Blink Frank Gladwell Analysis

In the book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell argues that small amounts of information are just as good or better than well thought out and detailed information or decisions. Gladwell uses stories from colleagues and studies to support his claims. Gladwell uses these to appeal to one’s ethics and logic.

Gladwell uses the work done by one of his colleagues at John Gottman’s lab to show that a little information can go a long way. Gottman came up with a way to analyse marriages from conversations with a system that analyses emotions(Gladwell 20-23). With fifteen minutes or less he is able to determine if the marriage will last at least ten more years (Gladwell 20-23). Gottman’s system for doing this was to give every emotion they saw a number. Gottman trained a team to use this system on couples. They had couples come in to test …show more content…
In the Ayres study the white men were given a significantly lower price than the black men or women in the study(Gladwell 93). One would think all customers were given the same price and treatment, however in our subconscious we analyse people differently. The car salesmen did not mean to give the minorities a higher price. They had something called a Warren Harding Error, wherein they unconsciously assume someone will take the initial price the car. The car salesmen’s Warren Harding Error was “they thought that the women and the black men were lay downs”(Gladwell 94). A lay down is someone who pays sticker price for the car. Furthermore Gladwell’s colleague, Bob Golomb, who is a car salesman that sells more cars on average than anyone else. Gladwell says Golomb does this by “treating every customer the exact same”(Gladwell 95). Golomb fights the Warren Harding Error that is why he is so successful. Ayres decided to prove the Warren Harding Error with a study that clearly proved his theory; Gladwell’s colleague Bob Golomb fights this by treating all customers the