Summary Of Blink By Malcolm Gladwell

Today's world is primarily based on facts. People believe that anything that has higher factual and scientific data has more legitimacy than the data with limited information. The legitimacy of any claims is totally based on the extent of information related to the field. However, that may not always be the case, and sometimes higher level of information related to any subject may cause the person to be confused and makes it harder for them to take any decision. In Blink, author Malcolm Gladwell brings the same concept in his book. He claims that extraneous information regarding any subject hinders a proper decision of a person. The book is solely based on the theme of judgment and the ways various events are to be dealt. According to Gladwell,

When a person is accustomed to a lot of information before taking a decision, it confuses him/her because he/she is then subjected to numerous possibilities and consequences that his/her decision could result. Instead, a limited information would help the decision-maker to focus on his/her decision and act appropriately rather than getting second thoughts. As in the Paul Van Riper's victory in the Millenium Challenge, Paul's success was only possible because he didn't know much about the Blue Team he was competing with. When Blue Team, who had greater intellectual resources required to conquer another team, was busy analyzing their moves, Read Team that was led by Riper attacked Blue Team surprisingly and their moves were different from what the Blue Team had spent its time analyzing (105). Here, the "unpredictability" turned out to be a suitable judgment for Paul Riper. He believed more on his instincts and made quick decisions because he knew that Blue Team had more resources than them and they would be busy on papers rather than on the field. Similar was the case in the war of Chancellorsville (Gladwell 256). Hooker had a great army and was highly confident that he would win the battle as he had everything planned like hot air balloons at his disposal; he had a network of spies throughout the Confederate Army; he had a high number of men and artillery pieces than Lee (Gladwell 257). He had

When Harry Daughtery thought that Warren Harding would make a great President by his physique and personality, he turned out to be the worst one (Gladwell 73). People have to know on which aspect the thin-slicing is to be done. When Harding was thought to make a great President, people had to thin-slice his principles and his visions rather than his outer look which caused them to get one of the worst presidents ever. When Kenna’s track was made to listen to the radio audience, many people didn’t like it (Gladwell 152). It was because they had just heard the snippet and not the whole track. In the case of Diallo Shooting, the blunder of thin-slicing was at the peak. But all of these incidents were the result of people having no proper idea of snap- judgments. When Kenna's music was surveyed, people should have got a chance to listen to the whole song before they could judge the song’s relevance. Snap judgments don’t mean that they had to decide within an incomplete lyric but decide quickly after the lyrics enough to give meaning. Coke should also have surveyed people by asking them to drink the whole can rather than letting them decide in a single sip. They could have been asked quickly after the drink rather than asking them to sip. When policeman saw Diallo in the streets at night, they thought that a black man in the dark street was waiting to commit a crime. They even didn’t see Diallo’s face to analyze whether he