Blink_ The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - Malcolm Gladwell [104]
On learning how to mind-read, see Nancy L. Etcoff, Paul Ekman, et al., “Lie Detection and Language Comprehension,” Nature 405 (May 11, 2000).
On two-person patrols, see Carlene Wilson, Research on One- and Two-Person Patrols: Distinguishing Fact from Fiction (South Australia: Australasian Centre for Policing Research, 1991); and Scott H. Decker and Allen E. Wagner, “The Impact of Patrol Staffing on Police-Citizen Injuries and Dispositions,” Journal of Criminal Justice 10 (1982): 375–382.
CONCLUSION. LISTENING WITH YOUR EYES: THE LESSONS OF BLINK
The best account of the Conant story is by Conant’s husband, William Osborne, “You Sound like a Ladies Orchestra.” It is available on their Website, www.osborne-conant.org/ladies.htm.
The following articles were particularly helpful on changes in the world of classical music: Evelyn Chadwick, “Of Music and Men,” The Strad (December 1997): 1324–1329; Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse, “Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of ‘Blind’ Auditions on Female Musicians,” American Economic Review 90, no. 4 (September 2000): 715-741; and Bernard Holland, “The Fair, New World of Orchestra Auditions,” New York Times, January 11, 1981.
Acknowledgments
A few years ago, before I began Blink, I grew my hair long. It used to be cut very short and conservatively. But I decided, on a whim, to let it grow wild, as it had been when I was a teenager. Immediately, in very small but significant ways, my life changed. I started getting speeding tickets — and I had never gotten any before. I started getting pulled out of airport security lines for special attention. And one day, while walking along Fourteenth Street in downtown Manhattan, a police van pulled up on the sidewalk, and three officers jumped out. They were looking, it turned out, for a rapist, and the rapist, they said, looked a lot like me. They pulled out the sketch and the description. I looked at it and pointed out to them as nicely as I could that, in fact, the rapist looked nothing at all like me. He was much taller and much heavier and about fifteen years younger (and, I added in a largely futile attempt at humor, not nearly as good-looking). All we had in common was a large head of curly hair. After twenty minutes or so, the officers finally agreed with me and let me go. On the grand scale of things, I realize, this was a trivial misunderstanding. African Americans in the United States suffer indignities far worse than this all the time. But what struck me was how even more subtle and absurd the stereotyping was in my case: this wasn’t about something really obvious, such as skin color or age or height or weight. It was just about hair. Something about the first impression created by my hair derailed every other consideration in the hunt for the rapist. That episode on the street got me thinking about the weird power of first impressions. And that thinking led to Blink — so I suppose, before I thank anyone else, I should thank those three police officers.
Now come the real thanks. David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, very graciously and patiently let me disappear for a year while I was working on Blink. Everyone should have a boss as good and generous as David. Little, Brown, the publishing house that treated me like a prince with The Tipping Point, did the same this time around. Thank you, Michael Pietsch, Geoff Shandler, Heather Fain, and, most of all, Bill Phillips, who deftly and thoughtfully and cheerfully