Often, the snap judgments we make about a person are as accurate as if we had observed that person for much longer periods. We work with, in effect, two brains: the one that has to deliberate over things, analyze and categorize and the one that sizes things up first and asks questions later. Much of our functioning occurs without us having to consciously think, and we move back and forth between conscious and unconscious modes of thought. In life-threatening situations, humans needed to be able to make accurate snap judgments based on the available information. The ability to come to lightning-quick conclusions, Gladwell notes, evolved for the sake of survival.

Gladwell's talent is for weaving together scientific research findings from fields as diverse as sociology, psychology, criminology and marketing with an anecdotal style to create new ways of looking at things for the popular reader.īlink, Gladwell's follow-up bestseller to The Tipping Point, is a more purely psychological work, leaning on the research of Timothy Wilson, a professor at the University of Virgininia who has written about the 'adaptive unconscious', that part of our minds which can lead us to good decisions even though we don't know how we make them and Gary Klein, a cognitive psychologist who is an expert on how people arrive at decisions under pressure.īlink is an attempt to bring to the public's eye this emerging area of psychology, rapid cognition, that has received little popular attention.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Blink psychology book