Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink"
7/17/202558 min
Did you know that in the split-second it took you to read the title of this episode, your subconscious already figured out that it was going to be extremely good?
Peter and Michael talk about Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink," a book that is mostly cute scientific anecdotes but also indirectly resulted in millions of taxpayer dollars being wasted on fraudulent science.
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Sources:
- Unconscious influences on decision making: A critical review
- Half a Minute: Predicting Teacher Evaluations From Thin Slices of Nonverbal Behavior and Physical Attractiveness
- 'Thin slices' of life
- Conditions for Intuitive Expertise: A Failure to Disagree
- Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes
- Magic at the marketplace: Choice blindness for the taste of jam and the smell of tea
- False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant
- Reading Lies: Nonverbal Communication and Deception
- Behavioral Science and Security
- TSA Should Limit Future Funding for Behavior Detection Activities
- TSA Does Not Have Valid Evidence Supporting Most of the Revised Behavioral Indicators Used in Its Behavior Detection Activities
- Telling Lies: Fact, Fiction, and Nonsense
- TSA’s Secret Behavior Checklist to Spot Terrorists
- A Review of 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell
Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMichael Hobbes· Host0:00
Michael.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:00
Peter.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:01
What do you know about Blink?
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:03
All I know is that my first impression of this book was that it was very dumb, and I'm looking forward to hearing about how first impressions are always true.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:10
(instrumental music) All right. The book is Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:26
Heard of it, heard of him.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:28
Big bestseller, at least a few million copies sold. It came out in 2005.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:33
Mm-hmm.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:34
It was the third big Gladwell. His first one was The Tipping Point. Then you had Outliers, which we did an episode on. And then you get Blink, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.
Peter Shamshiri· Host0:45
Boom.
Michael Hobbes· Host0:46
This is also the first Gladwell book, I think just based on my sort of casual perusal, to get some very negative early reviews. I think there was, like, a good number of people at this point who were getting wise to the shallowness of the pop science airport book genre.
Peter Shamshiri· Host1:04
Yeah. This is, this is at the time when, like, four of the top ten TED Talks are just, like, thoroughly debunked. (laughs) I'm sorry, grit is not a thing.
Michael Hobbes· Host1:12
It- I guess it's sort of perfect for me, because I am ever a contrarian. And I guess the twist here is that I kind of like this book. I think- (laughs) Yeah. I think this book is pretty good.
Peter Shamshiri· Host1:22
I think we should talk about your complicated feelings on this, 'cause you've been agonizing about this episode for, like, weeks.
Michael Hobbes· Host1:26
I have. I expected this book to be