Blink Malcolm Gladwell

My book, Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, is largely based on discussing the ability for people to discover what is really important from a narrow period of experience. Throughout the book, Gladwell uses many different examples to show how people have been able to rely on little information to come to a better conclusion than if they relied on more information. As a result, the major debatable issues that arises from this book is weather this practice of making conclusions from a small amount of data is actually effective and weather being able to make these conclusions is a learned or natural ability.

Out of the two issues, the first one seems to be the most important debatable issue of the book because it encompasses what is said in every chapter. While this practice that Gladwell calls “thin slicing” has it’s obvious advantages, there are also many pitfalls to it. For instance, while Gladwell demonstrates that having too much information can interfere with the accuracy of judgment, he also touches upon the fact that the practice of “thin slicing” also contributes to us having stereotypes of people and groups. Gladwell states that an experts ability to “thin slice” can be corrupted by likes and dislikes, prejudice and stereotypes, and the possibility of being overloaded with too much information.

My personal take on the issue of “thin slicing” is that it is effective to an extent. I believe that the people who are experts at it can use it quite effectively. However, when people who have no knowledge of it, attempt to do it, they usually do not yield the same results. This is because the practice itself is a very meticulous one that requires the person to decipher which bits of the information are important and should be analyzed. However, when a expert is able to find this out, than the process of “thin slicing” becomes a very effective method because it is free of extraneous information that might corrupt the overall data.