Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - Softcover

Gladwell, Malcolm

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141014598 ISBN 13: 9780141014593

Publisher: Penguin, 2006

Synopsis

'Mesmerizing' Time

An art expert instantly spots a fake. A cop decides whether to shoot. A psychologist accurately predicts a couple's future in minutes. This book is about those moments when we 'know' something without knowing why. It shows that honing your instincts could change the way you think about thinking forever.

'Trust my snap judgement, buy this book: you'll be delighted' David Brooks, The New York Times

'Fiendishly clever' Evening Standard

'Provocative, fascinating, radical' Fergal Byrne, Financial Times

About this title

Review

Blink is about the first two seconds of looking--the decisive glance that knows in an instant. Gladwell, the best-selling author of The Tipping Point, campaigns for snap judgments and mind reading with a gift for translating research into splendid storytelling. Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on the golf course, selling cars, and military maneuvers, he persuades readers to think small and focus on the meaning of "thin slices" of behavior. The key is to rely on our "adaptive unconscious"--a 24/7 mental valet--that provides us with instant and sophisticated information to warn of danger, read a stranger, or react to a new idea.

Gladwell includes caveats about leaping to conclusions: marketers can manipulate our first impressions, high arousal moments make us "mind blind," focusing on the wrong cue leaves us vulnerable to "the Warren Harding Effect" (i.e., voting for a handsome but hapless president). In a provocative chapter that exposes the "dark side of blink," he illuminates the failure of rapid cognition in the tragic stakeout and murder of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx. He underlines studies about autism, facial reading and cardio uptick to urge training that enhances high-stakes decision-making. In this brilliant, cage-rattling book, one can only wish for a thicker slice of Gladwell's ideas about what Blink Camp might look like. --Barbara Mackoff

About the Author

Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What The Dog Saw and David and Goliath.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0141014598
• ISBN 13: 9780141014593
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304