Review - Blink
Another day, and another book by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book, the author dwells deeply into our subconsious decision making power. That intuition that makes us look at somebody and instantly decide that he or she is a "good guy".
As with the Tipping Point, I got the feeling while reading this book that the author is trying to present an idea that we all intuitively accept as something revolutionary. I did not find the ideas in this book revolutionary. The basic message of the book is that our mind is capable of extra-ordinary insights based on very little information. At first glance, an art expert can tell that a painting is fake, although he cannot say why he thinks that. Sometimes, deliberate scientific analysis have been proved wrong where an expert's gut feeling turned out to be right. We all know this. We also know that these insights are often wildly wrong. Once the basic premise is presented, the author goes into the details of how we can nurture our intuition while at the same time, protecting ourselves from its wild and often erroneous conclusions (we do it by trusting our intuition only in areas were we are experts, and not trusting it when we are in a situation of extreme stress).
While the actual content is hardly revolutionary, the presentation of the subject is simply awesome, thus making this book a rivetting read. Much more than is the case with the author's previous work "The Tipping Point", this book contains numerous case studies and interviews with interesting characters, and these are used to illustrate the point the author is trying to make. For example, the ease with which people recognize faces is presented with the help of a summary of the work of two remarkable gentlemen Tomkins and Ekman. Tomkins could tell based on closeup video shots of tribals from the Amazon that they are aggressive and have strong homosexual tendencies. Ekman catalogued an entire array of muscle contractions, that make up 'facial expression'. We learn of Gottman, who can look at a 15 minute video of a couple talking and predict with 90% accuracy if they will still be married in 15 years. These and numerous other characters make this book an interesting page turner.
As with the Tipping Point, I got the feeling while reading this book that the author is trying to present an idea that we all intuitively accept as something revolutionary. I did not find the ideas in this book revolutionary. The basic message of the book is that our mind is capable of extra-ordinary insights based on very little information. At first glance, an art expert can tell that a painting is fake, although he cannot say why he thinks that. Sometimes, deliberate scientific analysis have been proved wrong where an expert's gut feeling turned out to be right. We all know this. We also know that these insights are often wildly wrong. Once the basic premise is presented, the author goes into the details of how we can nurture our intuition while at the same time, protecting ourselves from its wild and often erroneous conclusions (we do it by trusting our intuition only in areas were we are experts, and not trusting it when we are in a situation of extreme stress).
While the actual content is hardly revolutionary, the presentation of the subject is simply awesome, thus making this book a rivetting read. Much more than is the case with the author's previous work "The Tipping Point", this book contains numerous case studies and interviews with interesting characters, and these are used to illustrate the point the author is trying to make. For example, the ease with which people recognize faces is presented with the help of a summary of the work of two remarkable gentlemen Tomkins and Ekman. Tomkins could tell based on closeup video shots of tribals from the Amazon that they are aggressive and have strong homosexual tendencies. Ekman catalogued an entire array of muscle contractions, that make up 'facial expression'. We learn of Gottman, who can look at a 15 minute video of a couple talking and predict with 90% accuracy if they will still be married in 15 years. These and numerous other characters make this book an interesting page turner.
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