Ava Oyen Sherry Lind English 120 25 April 2024 Automatic Connections In our lives we connect many things and are influenced by them without knowing. These unconscious associations often shape how we think and how we make our decisions. Throughout Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, he makes many valid arguments about thin-slicing and how it can influence our opinions and perspectives. Within his different arguments and examples, we can connect experiences from our own lives and relate them back to the book. In the first chapter of the book, Gladwell talks about Morse code and compares it with marriage. He goes in depth into Morse code and explains how it was used in World War II to communicate orders over …show more content…
It took the people primed with rude words about five minutes to interrupt, but the other people never interrupted. In another test, black students were asked to identify their race on a Graduate Record Examination and “the number of items they got right was cut in half” (56). These tests and many others prove that priming can have a large effect on people’s lives. It can also be used in a negative or positive way. The section of the book that talked about priming made me think about the power that words have. My parents taught me at a very young age that what I say matters and I have the choice to lift others up or speak down to them. I was told to always be kind to others because you never know what they are going through. An encouraging word could brighten their day, while a rude comment could make them feel even more upset. This lesson has stuck with me throughout the years and has also impacted the way I think. I now know that my mindset and what I think about myself can have a large impact. If I go into the day with a negative attitude and tell myself that my classes are going to go badly, I won’t have a good