The adaptive unconscious

I'm reading two books now Blink (audio) and Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. Both brains talk about how our unconcious mind makes decisions for us that are effiecient and life saving. Both parts of the brain are motivated differently. Gladwell states people can make split decisions with 2 seconds of information. The data found that persons can watch a silent 2 second video of teachers teaching that match year-end evaluations. He calls this "thin slicing" the abililty to take a thin amount of information and make a decision.

• Myth: The quality of a decision correlates with the time spent making the decision. Truth: Unconscious decisions can be as good as conscious ones. People were able to tell a multi-million dollar statue was a fake in one glance.



• Myth: Criticism in relationships is bad. Truth: Contempt is worse than criticism. Expression of contempt or superiority is a simple way to predict the future of a relationship. Doctors who talked down to their patients were more likely to be sued.



• Myth: Unconscious suggestions have a minimal influence on people. Priming is an effective way to guide future behavior. People were given lists of random words. Those given words that subtely emphasized politeness were more polite. A race question included on a survey test given to Blacks cut the testakers performance by 50%.



• Myth: People are always aware of the reasons for their behavior.Truth: People are not aware of the unconscious influences that have impacted their decisions. People who were given a tough problem were given a subtle suggestion about a swinging monkey. Those who heard the suggestion were not aware of it's help when they correctly solved the problem.

His statements lend support for designing experiences to educate the unconscious mind as well as the conscious mind. In many examples the unconscious mind has more to do with our behavior. I wonder if you reward an unconscious learning event if it is more satisfying than conscious learning. You can test your own blink assessments by going to the Implicit Association Test. You can measure your unconcious attitudes towards race, gender and even weight.
In the opposite vain, the book Survival talks about how unconscious decisions can kill you. I'll talk about that in a future entry.