"Blink" and it's gone.

I just got done reading “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell and it has definitely left me pondering upon the pros and cons of rapid cognition, otherwise known as intuition. He discusses how beneficial and correct a first impression can be-as long we are able to control the environment in which that cognition takes place and don’t allow outside stereotyping override our first impression...or the first two seconds of our thought pattern. Unfortunately, this is a rare thing to find and it seems that only people who have been extensively trained to first be cognitively aware of the subject of interest show any kind of accuracy in their first impression. For instance, only a person who has been trained in identifying a fake sculpture has any kind of ground on which to allow his/her intuition to take over. Gladwell uses the case of the Kuoros to prove that if that background is there than within the first two seconds a trained individual can make a more accurate judgment on the authenticity of the sculpture than months of research and pages of expert advice and opinion.

With the importance of first impressions strong in my mind, Gladwell than ends his book by citing the gender evolution of orchestra musicians. In the year 1980, no so long ago, there was a women by the name of Abbie Conant who auditioned for the Munich orchestra behind a screen. She did so well that immediately after her audition the other musicians were dismissed and she was called in to be hired…except that after seeing she was a woman the head conductor attempted to remit her acceptance and even told her it was because she was a women. In his mind, and that of most of the classical world at the time, women had no place within the world of classical orchestral music.

Fortunately, Abbie had some balls (or should I say ovaries) and fought it to the bitter end and won.

As a result auditions now have special requirements, such as screens, that bar judges from being able to identify the musician by race, age, or gender. This is of course very cool, but what is interesting is that before the screens were ever implemented most of these judges were very proud of their ability to focus “solely on the music” and screened out women not because they were women, but because from their first impression, women were simply not as good as men. They already had the preconceived notion that men were better musicians for various physical reasons such as lung capacity, and as a result just the visual stimulation of a man sent messages to the brain that he would be a better musician than a woman. It was not until this visual distraction was removed that judges were able to truly rely upon their first and very accurate impression.

The rate of women within the orchestra has now increased five fold from 1980.

That should say something about the stupidity of stereotyping, racism and sexism. On the other hand it also points out how unaware we are of these distractions and how the refusal to or simple ignorance of their existence has the potential to not only limit the opportunities of others, but even that of our own. Just think of all the people with amazing talents that never get a chance to share those simply because the world around them assumes that due to their race, age or gender, they have nothing to offer.

On the flip side, how many of us spend our days trying to fit into a specific stereotype? How many of us dress a certain way, eat certain things, say certain phrases in a conscious attempt to control the two second impression others have of us? How many of us hide behind that impression? How many of us are honest and perhaps cut our hair a certain way or wear a certain kind of brand to show how important we are, what political party we associate with, or how environmentally aware we are. I mean, we obviously are trying to convey a message to our fellow human beings, so is it so wrong if those around you take that message to heart? I mean, isn’t that why the girl in the Mowhawk spent hours in the mirror with a hand full of glue in the first place? She was wanting to make a non-verbal message…a rebellious, anarchist message first impression. With such an impression she might as well make a bat signal for the police.

I am all about people being able to express themselves. Any sort of repression does little but create tension and unrest. However, this book has got me thinking about how much freedom “freedom of expression” really allows us. So many people claim certain physical elements to be an expression of their identity, but perhaps that very expression is actually a limitation. I mean, if we all dressed the same, would our abilities of rapid cognition improve without the distractions of name brands, waist size and hairstyles? Or would we just start looking for other things to stereotype and pick out? I am going with the later. I wonder how it is in the Middle East with the women who wear the burka. I wonder if there are other forms of physical stereotyping there that we are not aware of simply because we lack the exposed and practiced eye. I wonder if the true characters of these women are more readily seen by her observers simply because the information of her clothes and beauty are not available to distract those first two seconds of rapid cognition. I really have no answers here,

I’m just thinking that as a human race I think it would all serve us very well to practice (because that is the secret behind success) looking beyond the distractions of first impressions and instead focus in on that real first impression. There is a difference. It is subtle, but it’s there, and with enough practice, Gladwell has shown, it can be more accurate than any well thought out scientifically proven conclusion.