Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

In the previous chapter, I wrote about the experiments conducted by John Bargh in which he showed that we have such powerful associations with certain words (for example, “Florida,” “gray,” “wrinkles,” and “bingo”) that just being exposed to them can cause a change in our behavior. I think that there are facts about people’s appearance—their size or shape or color or sex—that can trigger a very similar set of powerful associations. Many people who looked at Warren Harding saw how extraordinarily handsome and distinguished-looking he was and jumped to the immediate—and entirely unwarranted—conclusion that he was a man of courage and intelligence and integrity. They didn’t dig below the surface. The way he looked carried so many powerful connotations that it stopped the normal process of thinking dead in its tracks.

The Warren Harding error is the dark side of rapid cognition. It is at the root of a good deal of prejudice and discrimination. It’s why picking the right candidate for a job is so difficult and why, on more occasions than we may care to admit, utter mediocrities sometimes end up in positions of enormous responsibility. Part of what it means to take thin-slicing and first impressions seriously is accepting the fact that sometimes we can know more about someone or something in the blink of an eye than we can after months of study. But we also have to acknowledge and understand those circumstances when rapid cognition leads us astray.

2. Blink in Black and White

Over the past few years, a number of psychologists have begun to look more closely at the role these kinds of unconscious—or, as they like to call them, implicit—associations play in our beliefs and behavior, and much of their work has focused on a very fascinating tool called the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT was devised by Anthony G. Greenwald, Mahzarin Banaji, and Brian Nosek, and it is based on a seemingly obvious—but nonetheless quite profound—observation. We make connections much more quickly between pairs of ideas that are already related in our minds than we do between pairs of ideas that are unfamiliar to us. What does that mean? Let me give you an example. Below is a list of words. Take a pencil or pen and assign each name to the category to which it belongs by putting a check mark either to the left or to the right of the word. You can also do it by tapping your finger in the appropriate column. Do it as quickly as you can. Don’t skip over words. And don’t worry if you make any mistakes.

Male.......Female

.....John.....

.....Bob......

.....Amy......

.....Holly....

.....Joan.....

.....Derek....

.....Peggy....

.....Jason....

.....Lisa.....

.....Matt.....

.....Sarah....

That was easy, right? And the reason that was easy is that when we read or hear the name “John” or “Bob” or “Holly,” we don’t even have to think about whether it’s a masculine or a feminine name. We all have a strong prior association between a first name like John and the male gender, or a name like Lisa and things female.

That was a warm-up. Now let’s complete an actual IAT. It works like the warm-up, except that now I’m going to mix two entirely separate categories together. Once again, put a check mark to either the right or the left of each word, in the category to which it belongs.

Male or Career....Female or Family

....................Lisa..........................

....................Matt..........................

....................Laundry.......................

....................Entrepreneur..................

....................John..........................

....................Merchant......................

....................Bob...........................

....................Capitalist....................

....................Holly.........................

....................Joan..........................

....................Home..........................

....................Corporation...................

....................Siblings......................

....................Peggy.........................

....................Jason.........................

....................Kitchen.......................

....................Housework.....................

....................Parents.......................

....................Sarah.........................

....................Derek.........................

My guess is that most of you found that a little harder, but that you were still pretty fast at putting the words into the right categories. Now try this:

Male or Career......Female or Family

...............Babies..............

...............Sarah...............

...............Derek...............

...............Merchant............

...............Employment..........

...............John................

...............Bob.................

...............Holly...............

...............Domestic............

...............Entrepreneur........

...............Office..............

...............Joan................

...............Peggy...............

...............Cousins.............

...............Grandparents........

...............Jason...............

...............Home................

...............Lisa................

...............Corporation.........

...............Matt................

Did you notice the difference? This test was quite a bit harder than the one before it, wasn’t it? If you are like most people, it took you a little longer to put the word “Entrepreneur” into the “Career” category when “Career” was paired with “Female” than when “Career” was paired with “Male.” That’s because most of us have much stronger mental associations between maleness and career-oriented concepts than we do between femaleness and ideas related to careers. “Male” and “Capitalist” go together in our minds a lot like “John” and “Male” did. But when the category is “Male or Family,” we have to stop and think—even if it’s only for a few hundred