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Rationality vs. Intuition
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One of Gladwell’s most challenging and provocative arguments concerns the role of free will in decision-making. Most people believe that human beings are free to choose what to do: they use their reason, experience, and emotion to reach a conscious choice. The only times when a human wouldn’t be acting freely would be if they were being physically forced or threatened, or if their mind were brainwashed. Blink challenges this common-sense belief by introducing the concept of the adaptive unconscious.
The adaptive unconscious undermines our traditional understanding of free will by showing that human behavior is often the product of unconscious urges and unpredictable mental associations. According to Blink, it is possible for a human to act a certain way without knowing why. For instance, subjects in one psychological experiment read a paragraph that contained numerous “trigger words”—i.e., words that evoked strong mental associations and inspired specific forms of behavior. Afterwards, the subjects walked out of the experiment more slowly than they’d walked into it: the trigger words influenced them to slow down their movements unconsciously. Similarly, Blink shows that it’s possible for humans to consciously choose to act a certain way, and yet behave differently due to the interference of the adaptive unconscious. During a series of psychological experiments, subjects exhibited racist behavior after being exposed to racist images and signs. Although the subjects weren’t overtly racist people, and even condemned racism, they were triggered to exhibit racist behavior: the images influenced their unconscious minds. In these psychological experiments, the subjects did not, in an ordinary sense, choose to walk more slowly or exhibit racist behavior—indeed, some of the subjects consciously chose to do the opposite. Instead, their unconscious minds influenced their behavior. The subjects’ actions suggest that the common understanding of free will is too simplistic—humans do not simply decide what to do; the adaptive unconscious “nudges” them in different directions.
Gladwell’s interpretation of free will might strike some people as frightening or disconcerting, since it suggests that humans are, in some ways, slaves to their own unconscious minds. And yet in some ways, Gladwell’s model of free will is preferable to the common-sense one. As Gladwell points out, it’s probably a good thing that the adaptive unconscious makes some decisions “on behalf” of the conscious mind: if the conscious mind had to decide what to do at all times, it would quickly be overwhelmed with decisions. In effect, the adaptive unconscious acts as a “valet,” making some choices independently, and allowing the conscious mind to focus on others. Furthermore, Gladwell’s model of free will doesn’t suggest that humans are totally incapable of making rational, conscious choices—it just suggests that people aren’t always as rational or single-minded as they think they are. In a way, Blink characterizes free will as a “spectrum”: our choices are neither completely conscious and free, nor are they completely unconscious and predetermined; they incorporate elements of both the adaptive unconscious and the conscious mind.
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Free Will ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Free Will appears in each chapter of Blink. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Free Will Quotes in Blink
Below you will find the important quotes in Blink related to the theme of Free Will.
Chapter 2 Quotes
The results from these experiments are, obviously, quite disturbing. They suggest that what we think of as free will is largely an illusion: much of the time, we are simply operating on automatic pilot, and the way we think and act - and how well we think and act on the spur of the moment - are a lot more susceptible to outside influences than we realize.
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Gladwell’s ideas have some surprising and, as he admits, disturbing, implications. Specifically, the idea of the adaptive unconscious challenges our ordinary understanding of free will. Most people would say that human beings are capable of making free choices, using their rationality, their emotions, and their tastes. Gladwell would say that there is a limit to human freedom. At times, people do things because they’ve been unconsciously conditioned—or “primed,” as he phrases it—to behave a certain way. For example, when people read a list of trigger words such as “old,” “grey,” etc., they walk more slowly afterwords.Gladwell’s comments about freedom might Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rer
"Is the real me the one that I described beforehand?"
She paused, and Fisman spoke up: "No, the real me is the me revealed by my actions. That's what an economist would say."
Iyengar looked puzzled. "I don't know that's what a psychologist would say."
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In this section, two psychological researchers, Iyengar and Raymond Fisman (they’re married) discuss their findings. The Fismans have been studying the psychology of speed-dating. Much to their surprise, the kinds of people that people say they’re attracted to are very different from the actual partners that they like most during a speed-dating session. One could say that there is a gap between what people want and what they think they want—at least when it comes to romantic partners. (Gladwell will later apply this principle to the science of polling.)As the passage shows, there is no correct way to interpret the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut ali
Chapter 5 Quotes
f you double the size of the chips in chocolate chip ice cream and say on the package, "New! Bigger Chocolate Chips!" and charge five to ten cents more, that seems honest and fair. But if you put your ice cream in a round as opposed to a rectangular container and charge five to ten cents more, that seems like you're pulling the wool over people's eyes. If you think about it, though, there really isn't any practical difference between those two things. Chapter 5
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In this chapter, Gladwell explores the psychology of advertising and packaging. Studies show that it’s possible to make a product seem more appealing by packaging it in novel ways (for instance, it’s been shown that food products are often more appealing when they’re wrapped in red packaging). Big companies like Coca-Cola spend millions of dollars to find out the best ways to market and advertise their products.One might say that it’s immoral or unethical for companies to spend so much time and money researching the psychology of advertising. In essence, companies are trying to trick their customers into enjoying their Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserun
The problem is that buried among the things that we hate is a class of products that are in that category only because they are weird. They make us nervous. They are sufficiently different that it takes us some time to understand that we actually like them.
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Many companies and businesses use polling and test audiences to determine what people want to see in a product. For example, a chair company might ask a couple hundred people to take a survey about their favorite kinds of chairs (e.g., how soft is the chair, how high off the ground is it, what materials is it made from, etc.). Or the company might show a test audience a chair it’s been working on, and ask the audience if it likes the chair.But the problem with polling and test audiences is that, sometimes, the public doesn’t know what it wants. Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis.
Chapter 6 Quotes
The Diallo shooting, in other words, falls into a kind of gray area, the middle ground between deliberate and accidental.
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In the final chapter of the book, Gladwell studies the Amadou Diallo shooting—a tragic case in which plainclothes police officers shot Diallo, an unarmed immigrant in his own apartment building. While many consider the Diallo shooting to be a textbook example of the racism of American law enforcement, Gladwell offers a more nuanced point. While he doesn’t excuse the police officers for their actions, he suggests that it’s not necessarily true that the officers were racists. Perhaps, in the heat of the moment, the officers experienced an error of rapid cognition—they fell back on instinctive, prejudicial behaviors. Gladwell will show Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perfer
Most police officers - well over 90 percent - go their whole career without ever firing at anyone, and those who do describe the experience as so unimaginably stressful that it seems reasonable to ask if firing a gun could be the kind of experience that could cause temporary autism.
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Gladwell theorizes that the four plainclothes police officers who shot at Amadou Diallo were in a state of “temporary autism” after chasing Diallo into his apartment building. This is a surprising idea because, one would think, confronting suspects is “old hat” for a police officer. However, Gladwell points out that even for seasoned police officers, a dangerous confrontation involving firing a gun at a suspect is a pretty rare occurrence; indeed, the vast majority of police officers never fire a weapon at anyone.Gladwell goes on to posit that when police officers are thrust into high-stakes life-or-death situations, they can’t think Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a.
Look at how the officer’s experience and skill allowed him to stretch out that fraction of time, to slow the situation down, to keep gathering information until the last possible moment. He watches the gun come out. He sees the pearly grip. He tracks the direction of the muzzle. He waits for the kid to decide whether to pull the gun up or simply to drop it - and all the while, even as he tracks the progress of the gun, he is also watching the kid's face, to see whether he is dangerous or simply frightened. Is there a more beautiful example of a snap judgment?
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Toward the end of the chapter, Gladwell discusses a case in which a police officer held a suspect at gunpoint, contemplated shooting him when he reached for his pocket, and then didn't. The police officer noticed that the “kid” was holding a gun, but “something told him” to give the kid a chance and wait a split second longer.As Gladwell interprets it, the story is a great example of how rapid cognition can actually be a boon to law enforcement. At times, it’s bad for police officers to depend excessively on snap judgments; indeed, it was arguably the four plainclothes Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque
Conclusion Quotes
When the screen created a pure Blink moment, a small miracle happened, the kind of small miracle that is always possible when we take charge of the first two seconds: they saw her for who she truly was.
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Gladwell discusses the rise of blind auditions in the world of classical music. Beginning in the 1980s, orchestras began auditioning performers from behind a screen, so that selection panels couldn’t tell if the performers were male or female. Amazingly, orchestras began to hire more and more women, where previously, women had been de facto excluded from the world of classical music altogether. In Gladwell’s terminology, the introduction of blind auditioning replaced one kind of rapid cognition with another. Before the 1980s, selection panels who auditioned female performers may have made snap judgments about them before they even began to play—because Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At
