Title: Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking
Author: Malcom Gladwell
Genre: Non-fiction phsychology/behavioral science
Pages: 320
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Gladwell sets out to examine how our brain reacts when there is not time to completely analyze the facts. He finds, counter-intuitively, that decisions made on the spur of the moment, with less than full information, can often be better than deliberate, well-informed choices.
Thoughts: I loved this book. I enjoyed it more than Freakonomics (see review below), and in my opinion his findings are even more surprising than Levitt and Dubner's are. In Blink, we learn about a curator who was able to glance at a sculpture and identify it, correctly, as a fraud, even after all of the scientific testing showed it to be authentic. We also meet a tennis coach who could always tell when a player was about to double-fault (20 times out of 20), but didn't know how he knew it. There are dozens of other examples. Perhaps what I liked most about the book was that it wasn't just a one-sided argument that in-the-blink-of-an-eye decisions are best. In fact, he spends a lot of time telling about people who make the wrong instantaneous decision. Instead of focusing just on his interesting findings, Gladwell tells us when to trust our instincts, and when we should doubt them.
Disclaimer: There is one section of the book that has the transcript of a crime taking place. There are several serious swear words in this part. Other than that, it is clean.
Author: Malcom Gladwell
Genre: Non-fiction phsychology/behavioral science
Pages: 320
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Gladwell sets out to examine how our brain reacts when there is not time to completely analyze the facts. He finds, counter-intuitively, that decisions made on the spur of the moment, with less than full information, can often be better than deliberate, well-informed choices.
Thoughts: I loved this book. I enjoyed it more than Freakonomics (see review below), and in my opinion his findings are even more surprising than Levitt and Dubner's are. In Blink, we learn about a curator who was able to glance at a sculpture and identify it, correctly, as a fraud, even after all of the scientific testing showed it to be authentic. We also meet a tennis coach who could always tell when a player was about to double-fault (20 times out of 20), but didn't know how he knew it. There are dozens of other examples. Perhaps what I liked most about the book was that it wasn't just a one-sided argument that in-the-blink-of-an-eye decisions are best. In fact, he spends a lot of time telling about people who make the wrong instantaneous decision. Instead of focusing just on his interesting findings, Gladwell tells us when to trust our instincts, and when we should doubt them.
Disclaimer: There is one section of the book that has the transcript of a crime taking place. There are several serious swear words in this part. Other than that, it is clean.
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