Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking Paperback – April 3, 2007

Interesting, but could've been written in 30 pages. Look up a summary online instead; spend your time on more practical material

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Chris

April 16, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book touches on a brilliant idea: we make decisions rapidly, even if we can't always explain exactly HOW we make those decisions. Gladwell does an excellent job at providing evidence to back up his claims. Really... he provides a plethora of examples to support these claims. In my opinion, WAY too many examples.

I'm a bottom-line kind of person and I don't read for fun; I read to gain applicable knowledge. Gladwell proved his concept in the first 30-50 pages and that was good enough for me. He then proceeded to continue proving the concept for another 200 pages. I hardly learned how to actually apply the concepts of rapid-cognition from this book and I'm annoyed at how much of my time was wasted. I wish he proved the concept in 30-50 pages and followed it up with actual ways to take advantage of that concept.

This book verified something that I believed to be true (rapid-cognition) without providing ways to practically exploit the theory. I'm not buying anything else of Gladwell's, but I would recommend looking up the sparknotes/summary of this book.

63 people found this helpful

Wow! Just Wow! Engaging Read You Won't Want to Put Down!

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becky6703

October 14, 2016

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This is a read for an Ethics and the Media class. Mind-blowing! Truly a fantastic read and I feel like I learned a lot about how different types of thinking give us better results in different scenarios. The stories within are fascinating and the entire class raved about our favoritess and how incredible the processes worked. Really makes you look at the world differently, and it a good way. A classmate had read another Gladwell title - I am excited to find that this author has more to read - I will definitely be checking out his other titles! I have loaned my copy to several friends who have all been just as impressed. Fantastic read for sure!

10 people found this helpful

Blink your way to acting right, but only if your personality is up to the task

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Justin Time

November 14, 2015

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They say that quick-thinking people can instinctively make the right (or best possible decisions) in any situation. The key is paradoxically not to dwell and ponder for more than a very short time. Sort of "May the power be with you" moment when ironically you make the right decision without any procedural/sequential thinking.
This book covers that state of mind in a fun and thorough fashion with examples of how we can act under various scenarios and also be satisfied with what we did when we look back on an event.
However, the trick to be able to operate that way comes from much deeper - you have to have the right personality - or develop one - that is calm, self-reliant and self-trusting. Being the type that is 'sorry' for this and that, or complaining about anything at all, is not one that can generate good 'blink speed' decisions.

22 people found this helpful

Worse, these experts should have at least eventually been ...

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Walter K.

June 24, 2017

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Intuition is a valuable tool, for certain, but intuition is informed by by the information and experience in your brain. Art experts and historians, to use the first chapter as an example, might have correctly noticed something was off about the statue, but they could only do this because of their years of study. It would have been worthless to lean on the intuition of a group of non-experts to determine if the Kouros statue was a fake. Worse, these experts should have at least eventually been able to articulate how they came to their conclusions. Relying solely on intuition can only get you about halfway to any conclusion.

Worse yet, if you don't understand the nature of your intuition, you will fail to predict instances where it is wholly incorrect and uninformed.

I regret buying the pop science novella, and the only silver lining here is that people who are foolish enough to believe that Blink can revolutionize how they think are probably too unintelligent to rely on anything other than intuition.

11 people found this helpful

more greatness from Gladwell

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Reid McCormick

December 31, 2013

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“When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.” –Sigmund Freud

What’s better: long, thought out decisions or quick, snap judgments? We have always been told not to judge a book by its cover, but at times our unconscious conclusions are more accurate. Malcolm Gladwell carefully investigates the power (both good and bad) of quick thinking. This is an extremely interesting book that will challenge the way you think – and don’t think.

What can I say about Malcolm Gladwell that I haven’t said before? He takes the simplest topics, he digs down deep to find amazing complexity, simplifies the finding, all while entertaining us. From the moment I picked up this book, I didn’t want to put it down.

7 people found this helpful

The Key to Unconscious Bias

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Cullen Collier

In the era when many are speaking about topics such as implicit bias, and racial priming, I found this book to be very educational in terms of the research based evidence that it...Read more

Published 7 days ago

Jets

Interesting

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Nathalie Marinho

Five Stars

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Reasonably Rich

Riveting from cover to cover!

I recommend Blink to anyone who makes complicated decisions, which is most people in modern society. Gladwell’s findings are very surprising and extremely fun to read about.Read more

Published 13 days ago

Lexie

Five Stars

Engaging and thought-provoking.

Published 22 days ago

Shane Smeltzer

Must read

Good book.

Malcolm Gladwell is a phenomenal author who can easily captive your attention with his easy-to-understand message and descriptive examples.

Amazon Customer

A Great Author!

Ronald L. Charlton

Excellent

I absolutely love this book and have sent copies to many friends.

Richard Brown

Five Stars

This is one of the most insightful books I have read. Much of it discusses why we can trust our intuition.Read more

Incredibly well written