Blink Chapters 2 & 3

Blink Chapters 2 & 3 The Locked Door: The secret life of snap decision & The Warren Harding Error: Why Tall, Dark, and Handsome men (like Mr. Chessman) rule.

Vic Braden is in his 70’s. • World Class tennis player when young • Been a part of the sport for more than 50 years • Can predict the rare professional double fault • Doesn’t know how he does it just does it

George Soros • Billionare Investor • Son says his back would start killing him and he’d change his investing strategy

In Spain they introduced classical music into the subways then vandalism and littering decreased • What other areas of priming can you think of?

Priming Experiments • John Bargh developed lots of these • Think of them as subliminal messages that elicit changes in behavior.

Study: people asked to put together sentances from lists of words would have their behavior unconsciously changed by “seeding” the lists with words • Lists with words like, worried, Florida, old, lonely, gray, bingo, wrinkled. Made people walk away from the test slowly, like an old person.

People with aggressive, bold, rude, bother, disturb, intrude, infringe in their lists are more likely to interrupt a post test conversation. • People with appreciate, patient, yeild, polite, courteous did not interupt at all. They’d sit there for minutes. • And these were New Yorkers. People noted for impatience.

Priming is not Brainwashing • Can’t make someone rob a bank • Study… • Group 1: write an essay “What if I was a professor?” • Group 2: write an essay “What if I was a soccer holigan?” • Group 1: 55% on a trivia test afterwards • Group 2: 42% on a trivia test afterwards

Study… • 2 groups of black college students to take 20 question test. • 1 group has to fill out a form identifying themselves as black students first • That group had the number right cut in half

And we can’t identify what primed us. • Students couldn’t I.D. what the affected them in post test interviews

Should priming be used in schools? In service industries? • When does priming become manipulation? • When does it become subliminal?

Speed Dating • Strange things happen • Characteristics that people report they are attracted to on forms are not actually who they end up being attracted to during the speed dating. • Report before speed dating, report a week after speed dating, dif. • But then after a month report goes back to original.

If what we say we want and what we really want are dif, then what does that say for on-line dating? • Which is better a date set up by your friends or a hit received through an online social network? • Is there even a point in asking someone, “What is your type?”

Things happen that we don’t know about • Tennis and baseball players say they can look a ball onto a padle/bat. • They can’t the last five feet of movement is measured in milliseconds, human eyes can’t track that. • The best in many sports can’t explain how they play the way they do.

An O.J. Simpson juror said, “Race had absolutely nothing to do with my decision.” • But how could she know? • Your unconscious mind is scanning, thinking, and processing, and it has influence. • At least these experiments give evidence that it does. We can’t know directly because its our unconscious.

The walk-away • Sometimes we ccan’t explain our behavior or thinking. • You can’t think your way into the person you’re going to fall in love with • It’s better to have an expert show you how to hit at Tennis/Baseball instead of telling you.

Chapter 3 • Google: Programming Language inventor or… Serial Killer and see if you can tell the dif. between computer geeks and horribly broken human beings.

Or which of these two men was a president?

On the left is Harry Daugherty, the essential political behind the scenes man. • He was a major player in putting the man on the right, Warren G. Harding into office because “He looked like a president.”

What’s that got to do with me? • Harding was picked to be the Rep. Nominee because they were deadlocked between two other guys at the national convention. They could all agree on him. • That’s the same way Luke Ravenstahl became the head of Pittsburgh’s city council, which led to him being the mayor.

So what? • Harding was pres. For 2 years before dying of a stroke. • Also one of the worst presidents.

Dark side of snap decisions • Racism, shallowness, prejudice

Implicit Association Tests (IAT) • Assign each name below to the category to which it belongs by putting a check mark, or tap your finger there. Go as quickly as possible and don’t skip any, don’t worry about mistakes • The tests show closer associations because we give faster responses

Male Female __________John __________ __________Bob __________ __________Amy __________ __________Holly __________ __________Joan __________ __________Derek __________ __________Peggy __________ __________Jason __________ __________Lisa __________ __________Matt __________ __________Sarah __________

That should have been easy. Now a second with two categories at the top of each column

Male or Career Female or Family ______________Lisa _____________ ______________Matt _____________ _____________Laundry ___________ ___________Entrepreneur _________ _____________John______________ ____________Merchant____________ ______________Bob______________ ____________Capitalist____________ ____________Holly_______________ ______________Joan_____________ _____________Home_____________ ____________Corporation_________ ___________Siblings_____________ ____________Peggy______________ _____________Jason_____________ _____________Kitchen____________

Little harder? But still pretty fast? • One more time

Male or Family Female or Career Babies Sarah Derek Merchant Employment John Bob Holly Domestic Entrepeneur Office Joan Peggy Cousins Grandparents Jason Home Lisa Corporation Matt

Last version takes longer because Male/Family and Female/Career are cross paired in most minds. • IAT’s hit you over the head with conclusions. • Go to https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html • take the race test. Feel crappy about yourself.

Unconscious attitudes differ from conscious attitudes. • Part of it may be North American media and culture • For the record: Malcolm Gladwell is half black and he showed a “moderate automatic preference for whites” • Out of slight, moderate, and strong

Do we act dif. In mixed company? • Race, gender, age, sexual orientation, weight, height?

Blink Chapters 2 & 3