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Sunday, July 30
Blink, Chapter 2: The Locked Door
This chapter reinforces the fact that snap judgements (based on "thin slicing" mentioned below) are unconscious - behind a locked door in our brain. It's difficult to trust judgements that come from such a mysterious place, but we inevitably fail when trying to explain the thought process that led to a decsion.
As quickly as you can, make a four-word sentence out of each set:
- him was worried she always
- shoes give replace old the
- ball the throw toss silently
- sky the seamless gray is
- us bingo sing play let
John Bargh devised this test, and used it to prove that the unconscious mind can be "primed." People would walk down a long hallway, sit down at a table, do a test like the one above, and then walk back down the hallway more slowly than they walked in. The words "worried," "old," "gray," and "bingo" caused them to think about the state of being old, and they acted accordingly.
Gladwell also uses speed-dating as an example of how dating can be distilled to a simple snap judgement, which helps explain its recent growth in popularity. But if you try to look behind the locked door and ask people to explain their choices, it gets confusing. Two professors from Columbia University had speed-daters rate what they are looking for in a potential partner before, after, and months after the speed-dating. They found that answers changed to match people they connected with (unconscious preferences), but eventually shifted back to the original "conscious ideal"
72 pages down, 182 to go - I better pick up the pace!
posted by Brad at 7/30/2006 09:23:00 PM | permalink |
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