Take a photo of a barcode or cover
diana_eveline 's review for:
Blink
by Malcolm Gladwell
(3.5*)
"Once we know about how the mind works - and about the strengths and weaknesses of human judgement - it is our responsibility to act."
Gladwell uses real-life cases and scenarios to illustrate how much we think without thinking and project judgement onto situations, objects and people around us. Sometimes this judgement is something that we should listen to more, not unlike an inner instinct. On the flip side, there is the dire consequence of responding to this initial judgement too quickly in, for instance, highly stressful situations that police find themselves in.
I struggled a bit with the first half of the book. I think this is largely down to the fact that Gladwell and I differ in opinions on what constitutes racial bias. I was not convinced by "Warren Harding" experiment, because I thought the rapid response test felt shaky in terms of what Gladwell suggests it proves. It felt like the interpretations that Gladwell took away from it suffered too much from a confirmation bias. This is strange, since he appears to take a much more nuanced stance in the influence of race in the case of the shooting of Diallo. I do believe racial bias exists but I was ot convinced by the rapid-response bias test at all.
That said, Gladwell has made an impressive piece of work. I took down the rating by a few stars because, especially in the case of Diallo, the story was told five times over in ever so slightly different ways. That was frustrating and felt a bit pointless. I also think his more nuanced stance that he expressed mostly in the afterword, should have been introduced earlier in the book. Now, it felt a bit more like a coward's move against potential criticism on previous controversial statements. I will pick up more of his work, especially because I think we think too much and should think more about how and why we think ;-P
"Once we know about how the mind works - and about the strengths and weaknesses of human judgement - it is our responsibility to act."
Gladwell uses real-life cases and scenarios to illustrate how much we think without thinking and project judgement onto situations, objects and people around us. Sometimes this judgement is something that we should listen to more, not unlike an inner instinct. On the flip side, there is the dire consequence of responding to this initial judgement too quickly in, for instance, highly stressful situations that police find themselves in.
I struggled a bit with the first half of the book. I think this is largely down to the fact that Gladwell and I differ in opinions on what constitutes racial bias. I was not convinced by "Warren Harding" experiment, because I thought the rapid response test felt shaky in terms of what Gladwell suggests it proves. It felt like the interpretations that Gladwell took away from it suffered too much from a confirmation bias. This is strange, since he appears to take a much more nuanced stance in the influence of race in the case of the shooting of Diallo. I do believe racial bias exists but I was ot convinced by the rapid-response bias test at all.
That said, Gladwell has made an impressive piece of work. I took down the rating by a few stars because, especially in the case of Diallo, the story was told five times over in ever so slightly different ways. That was frustrating and felt a bit pointless. I also think his more nuanced stance that he expressed mostly in the afterword, should have been introduced earlier in the book. Now, it felt a bit more like a coward's move against potential criticism on previous controversial statements. I will pick up more of his work, especially because I think we think too much and should think more about how and why we think ;-P