Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Have you ever wondered how we take our decisions? I’m sure that given a choice between “Logical, well reasoned” and “Impulsive, on the spur of the moment”, our answer would, most probably, be the first one. As an intelligent being, we usually take into account all the options presented to us, analyze them, imagine the consequences of all the probable choices and choose the option that gives us the most favourable outcome.
Well, things aren’t always that simple.
Let me present you a puzzle. Remember, no mathematical formula could be of any help to you in getting to the solution. The only thing that you’d need is what you have generally seen so far in your life. So here goes:
A man and his son are in a serious car accident. The father is killed, and the son is rushed to the emergency ward. Upon arrival, the attending doctor looks at the child and gasps “This is my son”! How can the Doctor say something like that?
It could be that you might have heard of this puzzle earlier but did you really wonder, at least for the first couple of seconds, that how this is possible? Or did it strike to you, the moment you read the question, that the Doctor could be a female – the mother of the injured son?
Well, the first Gyan of the year 2006 is also the first of the three articles on Psychology – and specifically, on how we take snap judgments, even without making a conscious, logical attempt to do so. Trust me, I’ll try my best not to make the write up as boring as it may sound when you heard of the word “Psychology”.
The punch line of the book “Blink” penned by Malcolm Gladwell itself is quite catchy: “The power of thinking without thinking” Using day – to – day examples from various fields of life like Art, Business, Police etc., the author presents his ideas in simple English without making much fuss about the jargon.
They say, “First Impression is the last impression” and rightly so. It is in the first meeting that we make most of our observations and conclusions about a person or a thing, in other words “judging book by the cover.” * The brain receives large amount of data through the senses. And it is the brain’s job to make some sense out of this chaotic burst of information. To make this task easier, it tries to search for typical patterns – could be called as a “Preconceptions.” And even when you are trying to think logically, the preconceptions residing in your brain quickly ride over your logical thinking and take a decision. Perhaps, you would have observed it while solving the above puzzle. Of course, these quick decisions can’t be absolutely right or absolutely wrong always.
To start with, the author presents a test. There are two categories: “Male or Career” and “Female or Family”. The test taker is asked to relate the words presented to him with these two categories. These random words include something like: John, Home, Capitalist, Lisa, Kitchen, Corporation, Children etc. In the first run, it takes very less time to relate the words with the categories, putting John and Capitalist in the “Male or Career” category and Lisa or Kitchen in the “Female or Family” category. However, when the categories are changed to “Male or Family” and “Female or Career”, it takes a longer time for the test taker because he/she finds it difficult to relate words like Corporation, Capitalist to “Female or Career” category even when they are related to Career. Same holds true for “Male and Family” as it is hard to correlate words like Home, Kitchen etc. with a Male even when these words are related to Family. I guess, it would have answered your curiosity why you found it a bit difficult to imagine a female to be a doctor because most of the times, we have that preconception that the Doctor has to be a male!
On the similar lines, when we meet a new person, we make our first assumptions by his/her attire and the face. Psychologists have come up with approximately 5000 combinations that the 43 odd face muscles can make. Depending upon the patterns, one can thin slice every facial expression and come up with some conclusions about the nature, habits of an individual. When we meet a person, unconsciously the brain observes and compares these expressions with the ones already present. Of course, it is not always possible for the brain to capture minutest movement of a facial muscle and hence, we tend to make a wrong snap judgment.
When a customer enters a car showroom, the salesperson usually tends to guess his financial conditions, his budget and which car can be sold to him, just by looking at him. The author gives an example of a successful salesperson who refrains himself from guessing about the customer. His experience tells him that even a badly clad gauche could be filthy rich and is sufficiently cashed up to buy the most expensive Car. Losing on such a customer due to early guesses and preconceptions would surely affect the sales. The successful salesperson presents cars to every customer with almost the same interest, without bothering much about their looks as they might be deceiving.
Talk of looks and personality, our image of “Boss” (a respected oneJ) is something of a person with imposing personality, masculine voice and charisma, and usually, we imagine him to be taller than average person. In US, approximately 14.5% of the men are 6 feet or taller. Surprisingly, the same percentage rises to 58% in the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies! Also, there are 3.9% men who are 6 ft 2’ or taller. The same percentage is, however, 33% when it comes to the same group of CEOs. Apart from the fact that these CEOs would surely have the necessary leadership and managerial qualities in them, the preconceived image of a Boss would have really helped them, in a way, to reach that position.
There is other side to the coin, as well. The snap judgments can be really useful and life saving at times. In a Fire Outbreak, a fireman felt that the fire is much serious than what it appeared to be. However, he didn’t notice any clear signs of a major fire. But, as soon as he asked all his colleagues to pull out feeling danger, the building collapsed! The probable reason for his snap judgment was that throughout his career, the fireman’s brain had unconsciously picked up symptoms of fire. In this incident, even when the fire didn’t appear to be quite serious, the senses picked up these subtle hints and set the unconscious mind in action. So, even before the fireman could actually figure out the actual fire, his unconscious mind prompted him of a danger and he quickly pulled out.
When you gather a good amount of experience in doing the same activity, you develop instincts/ gut feeling. Even when you can not give a logical explanation why you took a particular decision, the answer that “I just felt it”, “it just dawned on me” are and should be equally acceptable. They are the proofs that there’s a mind which is continuously running even without you noticing it.
Another example of difference between Systematic/Logical Thinking and Thinking in a blink of an eye:
To test their war preparedness and strategy, US Army set up two teams. One with all the strategy, Data, high end communication equipments etc. (Blue Team) and the other team led by a Vietnam Veteran (Red Team) Red Team was asked to defend the coast of Syria. The Blue team laid out a systematic plan to disable all of the Red Team’s communication equipments and to use satellite images to track the Red Team’s progress. The Red team led by the veteran however used the conventional ways to communicate like sending a dispatch on motorcycle or encoding the message in a prayer, instead of using Mobiles or other high tech gadgets. Also, they deployed fake ships to fool the satellites. Taking a preemptive action, they attacked and captured several ships of the Blue Team and left them surprised. Fortunately, this was only a simulation, had it been an actual war, the Blue team with its plans, Operations Net Assessment and other jargon would have faced high casualty within a short time. The reason for Blue Teams’ defeat is in their way of thinking. In a situation like war where snap judgments are much needed, following a procedure to carry out an order would surely take the precious time and delay the action. Also, they failed to take into account the use of conventional ways and to counterattack to make them ineffective. Whereas, for the Red Team, the veteran had developed a kind of “Gut Feeling / Hunch” that helped him in making quick decisions that changed the course of the war.
To quote Iacocca about gut feeling: while launching a new car or a product, you’d do market survey, research and gather almost 95% of the data that would help you to decide when to launch the product. If you decide to wait for another 6 months for the remaining 5% just to be sure of your decision, the market would have changed by that time and whatever product you thought of introducing in the market would be obsolete even before launching. To compensate for that 5%, you have to use your gut feeling or hunch to decide the best timing to launch the product!
Finally to sum it up all, neither the Logical Thinking nor the Unconscious, Blink – of – eye thinking are perfectly reliable. And the answer to how we think lies partly in both of them. Well, when they say “Listen to your heart”, it could very well be the power of thinking without thinking!
Regards,
Abhishek
*: Customers usually judge a product by the packing. There’s a meat producer named Harmel. On the cover of the container, they just put an image of a natural cascade (spring) between “r” and “m”. The customer relates the image of the spring to “Freshness” of the meat, even when the inside thing could be stale! The principle of not changing a successful brand or packaging lies in this customer psychology. The “New Coke” disaster was also one very good lesson to learn about Branding.
Well, things aren’t always that simple.
Let me present you a puzzle. Remember, no mathematical formula could be of any help to you in getting to the solution. The only thing that you’d need is what you have generally seen so far in your life. So here goes:
A man and his son are in a serious car accident. The father is killed, and the son is rushed to the emergency ward. Upon arrival, the attending doctor looks at the child and gasps “This is my son”! How can the Doctor say something like that?
It could be that you might have heard of this puzzle earlier but did you really wonder, at least for the first couple of seconds, that how this is possible? Or did it strike to you, the moment you read the question, that the Doctor could be a female – the mother of the injured son?
Well, the first Gyan of the year 2006 is also the first of the three articles on Psychology – and specifically, on how we take snap judgments, even without making a conscious, logical attempt to do so. Trust me, I’ll try my best not to make the write up as boring as it may sound when you heard of the word “Psychology”.
The punch line of the book “Blink” penned by Malcolm Gladwell itself is quite catchy: “The power of thinking without thinking” Using day – to – day examples from various fields of life like Art, Business, Police etc., the author presents his ideas in simple English without making much fuss about the jargon.
They say, “First Impression is the last impression” and rightly so. It is in the first meeting that we make most of our observations and conclusions about a person or a thing, in other words “judging book by the cover.” * The brain receives large amount of data through the senses. And it is the brain’s job to make some sense out of this chaotic burst of information. To make this task easier, it tries to search for typical patterns – could be called as a “Preconceptions.” And even when you are trying to think logically, the preconceptions residing in your brain quickly ride over your logical thinking and take a decision. Perhaps, you would have observed it while solving the above puzzle. Of course, these quick decisions can’t be absolutely right or absolutely wrong always.
To start with, the author presents a test. There are two categories: “Male or Career” and “Female or Family”. The test taker is asked to relate the words presented to him with these two categories. These random words include something like: John, Home, Capitalist, Lisa, Kitchen, Corporation, Children etc. In the first run, it takes very less time to relate the words with the categories, putting John and Capitalist in the “Male or Career” category and Lisa or Kitchen in the “Female or Family” category. However, when the categories are changed to “Male or Family” and “Female or Career”, it takes a longer time for the test taker because he/she finds it difficult to relate words like Corporation, Capitalist to “Female or Career” category even when they are related to Career. Same holds true for “Male and Family” as it is hard to correlate words like Home, Kitchen etc. with a Male even when these words are related to Family. I guess, it would have answered your curiosity why you found it a bit difficult to imagine a female to be a doctor because most of the times, we have that preconception that the Doctor has to be a male!
On the similar lines, when we meet a new person, we make our first assumptions by his/her attire and the face. Psychologists have come up with approximately 5000 combinations that the 43 odd face muscles can make. Depending upon the patterns, one can thin slice every facial expression and come up with some conclusions about the nature, habits of an individual. When we meet a person, unconsciously the brain observes and compares these expressions with the ones already present. Of course, it is not always possible for the brain to capture minutest movement of a facial muscle and hence, we tend to make a wrong snap judgment.
When a customer enters a car showroom, the salesperson usually tends to guess his financial conditions, his budget and which car can be sold to him, just by looking at him. The author gives an example of a successful salesperson who refrains himself from guessing about the customer. His experience tells him that even a badly clad gauche could be filthy rich and is sufficiently cashed up to buy the most expensive Car. Losing on such a customer due to early guesses and preconceptions would surely affect the sales. The successful salesperson presents cars to every customer with almost the same interest, without bothering much about their looks as they might be deceiving.
Talk of looks and personality, our image of “Boss” (a respected oneJ) is something of a person with imposing personality, masculine voice and charisma, and usually, we imagine him to be taller than average person. In US, approximately 14.5% of the men are 6 feet or taller. Surprisingly, the same percentage rises to 58% in the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies! Also, there are 3.9% men who are 6 ft 2’ or taller. The same percentage is, however, 33% when it comes to the same group of CEOs. Apart from the fact that these CEOs would surely have the necessary leadership and managerial qualities in them, the preconceived image of a Boss would have really helped them, in a way, to reach that position.
There is other side to the coin, as well. The snap judgments can be really useful and life saving at times. In a Fire Outbreak, a fireman felt that the fire is much serious than what it appeared to be. However, he didn’t notice any clear signs of a major fire. But, as soon as he asked all his colleagues to pull out feeling danger, the building collapsed! The probable reason for his snap judgment was that throughout his career, the fireman’s brain had unconsciously picked up symptoms of fire. In this incident, even when the fire didn’t appear to be quite serious, the senses picked up these subtle hints and set the unconscious mind in action. So, even before the fireman could actually figure out the actual fire, his unconscious mind prompted him of a danger and he quickly pulled out.
When you gather a good amount of experience in doing the same activity, you develop instincts/ gut feeling. Even when you can not give a logical explanation why you took a particular decision, the answer that “I just felt it”, “it just dawned on me” are and should be equally acceptable. They are the proofs that there’s a mind which is continuously running even without you noticing it.
Another example of difference between Systematic/Logical Thinking and Thinking in a blink of an eye:
To test their war preparedness and strategy, US Army set up two teams. One with all the strategy, Data, high end communication equipments etc. (Blue Team) and the other team led by a Vietnam Veteran (Red Team) Red Team was asked to defend the coast of Syria. The Blue team laid out a systematic plan to disable all of the Red Team’s communication equipments and to use satellite images to track the Red Team’s progress. The Red team led by the veteran however used the conventional ways to communicate like sending a dispatch on motorcycle or encoding the message in a prayer, instead of using Mobiles or other high tech gadgets. Also, they deployed fake ships to fool the satellites. Taking a preemptive action, they attacked and captured several ships of the Blue Team and left them surprised. Fortunately, this was only a simulation, had it been an actual war, the Blue team with its plans, Operations Net Assessment and other jargon would have faced high casualty within a short time. The reason for Blue Teams’ defeat is in their way of thinking. In a situation like war where snap judgments are much needed, following a procedure to carry out an order would surely take the precious time and delay the action. Also, they failed to take into account the use of conventional ways and to counterattack to make them ineffective. Whereas, for the Red Team, the veteran had developed a kind of “Gut Feeling / Hunch” that helped him in making quick decisions that changed the course of the war.
To quote Iacocca about gut feeling: while launching a new car or a product, you’d do market survey, research and gather almost 95% of the data that would help you to decide when to launch the product. If you decide to wait for another 6 months for the remaining 5% just to be sure of your decision, the market would have changed by that time and whatever product you thought of introducing in the market would be obsolete even before launching. To compensate for that 5%, you have to use your gut feeling or hunch to decide the best timing to launch the product!
Finally to sum it up all, neither the Logical Thinking nor the Unconscious, Blink – of – eye thinking are perfectly reliable. And the answer to how we think lies partly in both of them. Well, when they say “Listen to your heart”, it could very well be the power of thinking without thinking!
Regards,
Abhishek
*: Customers usually judge a product by the packing. There’s a meat producer named Harmel. On the cover of the container, they just put an image of a natural cascade (spring) between “r” and “m”. The customer relates the image of the spring to “Freshness” of the meat, even when the inside thing could be stale! The principle of not changing a successful brand or packaging lies in this customer psychology. The “New Coke” disaster was also one very good lesson to learn about Branding.
posted by Gyan for the Day! | 6:29 am
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