Ximing Yu
Ming Yang
Blink: The Power of
Thinking Without Thinking
Malcolm Gladwell
2016/3/18
Slide #1
Ximing Yu
Blink
Chapter 1-3
2016/3/18
Slide #2
The Statue That Didn’t Look Right
• Getty Kouros
Thin Slicing
• Thin Slicing: Our ability to gauge what is really
important from a very narrow period of
experience.
• Spontaneous decisions are often as good as—
or even better than—carefully planned and
considered ones.
Thin Slicing
• The Love Lab
– After analyzing a normal conversation between a
husband and wife for an hour, Gottman can
predict whether that couple will be married in 15
years with 95% accuracy.
– If he analyzes them for 15 minutes, his accuracy
diminishes to 90%.
Thin Slicing
• The Secrets of The Bedroom
– Five dimensions to measure people: Extraversion,
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional
stability, Openness to new experiences.
– Friends can describe us fairly accurately.
– However, strangers may end up doing a much
better job in judging us.
Snap Judgments
• Snap judgments are enormously quick
• They rely on the thinnest slices of experience
• They are also unconscious.
Snap Judgment
• Double fault
– Vic Braden able to predict double fault twenty out
of twenty.
Snap Judgment
• “worried”, “Florida”, “old”, “lonely”, “gray”,
“bingo”, and “wrinkle”
• Making the big computer of brain, adaptive
unconscious, think about the state of being
old.
• Then you act old  Walk slowly.
The Warren Harding Error
• Warren Harding
– 29th President of the United States
– In office:
March 4, 1921 – August 2, 1923
Male
Female
…………………………John……………………………
…………………………Bob……………………………
…………………………Amy……………………………
…………………………Derek……………………………
…………………………Peggy……………………………
Male
Female
Career
Family
…………………………John……………………………
…………………………Laundry……………………………
…………………………Amy……………………………
…………………………Merchant……………………………
…………………………Entrepreneur…………………………
Male
Female
Family
Career
…………………………John……………………………
…………………………Laundry……………………………
…………………………Amy……………………………
…………………………Merchant……………………………
…………………………Entrepreneur…………………………
Ming Yang
Blink
Chapter 4-6
2016/3/18
Slide #14
Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per
cent perspiration. Accordingly, a ‘genius’ is often merely a
talented person who has done all of his or her homework.
-- Thomas Edison (1929)
2016/3/18
Slide #15
Paul Van Riper’s Big Victory:
Creating Structure for Spontaneity
• Paul Van Riper is a retired officer of the united States
Marines Corps. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of
Directions for the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.
• He was asked to play the rogue commander of Red in the
war game of Millennium Challenge ’02.
• He won the first round of the war game using old methods
to evade Blue’s sophisticated electronic surveillance network.
• He said: “ When we talk about analytic versus intuitive
decision making, neither is good or bad. What is bad is if you
use either of them in an inappropriate circumstance.”
2016/3/18
Slide #16
Two Important Lessons
• Truly successful decision making relies on a
balance between deliberate and instinctive
thinking.
• In good decision making, frugality matters. To
be successful decision makers, we have to
reduce it to its simplest elements which can
be recognizable and used to make snap
judgments.
Kenna’s Dilemma:
The Right and Wrong Way to Ask People What They Want
• Rock musician from Ethiopian immigrant
• Before releasing his first album, music market research
firm played his songs on the radio try to appeal audience.
• However, the conclusion was blunt: “Kenna, as an artist,
and his songs lack a core audience and have limited
potential to gain significant radio airplay.” And Kenna’s
once promising career suddenly stalled.
• When Kenna ran into Paul McGuiness, the manager of
U2, his promising career restarted.
• His songs aspire to U2's uplifting, grandiose themes,
and he's one of the few pop artists to have Bjork's gift for
putting melodies over a wide range of rhythms and time
signatures.
Pepsi’s Challenge
• It is complicated to find out want people really think.
• The Blind Leading the Blind
Important lessons
• Market research isn’t always right. But testing
products or ideas that are truly revolutionary
is another matter, and the most successful
companies are those that understand that in
those cases, the first impressions of their
consumers need interpretation.
• It is the new and different that is always most
vulnerable to market research.
Conclusion
• The power of thinking without thinking lies in
the intuition and inspiration properly utilized
in your decision making.