Book Review
Blink
The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
By Malcolm Gladwell
Little Brown & Co © 2005
Blink’s introduction “The Statue Didn’t Look Right” is immediately captivating to readers with the story of the Getty Kouros, a statue bought by the Getty museum in 1985 for $10M. Its authenticity was researched by various experts for period-relevant style, materials, and provable lineage. Over the course of fourteen months, testing by x-ray diffraction, x-ray fluorescence, microscope analysis, electron microprobe and mass spectrometry in addition to artistic-style examinations indicated consistently the statue was authentic.
When the curator of the Getty showed the Getty Kouros to the Italian Art Historian Frederico Zeri, also on the Getty board of trustees, he immediately noticed the fingernails did not seem right. Next to review the kouros was Evelyn Harrison, an expert on Greek sculpture. She had a “hunch”, an “instinctive sense” that the statue was a forgery. Contrary to the exhaustive tests performed by the Getty, experts seemed to have an immediate sense, understanding in “two seconds” more than all of the tests the Getty Museum was able to find. Until removed from public viewing in 2018, the statue’s authenticity remained a question visible to the public. Visitors to the Getty would read the museum label, “Greek, about 530 B.C., or modern forgery”.
This story engagingly sets up the book’s premise that intuition and a “blink” of information can be just as accurate as intricate analysis. Gladwell walks his readers through multiple instances and examples of how people make choices in an instant guided by a “thin slices” of information. How these decisions are made is often difficult to impossible to explain, even for the person making these decisions. We are introduced to experts who can predict when a tennis player will double fault on a serve or who can predict whether or not a couple will divorce. These experts mastered the ability to filter out extraneous information, in order to truly see and analyze a situation for what it is.
Gladwell also introduces us to situations where these instincts failed. He dissects famous “disasters” like New Coke, in response to the Pepsi Challenge and the administration of Warren Harding.
Though this book was published 15 years ago, I chose to re-read this book recently and write this review because Malcolm Gladwell uses Blink to talk about a subject heavily discussed in our society today. He talks about race and our potential underlying biases which may influence our beliefs, attitudes and behaviors or “The Dark Side of Thin-Slicing”.
Gladwell writes, our attitudes have two levels. We have a conscious level of beliefs we have chosen. We have a layer to our beliefs on an unconscious level as well. These associations are automatic responses that exert themselves before we have time to think about them. He quotes psychologist Joshua Aronson, “Our first impressions are generated by our experience and our environment, which means that we can change our first impressions – we can alter the way with thin slice – by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions.” The impressions we have form “good” or “bad” associations, or connections, within our minds which can bias first impressions. If we become aware of our biases, we can work to remove or change the automatic associates that form those biases and help alter our impressions. “We make connections much more quickly between pairs of ideas that are already related in our minds than we do between pairs of ideas that are unfamiliar to us.”
A tool exists call the Implicit Association Test (IAT) which is based on the observation of these connections. Built by Anthony G. Greenwald, Mahzarin Banaji, and Brian Nosek, it tests our association between pairs of ideas that are already related in our minds. Measuring the time it takes for us to make associations, the IAT can determine how closely these associations are established in our subconscious.
Test takers first click keys to put images into one of two buckets. The last test I took was an association between former U.S. Presidents, so I will frame that test as an example. The test is taken in seven parts. I first had to separate images of Donald Trump from images of George W. Bush, hitting either the “e” or the “i” on my keyboard. I then had to hit the “e” or “i” key for “good” (joyful, magnificent) or “bad” (horrific, scorn) words. The test then combines both of these exercises. Bad words and Donald Trump, good words and George W. Bush. The exercise is reversed, Bad words and George W. Bush, good words and Donald Trump. Measuring reaction times of associations, the test then gives test-takers the results of their automatic associations. In this case, I had a strong preference for one former President over another, not a surprising result. In another test, I have a moderate preference for thin people. Considering the weight and body-image struggles which have been pervasive throughout my life, I should not have been surprised, but was taken a bit off guard by a moderate preference.
15 tests now exist at Project Implicit® https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ that measure connections within race, gender, weapons, disability, etc. Once test takers can understand their automatic biases, then can then work to change their perspective to help keep first impressions less biased. Knowledge of these preferences begs for action. “It requires that you change your life so that you are exposed to minorities on a regular basis and become comfortable with them and familiar with the best of their culture, so that when you want to meet, hire, date or talk with a member of a minority, you aren’t betrayed by your hesitation and discomfort.”
I’ve read some reviews that suggest Gladwell should have gone further in Blink. These reviews opine that Blink did not go far enough simply by illustrating that our intuition is open to bias; he should educate us how to influence our intuition to remove the bias. I do not believe this to be the ultimate intention of the book. I believe the intention of the book was to help us understand the power of these thin slices, but also draw attention to some inherent biases that might influence those impressions. With deep understanding of our biases, we can better understand and inform our responses.
I love Blink because it helps keep readers from becoming complacent. “People are ignorant of the things that affect their actions, yet they rarely feel ignorant. We need to accept our ignorance and say ‘I don’t know’ more often.” Acknowledgement of ignorance and having the conversations, reading the books and articles in order to become less ignorant will help us as we navigate through the current conversations and changes taking place in our society today.