Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Posted on April 24th, 2005
This book was as interesting and enjoyable a read as The Tipping Point, but smaller and faster. Which is entirely appropriate to the subject at hand: the subconscious thinking that instinct, premonition, and first impressions are made of.
Gladwell points out that we normally put a premium on conscious decision making, as betrayed by expressions like "Haste makes waste" or "Don't judge a book by its cover." But that's pretty much the opposite of what you're likely to do in stressful or emergency situations. You don't exactly have time or inclination for anything else, at least consciously.
Some of the most compelling evidence Gladwell presents have to do with frame-by-frame analysis of facial expressions. The technique is called "thin slicing": in the case of an experiment recording the interactions between couples, it involves tracking the most minute changes to what's on the subjects' faces as they interact with one another. The most subtle muscle contractions that would otherwise never even register with most people's conscious perception turn out to provide giant clues about what people mean or feel versus what they say or do. So much so that with enough analysis, the psychologist running the experiment can predict whether a given couple will stay together or split apart.
There are lots of other settings where thin slicing comes up-- Gladwell is looking at the hows and whys of what happens when instinctual thinking goes wrong in addition to how they can be used to advantage. But the facial expressions were the most provocative thing that I took away from the book, if only because they offer the tantalizing lure of heightened awareness. If you train hard enough, apparently, you too can learn to understand what it means when a particular muscle near someone's eye contracts, or when they raise an eyebrow just so, or any of numerous combinations.
I wouldn't say that Blink offers any direct advice on channeling your instinctual thinking, beyond whatever takeaways you get from his numerous examples or the otherwise obvious notion of trusting your instincts-- to a point. But it does make the idea of mind reading much more believable-- you literally can "read" someone provided you are perceptive enough, and you know what to look for.