Macolm Gladwell makes a provocative statement in his book
"Thin-slicing is not an exotic gift. It is a central part of what it means to be human. We thin-slice whenever we meet a new person or have to make sense of something quickly or encounter a novel situation. We thin-slice because we have to, and we come to rely on that ability because there are lots of fists out there, lots of situations where careful attention to the details of of a very thin slice, even for no more than a second or two, can tell us an awful lot."
Ever notice how you can often infer a whole lot about a person in about two seconds? I have. Our minds are powerful pattern recognizers and can pick up and process many cues in milliseconds.
My aunt Sarah is particularly adept at reading people that she meets for the first time. What a useful skill.
How do people do that?
Gladwell tells a story about how the British used radio interceptors to monitor German radio traffic during World War II. The German radio broadcasts were encrypted of course. The British radio sniffers could not tell exactly what they were transmitting -- but that did not matter, because they could still tell a lot. Why? Because individual radio operators each have different styles and cadence ... they have different signatures. The people who live in the world of Morse code have a term for this signature: "a fist". It became possible for the British to track the troop movements and locations of individual German radio operators because their fists were so distinct.
Other things have fists too. A marriage can have a fist. A psychologist named John Gottman who has studied marriages and interactions between couples has learned how to recognize the fist of a marriage and make stunningly accurate predictions about whether a marriage will last or not ... all in about 10 minutes of observing a couple together. The success of his predictions are legendary.
When you are aware of this concept, you begin to recognize it in various disciplines. In basketball, a great player has an outstanding "court sense" In other words, they are efficient at thin-slicing and perceiving every thing that is going on with the most minimal of input. My daughter is a phenomenal bird watcher. She can identify a bird species from a great distance in a split second by observing the way a bird flies, moves it head and turns its wings. She can process all of the data almost in an instant. She seems to do it by feel.
Now, is thin-slicing a good thing or a bad thing?
I would take the position that thin-slicing is a good thing. It is part of our design. We have these amazing minds that can multithread data and make rational judgments at light speeds.
Can thin-slicing be abused?
It seems to me that thin-slicing can be used to manipulate people. I took a course on decision making in my graduate work. Part of the assigned reading included a small book on influence tactics (I cannot remember the name). What I read was frightening. Human beings can be easily manipulated. We have built-in buttons that can be pushed. Salesmen push these buttons all the time. After reading that book, I began to notice influence tactics all around me. It seems to me that if you knew the fists that people commonly use to make snap judgments, you could use that power to manipulate them.
It also seems to me that if you were to rely on thin-slicing too much, then you would open up dangerous blind spots. Due diligence is required in many situations. Certainly hiring someone into an influential position, such as a senior pastor, requires extensive due diligence and examination.
Still, thin-slicing is an interesting and powerful concept. We live in an information-heavy world. We make decisions all the time. Refining our ability to thin-slice seems like a good investment.
What are your initial thoughts?
Humans are fantastically good at 'thin-slicing'. One argument for where that comes from is our distant ancestors, who had to pick out patterns against a background or get eaten. That's why almost all creatures are very good at this, though clearly with different degrees of intellect applied. Flies, for example, can respond with staggering speed to an incoming swat of doom, but in contrast to humans they can't really differentiate between different degrees of doomness, and have one response, which is jump out of the way.
The downside is that we're not very good at seeing the background. That's why we're very good in a crisis, but not so great at averting the crisis. Seems like there might be another post in that for you!
Posted by: Paul | November 01, 2005 at 17:58
I heard this concept described of experienced firemen, who can enter a burning building and know immediately whether it's about to collapse or not. And I've learned to trust this instinct in my wife, who can tell with great accuracy whether a person has my goodwill in mind or not.
They've talked forever about "womens intuition", and I think women tend to be better at picking up small, imperceptible details about a person that fit a particular pattern that will tie a person to experienced patterns of behavior seen in the past. It's really no less rational than other kinds of analysis, it's just that the details are so subtle it's difficult to express. But we look at leaves changing color and we say, "it's fall", and may not even realize that it's the fact that the leaves are changing color that prompted us to say that. It's such a fundamental learned response it becomes almost instinctual. Most people come into contact with thousands and thousands of other people and learn similar kinds of instinctual responses. Doing this is to some degree essential for survival.
I've learned to trust my instincts about these things. I do not always have such instincts about people. Many are not easily readable to me. But when I have such instincts, they're often right, and often protect me from danger.
Posted by: Matt Powell | November 01, 2005 at 23:48
Paul,
It is difficult, for me anyway, to ascribe cognitive skills to a fly. It seems more like you are describing reflexes or stimulus-response mechanisms versus rationality. I certainly agree with your statement that human beings are great at thin-slicing. I think an interesting question is, is thin-slicing innate or learned?
Personally, I think it is both. I would guess that it is more learned than innate. We are rational beings with higher order capacities (iow, we don't just think, we think about thinking ... we don't just communicate, we communicate about communication etc). As such, I think we have the ability to strengthen and refine our cognitive abilities -- including rapid cognition.
Posted by: Dawn Treader | November 02, 2005 at 08:01
Matt,
Re: They've talked forever about "womens intuition", and I think women tend to be better at picking up small, imperceptible details about a person that fit a particular pattern that will tie a person to experienced patterns of behavior seen in the past. It's really no less rational than other kinds of analysis, it's just that the details are so subtle it's difficult to express.
Very astute. I agree. I am not exactly sure why women seem to have this gift more naturally than men -- but anecdotally, anyway, I would say that women are far better at reading motives and intent than men.
Re: ve learned to trust my instincts about these things. I do not always have such instincts about people. Many are not easily readable to me. But when I have such instincts, they're often right, and often protect me from danger.
I think that "instincts" are simply a form of thinking without thinking. In other words, your rational processes are at work -- in auto-pilot.
We tend to not trust our instincts because we feel like we have not thought things through -- when in fact, we have.
Posted by: Dawn Treader | November 02, 2005 at 08:08
I don't mean to make equivalent what we do to what a fly does, except to say that it's on a continuum. And it's a lot closer than you might at first think, precisely because it is a snap judgement. The difference, of course, is that we have the ability to refine our abilities in this area (even though some of us aren't good at applying that ability!) But being reasoning creatures with higher orders of mental activity doesn't directly come into play when your wife makes a quick initial judgement about someone, pretty much by definition.
Posted by: Paul | November 02, 2005 at 11:17
Interesting.... I'm definitely gonna have to pick up this book.
I've thought for a while that Evangelicals mistake this phenomenon(now I have a name for it!) for "nudges" from God. Because of the almost unconcious way we register and process minutiae, it seems like we are receiving information from an external source. But it's really just(in most cases, probabally) this "thin slicing" effect.
Thanks for the post!
Posted by: brian | November 04, 2005 at 14:19
Brian,
I agree. While I certainly won't put God in a box and say that the Holy Spirit cannot nudge us ever, I am inclined to agree with you that a lot of what is interpreted as divine messages is really our God-given capacity to thin-slice.
I think thin-slicing is a part of our design and makeup. We need it. That is why I think it okay to explore how to get better at thin-slicing and to learn to trust our unconscious cognition (aka "intuition", "judgment")-- in the same way we trust our conscious thinking.
Like any thinking, it is subject to being affected by our sin nature, obviously. We need to recognize this too.
Posted by: Dawn Treader | November 05, 2005 at 08:53