Psychology
by Malcolm Gladwell
Can a glance beat months of study?
Malcolm Gladwell's Blink is about the judgements we make in the first two seconds, without knowing how we made them. Sometimes they beat careful analysis. Sometimes they're badly wrong. Gladwell wants to know which is which, and whether snap judgements can be trained.
Hear a sample · read by Laura
Thin-slicing means spotting patterns from a thin slice of experience. The psychologist John Gottman watches a couple talk for a short while and, he says, can tell whether their marriage will last. Contempt, like rolling your eyes at your partner, is the sign he weighs most.
We often can't explain our own snap judgements, and Gladwell calls this the locked door. The tennis coach Vic Braden could tell a serve would be a double fault before the ball was hit, and had no idea how he knew.
Snap judgements pick up our prejudices too. Gladwell names this after Warren Harding, who looked every inch a president and turned out to be one of America's worst. He also found that bosses of big American companies are far more likely to be tall than men in general.
At Cook County Hospital in Chicago, doctors deciding whether chest pain was a heart attack were given a simple rule based on a few key signs. It beat their own judgement. Gladwell's point is that extra information can make a decision worse, by burying what matters.
The Getty statue
Art experts sensed the Getty's Greek statue was fake within seconds, before they could say why.
Thin-slicing
Your mind can judge a lot from a very small slice of experience.
Warren Harding
Snap judgements can also mislead. Voters backed Warren Harding largely because he looked like a president.
Less information
Doctors spotted heart attacks better using a few key facts than with every test they had.
Under pressure
Under extreme stress, people lose the ability to read others, and quick judgement fails.
A story from the book
California's Getty Museum bought a Greek statue, a kouros, after months of scientific tests said it was genuine. Several art experts took one look and felt something was off. One said the first word that came to him was 'fresh'. The Getty now labels it as possibly a modern forgery.
One thing to try
This week, when you judge someone's work, like a CV or a pitch, hide the name and photo first. When orchestras started auditioning players behind a screen, Gladwell writes, they went on to hire far more women.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking comes with a Name That Idea round and a Spot the Trap case to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appCan a glance beat months of study? Malcolm Gladwell's Blink is about the judgements we make in the first two seconds, without knowing how we made them. Sometimes they beat careful analysis. Sometimes they're badly wrong. Gladwell wants to know which is which, and whether snap judgements can be trained.
Thin-slicing; Behind the locked door; The Warren Harding error; Less can be more.
This week, when you judge someone's work, like a CV or a pitch, hide the name and photo first. When orchestras started auditioning players behind a screen, Gladwell writes, they went on to hire far more women.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Name That Idea round and a Spot the Trap case to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
