Blink

During the summer, I met with a career coach you could say, and he helped me to try to decide on some future career options by taking multiple personality and interest tests. We came to the conclusion to explore the option of psychology. He encouraged me to read Blink and Mind Gym. So during my vacation in Florida I was able to get through half of my book, however the busyness of summer caught up to me and I couldn't finish my book :( Since practically no one came to the pool today I got to finish my book!! It was so interesting. Under the title of the front, it says, "The Power of Thinking Without Thinking." And that was exactly what it was about, intuitive thinking, first impressions, snap decisions and so forth.
The author really did his recent and presents numerous psychological experiments, their results, and what those mean. One fascinating research I read about was the Coke vs. Pepsi challenge. The Coke company was frustrated and concerned that their competitor Pepsi were starting to make more business. Researchers completed blind tests (Coke vs Pepsi) on thousands of tasters. The problem researchers found why they were losing the contest was due to only having a sip test. The sweet taste of Pepsi often satisfied more drinkers with one sip, but during an at home and full can survey, Coke won. Therefore Coke scientists worked to create a sweeter and smoother version of Coke called New Coke. However, New Coke sales was a disaster and the company soon switched back to Classic Coke. The research and story of New Coke showed a good illustration of how hard it is to find out with people really think.
In early chapters, the author talked a lot about first impressions and presumptions. There was one study that showed that when black students were asked to identity their race before completing a test, they scored significantly lower than other black students who weren't asked this question before. The interviewed afterwards, the lower scoring students said that this question but the stereotype of "uneducated" in their head and they didn't feel the need to try or impress anyone. There are lots of controversial studies and research about people and their reactions and behaviors towards others. Blink was not a typical book with a plot, instead it was basically composed of research and interesting stories about non-cognitive thinking. I'm glad a got to read such a non-traditional book that actually made me think.