Skip to main content

THE BLINK




TITLE: THE BLINK
AUTHOR: MALCOM GLADWELL

‘A book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in the blink of an eye. When you meet someone for the first time or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump into a series of conclusions.’


 The blink is a book about the psychology of snap judgment otherwise known as first impression judgment. The proper word use for this in Psychology is thin-slicing. 

Thin slicing simply means that we can make a sense of a situation base on the thinnest slice of experience. For instance, the author gave an example of a situation in which you want to know who a person is really Is. 

What if you get close to the person and ensure you see him daily? This sound great right! But the truth is you may not get the exact thing you want to know about him, or you end up being biased about your judgment of him. 

This is called thick-slicing. But what of a situation, you are just allowed to observe their body language, or facial expressions or mere looking at their bookshelves and the picture on their walls. Our years of experience in a particular field can also enhance our power of thin-slicing in such a field. 

Because unknowingly we have some information stored in our unconscious mind concerning what we are thin-slicing.  However, oftentimes people are unable to explain their snap judgment. It’s something going behind the locked door of the unconscious. 

You are making a whole lot of error if your snap judgement is based on religion, color or race. But if you can get rid of these feelings your judgment will be reasonable

But we also must be careful not to misinterpret our feelings while making first impressions. This is one of the disadvantages of first impressions. The author called it Warren Harding error: while we fall for tall, dark and handsome. Warren Harding is one of the worst president America ever had.

 He was elected into the white house in 1920. He is tall, dark and handsome. The was even an instance when he met a man for the first time, and the man's first impression about him was that he would be made a good president.  

When he contested, he pulled crow because of his physique. The people voted for his stature. And they made their first impression about him based on his height and stature. 


Also when we see something unique, different from what we used to, we have this impression that it’s not good. This is simply because they seem to be unusual. 


Our mentality can also affect our snap judgment. For instance, the author got the idea of the blink because of what happened to him when he decided to grow his hair wild. ‘He said he started getting pulled out of airport security lines for special attention. 

He got police pulled up beside him, and the policemen said a rapist they were looking for look a lot like him.’ All because of his hairstyle. 



 I also learn that I don’t need a whole lot of information to make a better snap judgment. Above all, while making a snap judgment, I must ensure I let go of the prejudice of religion, color or race.


  Because they impair our first impression judgment.

ODUNAYOSAMUEL A

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IT MATTER

IT MATTER! The topic to be discussed today is ‘it matter’, but the question is, what matters? Join me as we look into this deeply.  When I was in secondary school my Agricultural science teacher taught us then GERMINATION and the factor responsible for growth. Some of the factors are: viable seeds, moisture or water, nutrient (soil) and air (oxygen) When I meditatively considered these factors I realized that not even one out of them is un-important. If any of them isn’t available then the seed growth or germination is in jeopardy. Applying this into our lives’ journey as humans, it is evident that some factors also responsible for our own growth in every endeavors of life. Some take this serious while some others don’t.  When I say growth I do not mean increase in the number of age. Neither do I mean increase in stature. We grow in business, career, and ministry and so on. For us to grow in life we need to take these factors seriously. For instance the viability of th
3 comments
Read more

MY LOCAL FRIEND

                                                               We started this series last week when we talked about ‘lessons from a game of football.’ The capsule overview of last week post is the fact that in a game of football they have a common goal, which is to win. And we established that if at all victory would be their friend then there is a need for them to work as a team. Here is a personal experience shared by a very good friend of mine: I have many friends both in my town and neighboring town. Some of them are educated while some are not. There was a time I went for a conference outside my town. I met new friends at the conference whose exposure transcend some of my friends at home. I needed to get their contacts but both my subscriber identity module (SIM) and phone storage were completely full. A thought cropped up in my mind to delete two of those my friends’ contact. I wanted to delete two numbers, a guy number who was a drop out of secondary school and one ot
4 comments
Read more

SEEDS

I remember when I started teaching as a side hustle. I didn't really take it serious. The first student I encountered,  just walk up to me for asistance, and I taught him at no cost. The last time I met him, he is already a graduate. After I graduated from the university I taught in one, two, three or four places. But those seeds I sowed then jokingly have become trees, I mean  big trees. Just last month I met two of my students in one of the reputable university in Nigeria; one is studying Chemical engineer and the other Computer science. Those were the one I taught between 2017 and 2018. Some of the students I taught between 2015 and 2016 had graduated from universities while some are in their final year. Some of my students are still in secondary schools and they are doing fine. I have students that are not in school but follow their passion either as singers, comedian, etc. and they are as well doing fine. Why am I telling you this? Is it for show, or perhaps to
5 comments
Read more