HardcoverGladwell tackles the subject of "snap judgments," putting forth the theory that our subconscious gut reactions, are more trustworthy than we think. He offers up lots of interesting examples and experiments and I was never bored.
The thing was, though, I didn't feel I learned all that much. There was a lot of "he just knew in a second" but there was also a fair share of "they were wrong and should've taken more time." I'm glad that terrible decisions based on snap judgments e.g. the Diallo killing (racial stereotyping) and the decision to produce New Coke (the Pepsi Challenge) weren't ignored, but it sort of took away the power of his stated intent. Yes, our subconscious often gets it right, but it also often gets it dangerously wrong...so, can we ever really trust the "power of thinking without thinking"?
I was fascinated by plenty of the experiments, though. There's enough here to make it a worthwhile read, even if it didn't totally work as support for the title.
B
