TOW #13 - IRB Blink

    Humans are faced with hundreds of both simple and difficult choices every single day. Ranging from a simple yes or no question to a potentially life changing choices, people are met with decisions that likely take time to answer. However, many of these choices have to be done nearly instantaneously, in a blink of an eye. In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell effectively reveals to everyone "the power of thinking without thinking" by utilizing eye-opening statistics and real-life psychological tests.
    Even without thinking or noticing, human beings make spontaneous choices throughout their lives. When examining CEOs across America, an interesting pattern emerges as "Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent. Even more striking, in the general American population, 3.9 percent of adult men are six foot two or taller. Among my CEO sample, almost a third were six foot two or taller" (87). Despite many modern day companies striving to provide equal wages and opportunities to employers, humans still make decisions without even realizing. Gladwell picks out very compelling statistical evidence to prove that the instantaneous choices that humans make, even if it goes unrecognized, can have a huge consequence.
    Malcolm goes on to reveal the fascinating consequences by actually testing the readers on a real life psychological test.  When giving a seemingly straightforward word unscrambling quiz, Gladwell secretly incorporates words such as "wrinkled", "old", and "gray" into the list of words. The effect of the test draws the audience's attention as the author explains, "You thought that I was just making you take a language test. But, in fact, what I was also doing was making...your adaptive unconscious think about the state of being old" (53).  By engaging the readers through an interactive activity and revealing the unknown effects of the test, Macolm Gladwell shrewdly validates his claim.  Through the interesting psychological test, the readers realize the power of instantaneous unconscious thinking for themselves and the potential effects that it may have in their everyday lives.
    Contrary to popular belief, Gladwell proves that there is great potential in "thinking without thinking" through the integration of notable statistics and surprising psychological tests.