SQJ Taipei

As I was honing my card playing skills in college… we used to say this a lot:

THINK LONG… THINK WRONG

At the time, I thought that there was at least some truth to it… but it was usually used when people were playing too slowly just to hurry them along.

I just read a book that makes a powerful case that there is WAY more truth to those 4 words than most people think. I found it the other day and bought it for about US$6.

The book is called BLINK by MALCOLM GLADWELL. The subtitle is “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” and I mention it as it is more revealing than the actual title regarding the content of the book.

It was really fun to read… thought provoking… and VERY interesting. I’m not really a book reviewer… as my brain is far too shallow for an indepth analysis of any book… but I do like to let you know when I read something that others might find interesting… this is one of those books.

The book is all about “snap judgements” and the science behind them. We have probably all experienced a time where we make an instantaneous judgement about something or someone and found that what you decided in the “blink of an eye” turned out to be exactly correct… although you probably couldn’t really describe your decision very well using words. It turns out that there is a large (and growing) body of scientific work related to this subject.

Gladwell writes well (if a bit repetitious) and is obviously a bit awestruck about his topic… but it is usually more fun than annoying because his passion shows through. Here’s a rundown of topics from the book… there is actually something for everyone in this book.

• fake v. authentic art
• predicting marriage success
• malpractice lawsuits
• college professor evaluations
• power of observation alone
• orchestra tryouts
• gambling
• power of suggestion in future behavior
• speed-dating
• tennis (specifically double faultings)
• basketball court presence
• Warren Harding and the way we make descisions based on outward appearance
• unconscious associations influencing our behavior
• facial expressions
• buying a car
• military strategy
• evaluating chest pain
• music critics v. radio stations
• furniture R&D
• The Pepsi Challenge
• food tasting experts
• autism
• police decision making
• the “gift” of fear

I’m sure there are more… these are what I remember right now.

I bet that most of us like to mostly read books that are related to our work or to our favorite hobbies… BLINK is a book that you might want to shuffle into your reading list as it will most likely be relevant to you in some way. It isn’t like it is gonna change your life… it isn’t that kind of book… but you’ll be fascinated and I think that most people will pursue learning more about something they read in the book… just as I am about to by visiting Project Implicit.