Blink Malcolm Gladwell Summary

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is a book detailing what happens in a person’s brain as they make split-second decisions and judgements, and how they are not nearly as simple as they seem. Gladwell’s second book contains stories of several researchers, psychologists, and businesses, including John Gottman, a psychologist who has learned to determine whether a marriage will fail or survive in the next fifteen years after a mere thirty minutes of observation, and researcher Paul Ekman, who has spent years of his life dedicated to the art of “mind reading,” which is actually called thin slicing. Using this method, he takes what are called micro expressions and then is able to predict what a person is thinking or feeling. Gladwell’s book offered a plethora of interesting information on psychology. While his language was scientifically accurate, it was still easy to follow and understand. There were some sections that used technical terms, especially the chapter entitled “Seven Seconds in the Bronx,” which used the scientifically correct terms for facial muscles while describing microexpressions. Other than that small portion of the book, Gladwell’s

In Blink, Gladwell provided many examples of people’s experiences with thin slicing. One example that I enjoyed was the Coke versus Pepsi argument. In this segment of the book, Gladwell wrote about how while Pepsi is a much sweeter drink and performs much better in a sip test, Coke is the more popular drink. This is because after some time, many people think that Pepsi is too sweet a drink and cannot finish the entire bottle or can, whereas though Coke has a sharper taste to it, the majority of people can handle drinking an entire can or bottle of