Blink - The Power of Thinking without Thinking

"Blink - The Power of Thinking without Thinking" by Malcolm Gladwell

Extract from Introduction:

1. You may have done the same thing, whether you realized it or not, when you first picked up this book. How long did you first hold it in your hands? Two seconds? And yet in that short space of time, the design of the cover, whatever associations you may have with my name, and the first few sentences about the kouros all generated an impression - a flurry of thoughts and images and preconceptions - that has fundamentally shaped the way you have this introduction so far. Aren't you curious about what happened in those 2 seconds?

2. I think we are innately suspicious of this kind of rapid cognition. We live in a world that assumes that the quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it. When doctors are faced with a difficult diagnosis, they order more tests, and when we are uncertain about what we hear, we ask for a second opinion. And what do we tell our children? Haste makes waste. Look before you leap. Stop and think. Don't judge a book by its cover. We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation. We really only trust conscious decision making. But there are moments, particularly in times of stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgements and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world. The first task of Blink is to convince you of a simple fact: decision made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately. 

3. Blink is not just a celebration of the power of the glance, however, I'm also interested in those moments when our instincts betray us.

4. The third and most important task of this book is to convince you that snap judgements and first impressions can be educated and controlled. I know that's hard to believe. Harrison and Hoving and the other arts experts who looked at the Getty kouros had powerful and sophisticated reactions to the statue, but didn't they bubble up unbidden from their unconscious? Can that kind of mysterious reaction be controlled? The truth is that it can. Just as we can teach ourselves to think logically and deliberately, we can also teach ourselves to make better snap judgements.