Blink

 Looking for a time filler, an old Malcom Gladwell book I think my son left behind looked promising.  "Blink" was released in 2005.  There are many examples of making accurate judgments in the blink of an eye, but also of serious mistakes.

A timely personal illustration is suggested by the author.  Most people in a book store will pick up a book, like "Blink" hold it for 2 seconds and move on.  A lot of impressions are crowded into that 2 seconds.  And sometimes thin slicing pays off.

Thin slicing is a term used to indicate the unconscious ability to extract something useful from perceived patterns.  Using the book example a prospect might evaluate the weight of the book, its design and might recall something they heard about the author.  They could close the deal or move onto another option very quickly.  Accurate thin slicing is often more productive than overwhelming data. 

The first example came at the very beginning.  Art can be very expensive and difficult to evaluate.  The J Paul Getty Museum was approached with what was claimed to be an ancient Greek statue.  Their approach was to do research, examining it from all aspects and their conclusion was that it was a legitimate rare statue.  Two art experts given a short view, felt it wasn't quite right.  The difference was that they had a lot of experience and could zero in what didn't fit with their experience.  The other experts lacked that experience and so checked conventional research and would have authorized the purchase of a very clever fake. 

Very often we have already set filters in our mind that push us to a quick decision, not necessarily for our benefit.  Prejudice just means pre-judge and can be a useful tool, except when it is not.

A top car salesman illustrated the importance of discarding all prejudices.  Prejudging is normal for any salespeople as they can waste a lot of time on non viable prospects.  They try to size up if someone is serious about buying a car and can handle the finances.  This has meant women and minorities and poorly dressed prospects are quickly dismissed or offered higher prices to discourage their interest.  Bob Golomb, a very successful car salesman has discarded prejudices and Malcolm claims has mastered thin slicing so that he can understand the various dynamics that bring prospects to his attention.  Some prejudices boil down to appearances that have indicated inability to pay for a car (ethnicity, clothing, gender, age, marital accord etc.).  Understanding subconscious fears and desires that can be detected through thin slicing would be helpful to all parties.  

Police shootings seem all too common and many of them are the result of a misreading in a very short time.  An immigrant from Guinea, Amadou Diallo after work late at night was sitting on the steps outside the building he lived in.  Four undercover police officers drove by and became suspicious.  They thought his presence strange and he failed to answer their question.  Likely he was curious, then scared and because he spoke poor English started to run.  He reached for something in his pocket and the officers felt it must be a gun.  In a period of seconds, 41 shots were fatally fired.  What Diallo had tried to extract from his pocket was a wallet.  They had misread a lot of signals and fearing for their lives, over reacted.

The Herman Miller company developed a chair, the Aeron that effectively dealt with a problem normal for office chairs, was comfortable and productive, but consumer tests indicated that it scored very low for acceptance.  The studies all ran up against consumers with set notion that comfort comes from padding.  In fact the new design was comfortable without padding and by current sentiments was "ugly".  For many products negative marketing studies kill the product, but Herman Miller went ahead anyway.  It took awhile but it had media placements, won awards and the concept of ugly changed.  For awhile I was involved selling Herman Miller chairs which my employer thought was a high end product..

Acknowledgments are sometimes worth reading to get an insight into the author's motivations.  Malcolm tells the story of when he grew his hair long and started noticing he drew more attention from the police.  A culminating experience was being interrogated for a rape when it was demonstrated the real suspect was taller, heavier and younger.  That prompted him to wonder what triggered their attention. that lead to some research that led to "Blink".

An earlier blog of Malcolm Gladwell:  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2020/01/talking-to-strangers.html

And another:  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2025/03/the-revenge-of-tipping-point.html

An earlier blog was about split second persuasion:  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2012/12/split-second-persuasion.html

A recent blog on the subconscious:  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2025/11/using-your-subconscious-is-key-to.html

 Conclusion:  After reading a few books on the subconscious mind I believe there is a tremendous amount  of information that could be helpful or not.  Well worth examining.