm Gladwell the author outlines the career of Ted Turner. Ted Turner inherited a billboard business from his father. The business was doing great but, he was became bored & decided he wanted to buy a TV station which he knew nothing about.
1. The Priming Task: Upon entering the laboratory, they met an experimenter for physiology experiment, and then the experimenter led them to the psychology room experiment. In the room they were told the goal of the experiment is to examine memorization processes and experimental tasks were given to them. The researchers flashed subliminal cues – such as desire vs. constrained – on a digital screen while participants were trying to identify as soon as possible if two pictures were the same or not. The task consisted of 46 trials and the average time for the completion was about 12 min. The subliminal interventions set at a 15-ms
In Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman the idea of priming and the Ideomotor effect were discussed. Although they are very similar, the priming effect is more about mental results where the ideomotor effect often is more focused on physical influences and effects. Priming happens when someone has been exposed to a concept or idea that then changes how they process new thoughts. For example, if one has just seen the word “eat” they are more likely to fill in so_p as “soup” than “soap”. The ideomotor effect is where this exposure to a concept changes physical aspects of a person, for example: walking speeds after being exposed to words concerning an age group like the elderly. This can also work in reverse, for example: smiling leading
I should start by explaining what the Priming Effect and Idomotor Effect is. The Priming Effect is when you hear words that make you think of objects or places. The Idomotor Effect is when one’s motions are affected by words. With that out of the way, let’s begin.
A person’s reality can be affected by priming. They are impacted by subliminal messages every day, which subconsciously affects the choices they