Blink, a nonfiction work by Malcolm Gladwell, explores the psychology of snap decisions and quick thinking, illuminating how subconscious biases affect the way we think and behave.
- Gladwell introduces the idea of “thin slicing”—using little slivers of information about a person to form a larger opinion. He concludes that this method is most effective among strangers and breaks down in intimate relationships, such as marriages.
- Gladwell examines how subconscious racial and socioeconomic biases affect how we think about other groups of people and the language we use to describe them.
The author also discusses how subtle nonverbal messages that provide quick cues have been studied and classified. For example, the Facial Coding Action System (FACS) categorizes all the muscles in the face used in expressing emotion to interprets facial expressions (including insincere smiles). Gladwell points out that some people with autism may not be able to interpret nonverbal cues, which contribute a great deal to our “gut” assessments of what goes on beneath the surface of spoken words.
I am sure that we all have made snap decisions based upon a sense that something was just not right... and, another way to look at this is the idea that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is...
FOLLOW YOUR INSTINCTS...
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