“BLink:THe Power of Thinking, Without Thinking”

After reading Malcolm Gladwell, “The Warren Harding Error: Why We Fall for Tall, Dark, and Handsome Men” I have gained a better insight as to why society behaves and judges in the systems that it does. I feel that the reason why we stereotype is due to our unconscious behavior and decisions. In this chapter I learned that error is the dark side of rapid cognition, a root of a good deal of prejudice and discrimination. In this chapter it opened up discussing the election of Warren Harding and how he was acknowledge based on the simple fact that his charisma and charm of being a tall, dark , and handsome man was the underlying reason to his election. An once he was in office, the reality of the matter was that he was not suitable for the position and these stereotypical judgments are what society sometimes ends up making in positions of enormous responsibilities. This whole act of rating people off of first impressions leads to the fact that sometimes we can know more about someone or something in the blink of an eye, rather than with months of studying. This rapid cognition acknowledges and understands this. There have been Implicit Assessment Tests created by psychologists Anthony G. Greenwald and Brian Nosek that has led to the idea that “we make connections quickly on ideas we know rather than what is unfamiliar”. Their tests have led to the idea of “Pro-White Associations” within our world. With these tests we can see that our attitudes towards race and gender operate on two levels: conscious level (what we choose to believe, what we use to direct our behavior deliberatley) and unconscious level. The test also shows that our unconscious attitude maybe utterly incompatible with our state conscious values. As with the Harding story society automatically associates leadership ability with imposing physical structure. This is sad because we have began to think less rational and make prejudgments of people. As with sustainability I feel that we sometimes consciously do not participate in sustaining our environment but also a lot of it has to do with our unconscious behavior. We can be wasteful at many times without even realizing the wrongful doing. I feel we can alter this thin-slicing of our enviroment by changing the experiences that comprise our impressions of our natural world.