User:Ervinn/Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

2005 - The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

(Read Dec. 2005)

(This book is about the difference between logical systematic problem solving and the sudden unconscious realization of a solution. This is the fact that each one of us has two minds. The left brain is the logical, verbal, conscious mind and the right brain is the unconscious, emotional brain. The unconscious operates behind a close door. It is working on problems all the time. (unconscious_is_the_right_brain)

Problem solving using the logical mind usually takes a long time. We need to analyze the situation one by one and searching for a solution one by one. Some cases that is too slow in everyday situations. Sometime we need to make a decision, or find a solution to a problem on the blink of the eye. Those cases we use our emotional, right brain, when the solution is flash to our awareness instantly.

Having two minds is sometimes demonstrated by the fact that some women having a clear idea what kind of mate they need, but often they are attracted a guy totally opposite to that. Why? Because, they logical mind has an idea on its own and the emotional mind has its own preference. So a woman preference to a type of man can go back and forth between these two. Initially, the woman has a good idea what type of man she needs, based on her logical brain. But then she meets a guy she likes, she does not know why, probably her right brain likes him. So she changes her mind and now she tells that she likes this kind of man that can be opposite what she said before.

thin-slicing

During communication people give away unwanted clues about them emotional state. Observing married couple for 3-10 minutes, some experts can predict which one will be divorce in the future. The expert is looking at patters, emotional patters during conversation. A weight is given to an emotion and the occurrences of them are counted. Disgust -1, contempt - 2, anger - 7, defensiveness - 10, whining - 11, sadness - 12, stonewalling - 13, neutral - 14.

Sometime having to much information can interfere the accuracy of a judgment, or doctor diagnoses. The task on those cases should be to identify only the relevant information and make a decision on those bases. Let say there are twenty information that could be a factor in the diagnoses, but only three or four are significant, so we should focus on those three and make a decision based on that. The other information is just a noise and can confuse the decision maker. By collection more and more information, just reinforce our judgment but did not help the make it more accurate. That was the case in finding out who has a heart problem in a Hospital Emergency ward...

In Market Research, the opinions of a group of people are asked about a product. I the case of the Coca-Cola company, they've found out that in a sip test, 57% fevered Pepsi. At the same time Pepsi spent less on advertisement, despite of that Pepsi was getting slowly market share. In Coca-Cola company they became scared, so they created a New Coke, and tested it. It the sip taste test, now the New Coke was 10% better, so they got excited and lunched the new product. But it backfired. The Coke fevered people were outraged, and the New Coke did not sell well. So they had to bring back the old coke, under the name of 'Classic-Coke'. The reason of the failure, despite of the sip test was that having a sip from the coke and drink the whole bottle are two different thinks. If they gave one box of coke and one box of Pepsi to person and ask him which one is better, the story was different. They liked coke better.

In a manufacturing company they designed a new chair. When they tested, they've got back feedback the chair was ugly. They lunch it anyway and they got a great success.

Market Research works well when you introduce a new variation of an existing product. When you introduce a new product or something strangely new, you never know if that product will sell or no, market research won't help you much.

Also the right brain is used to mind-read other people. We are always looking for nonverbal communication. By looking at the other person face we can know what the other person is thinking, or if the person is happy or sad or frightened, or hostile. An autistic person can not do this, can not do mind-reading that makes it very difficult for him or her to judge what the other person is thinking. In a very high stress situation, a normal person can be become temporally autistic, that can cause to misjudge the other person motives. In a police pursuit, sometime the policeman because of the high stress can become autistic and can miss interpret the motives of the chased person. Fatal errors can be done in those situations. )