Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking | Teen Ink

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

February 8, 2009
By David Wolpert BRONZE, Dallas, Texas
David Wolpert BRONZE, Dallas, Texas
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Blink caught my eye while wondering through the list of books our English teacher assigned to us. I had never seen the cover before, our better yet heard of the author Malcolm Gladwell. How was I supposed to know I 'thin-sliced' my situation by choosing Blink to read? After I picked up the book, I sat down and read the insides cover to find out more about Gladwell's book. I like the secondary headline: the power of thinking without thinking. How could someone like me think without thinking? I took AP Psychology and know there is an unconscious mind putting together strings of information sending it all to the brain. What intrigued me was reading real-life cases and experiments that psychologists and scientists alike go through to really read our mind. The book was exciting and hard to put down because I wanted to know how John Gottman was able to predict marriages from failing or continuing in the next 15 years by looking at only an hour of recorded conversation. How did pro tennis player Vic Braden successfully know when a player was going to double fault in a match? In the book Braden said that, 'for a while it got so bad that I got scared....I was getting twenty out of twenty right, and we're talking about guys who almost never double-fault,' (Gladwell 49). In the introduction, Gladwell presented a theory called 'thin-slicing,' which means the importance we can gauge a situation in a brief period of observation. I was in aw at thin-slicing because I came to realize, after finishing the book, that everyone has sliced a situation. I can relate to Gladwell's word every time I meet a new person. We both shake hands, size each other up, and in the blink of an eye tell whether we will become friends or not. The power of Gladwell's words and the use of real experiments conducted drive Blink to been a complete experience from chapter to chapter. So with great honor, I recommend anyone curious in understanding the way instincts and first impressions work, to pick up a copy of Blink and learn something new in its pages.


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