The Diatribe * net

When Malcom Gladwell published his first book The Tipping Point, I thought it was truly one of the most fascinating concepts. He’s a great author, in that he demostrates highly scientific ideas by example and uses language anyone can understand. He occasionally gets published in the New Yorker as well, and I try to read his articles whenever possible.

He recently published another book entitled Blink. This is the latest book I’ve been reading, after I finished Faithful. And Mr. Gladwell has done it again. Truly amazing concepts, explained with examples that make sense to everyone. This time, his book is about the split-second decisions we make in our life, and how often our mind makes these decisions based on non-conscious information — gut feelings and such.

I don’t want to give away all of his ideas, as it’d take away from the read, but one interesting test he recommends trying out is called the Implicit Association Test (IAT). There are a few of them that you can take online, and I recommend them. It’s pretty cool.

Basically, it tries to demonstrate that most human beings have unconscious propensities towards or against certain groups or beliefs (age, gender, religion, etc.). I didn’t fare nearly as bad as I thought I would, but it’s interesting to see the results. Check it out.