Blink Jessy Hart Senior Seminar The first theme that is introduced is thin slicing.

Being so focused on the big picture you fail to see the little pictures that makes up the big picture. The theory of thin slicing, looking at all the little pieces that make up the bigger picture. The little things can be listening to the way things are said, for example in Gottmans love lab what is being said doesnt matter as much as how it is being said. The SPAFF coding system is made up of different categories of emotions that a couple may express in a conversation such as contempt, anger, neutral, ect. The way people say things in a conversation, such as contempt, can be used as a predictive pattern of behavior. Dr. Gottman uses the SPAFF coding system, especially the emotion of contempt to make predictions if a couple will be married 15 years down the line. Samuel Gosling also showed how thin slicing can be used to judge some ones personality just by looking at their dorm room. He had people look at dorm rooms for 15 minutes to get a hunch about that person looking at: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to new experiences. The observers were able to give a good description of the person that lived in that room and they like Dr. Gottman became more skilled at their predictions made through thin slicing. Sometimes we forget its the little things we say or do that makes up the bigger picture or gives a larger predictive power, too much information over a longer period of time will not necessarily give a better prediction than a prediction created from thin slicing. A second main point is the Warren Harding Error, it shows the dark side of thin slicing, when the instincts we have lead us falsely. As shown in the Implicit Association Test (IAT)

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shows how unconscious attitudes may be incompatible with our stated conscious values. People are not always consciously aware of bias or preference given to a certain person or another. This was observed in the 1920 presidency, of President Harding, he looked like a senator so he became a senator but then he was put up for election as president and he looked like a president even though he was not the most qualified or intelligent candidate. Another example is the car salesmen who discriminated differently between Caucasian and African American as well as male or female. The salesmen gave Caucasian males the lowest price while African American males received the highest price. Social influences could be the strongest influences on why the thin slicing may not be as good of a predictive factor when we know too much information or see what is social acceptable. The cultural and social acceptance will influence how people will observe situations with some bias towards what is culturally acceptable. A third main theme is the gut feeling, the unconscious mind knowing something long before the conscious mind is able to say what it is. The first example of this is the kouros statue; everyone was able to say that it did not appear right, something to them just was wrong for what it was. The unconscious mind was able to tell something was different about this sculpture but the conscious mind is unable to say what or why. When playing the card game with 4 decks, 2 red and 2 blue, the risks are bigger with the red decks but it also has a larger pay out; but the only way to win the game is to use the blue decks. Consciously at first even before you have a hunch you begin to know you dont want to use the red decks, subconsciously your mind knows that you dont want the red decks and sends signals to the conscious mind such as sweaty palms. It takes the conscious mind a lot longer to be able to find the reason for the gut feeling that they had on wanting the blue decks. Braden the tennis player became able to predict or know when a player was going to double fault, at first it was just a gut feeling but he learned to understand

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why he knew that the player was going to double fault. It takes the conscious mind longer to understand things compared to the unconscious mind, which gives us a gut feeling on some things. The fourth and final theme is the listening with your eyes. Humans are highly dependent on their sight in interpretation and judgments but sight also gives us the ability to allow prejudices to counteract our other senses. In the case of Abbie Conant the trombone player, in her screened audition the judges were able to hear that she was a good player; they wanted her in the orchestra. The auditions are thin slicing moments, it does not take more than a few seconds to be able to tell if a player is good or not. The screen is what saved her and was the reason why the judges wanted that player but once Celibidache saw her as a woman; all those long-held prejudices began to compete with the winning first impression. The screen allowed first impressions to be made only with ears, there was no way to tell which players were male or female in the newer audition processes because it was seen that women can play just as well as men. When the new screening process began the orchestra began to have a lot more women players because it was heard that they can play just as well as the men, while the revolution of the gender was not reviled until after the process had taken place. The first few moments when we first lay our eyes on someone unconscious prejudice or stereotypes come to play before we know anything about someone. As the title of the chapter says listening with your eyes is so important, not letting your predisposed judgments cloud what you can actually see and hear.

Name and explain the connection between two case examples in the book and concepts you have studied in your course work in Psychology.

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Two related case studies that relate are the love lab and speed dating. The subconscious signals we give out as well as the way something is said influences interactions between people. In introduction to clinical psychology we talked about the subconscious signals people give in the way their facial structure changes as they say something as well as how they are saying something. The love lab looked directly at the emotions that were being displayed by couples in small amounts of time and coding them to give predictive power if they will be married 15 years down the line, the emotion of contempt is the main emotion used in this predictive power. Iyengar and Fisman studied speed dating, they revealed that what the speed daters said they wanted and what they were actually attracted to did not match when compared. It was impossible to tell just by looks if people would hit it off, because it wasnt about only how someone looked but how they talked. We also discussed attractiveness in Motivation and Emotion of what is normally defined in our culture of attractiveness using facialmetrics. For example in women we look for neonatal features (large, wide eyes, small nose), sexual maturity (high cheekbones, thinner face, full lips), expressiveness (smile height and width, raised eyebrows). While with males facialmetrics look for sexual maturity (high cheekbones, thinner face, thicker eyebrows, and prominent chin) and Expressiveness (smile height and width). The facial attractiveness and how someone says something has a lot to do with attraction seen in speed dating because facialmetrics and thin slicing can be seen and observed very quickly during the short dating time.

Explain at least one connection between a concept you have learned in a course other than psychology and a concept case example in the text.

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In History of Sacred Music we talked a lot about how all music used to be sung by men and usually only men played instruments because women were not as capable of playing them. The bias towards men only in music dates far back in modern humanity, womens voices were seen as distracting and not a way to the lord so women were not allowed to sing in the choirs or canter in most catholic churches until more of the modern era. Any instrumentals allowed in the church were always played by men, not women. The bias towards male musicians was seen in the listening with your eyes chapter with the national symphony orchestra. Although there was a screened audition they assumed the new trombone player was male due to the bias that males are better at playing instruments especially instruments that are considered more masculine instruments. With just listening to the instruments it is impossible to tell if a musician is male or female because gender does not differentiate someones playing ability. The bias that males are the performers is not as prevalent today but in our history it was more prevalent that playing most instruments where for males only. The bias from the past still can hinder us today, blind auditioning is a good way to allow for better judgment of a players ability without hindrances of gender or race.

The author talks both about variables that impair our ability to solve problems and the loss of ability to know our own minds. After reading the authors explanation for these two phenomena what can you do differently in your own life to make better judgments and solve problems? I feel that in making judgments and problem solving sometimes we become to overwhelmed with data. Such as the example of the Heart attack clinic there was so much

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unneeded information being gathered to try and determine where a patient needs to go. We need to get to know ourselves and be able to tell when we have enough information for us to make a good judgment than compared to having too much information. The overwhelming amount of information we gather is a variable that can hinder or cloud our judgment and decision making skills. Sometimes I feel as though to better understand our minds we have to remove ourselves from the view of the situation we have and look at it from all possible options because the mindset we have can change how we will react in that situation. In the seven seconds in the Bronx chapter with Carroll and his fellow officers they were in the mindset that they are in a dangerous neighborhood and the man seemed to be pulling out a gun, on first instinct of what they were primed for and the mindset of what might happen clouded their judgment. If they had been able to take a step back and look at the situation of what might be happening perhaps the situation may have not occurred. Although this is also being seen in hindsight, which you can only learn from what happened you cannot go back and say they should have one this instead in that moment. Learning how our mind reacts in stressful situations can help make future situations easier to make judgments on or problem solve.

What is the meaning of the title of the book blink? The title blink I feel is most fitting because the book reflects on that first few seconds of a situation just before we blink. Those few seconds are where most of our judgments are made on a situation. Such situations include meeting someone for the first time, hearing music, entering a new situation, talking to someone, there are so many situations in which snap judgments or unconscious thought come into play long before the conscious mind is aware of it. The few

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seconds before we blink, are so powerful and can have many repercussions if you let it be the only deciding factor.

What is the most surprising thing you learned about yourself from this book? I did not learn much about myself reading this book; I realize how powerful the subconscious mind is in our everyday interactions. Sometimes there are things that I cannot remember doing but subconsciously my mind still knows how to do it although I will have no conscious memory of ever doing it. I always try to be very aware of any judgments or bias I may have towards a person, I never try to judge anyone especially based on how they look. I usually have very good instincts when it comes to people but that is because I am normally very observant of behaviors, nonverbal cues, and subconscious word emphasizing people make. I do realized that I sometimes gather to much information on certain situations but that is because I like to be able to look at situations from all angles and possibilities before making any decisions. I try to be very logical in my reasoning and decision making and try very hard not to rush into situations unprepared for possible situations. When dealing with people I prefer to not only listen to what they are saying as well as how they are saying their words, it can say a lot about them as well as any facial movements that are paired with certain words. Our subconscious is very powerful in shaping how we act and react to situations, this book is a reminder to all the power that it may have in our lives.