Blink #3

“At 175, we begin to see an absolute breakdown of cognitive processing… The forebrain shuts down, and the mid-brain – the part of your brain that is the same as your dog’s (all mammals have that part of the brain)—reaches up and hijacks the forebrain. Have you ever tried to have a discussion with an angry or frightened human being ? You can’t do it…”(p. 225)

In this chapter, Gladwell talks about “mind reading” and how your facial expressions are a huge part of this process. This is how our first impressions are created. He also talks about how our snap judgments can fail. In the quote above Gladwell is talking about how when we are anxious, and when our hearts are beating at a rate of 175 beats per minute our brain, our snap judgments are not working properly.

He does a case study on three officers who’s snap judgments failed. They were patrolling the Bronx one night, and shot an innocent man. The man was standing outside late at night getting some air, but the three officers decided that he looked suspicious, and than when he made the movement to his pocket they decided he was dangerous in a split second, but he was not dangerous he was scared. They thought the man was pulling out a gun, when he was really pulling out his wallet. These errors resulted in a man being shot, the officers were anxious, their brains shutdown and they ended up relying on stereotypes. Gladwell goes on to talk about how if the officers were trained better for this situation they would have reacted more calmly, and made better choices. This is because the more similar experiences you have to one another, your brain becomes better at mind reading, so you are able to predict what’s going to happen and have a better reaction to the situation. I think this is where the saying “practice makes perfect” comes from because the more we do something the better we get at that thing, and that is because our brain is able to predict the situation.