Malcolm Gladwell Thin Slices Analysis Paper Order Instructions: Malcolm Gladwell – Thin Slices (Analysis paper)
Paper instructions:i
Gladwell Analysis papers
This paper is on the chapter 1(The Theory of Thin Slices:How a Little Bit goes a long way) of Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink” (pg 18 – 47)
5 pages in length (double spaced, 1? margins and 12 pt fonts).
Professors requirement:
Structuring a Critical Analysis Paper
Most critical analysis papers begin with a short summary of the work and then dive in to the argument. Since most of these paper assignments are short, it is important to be concise in all parts of your analysis. Writing an outline (and following it) is crucial to remain focused on your argument and avoid summary or irrelevant description.
The purpose for writing a critique is to evaluate somebody’s work (a book, an essay, a movie, a painting…) in order to increase the reader’s understanding of it. A critical analysis is subjective writing because it expresses the writer’s opinion or evaluation of a text. Analysis means to break down and study the parts. Writing a critical paper requires two steps: critical reading and critical writing.
1. Identify the author’s thesis and purpose
2. Analyze the structure of the passage by identifying all main ideas
3. Consult a dictionary or encyclopedia to understand material that is unfamiliar to you
4. Make an outline of the work or write a description of it
5. Write a summary of the work
6. Determine the purpose which could be
o To inform with factual material
o To persuade with appeal to reason or emotions
o To entertain (to affect people’s emotions)
7. Evaluate the means by which the author has accomplished his purpose
• If the purpose is to inform, has the material been presented clearly, accurately, with order and coherence?
• If the purpose is to persuade, look for evidence, logical reasoning, contrary evidence
• If the purpose was to entertain, determine how emotions are affected: does it make you laugh, cry, angry? Why did it affect you?
Consider the following questions: How is the material organized? Who is the intended audience? What are the writer’s assumptions about the audience? What kind of language and imagery does the author use?
Malcolm Gladwell Thin Slices Analysis Paper Sample Answer
Malcolm Gladwell – Thin Slices (Analysis paper)
Outline
- Summary
- Thesis
- Purpose
- Means of accomplishing the purpose
- The main ideas
Summary
This paper focuses on chapter one, ‘The Theory of Thin Slices: How a Little Bit of Knowledge Goes a Long Way’ of the book link: The Power of Thinking without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. Basically, there is introduction of the ‘thin slicing’ idea. That is, taking very minute details of a person or thing and utilizing that thin slice for developing a bigger opinion of her, him, or it. More specifically, there is a focus on Psychologist John Gottman’s research. Gottman is from the University of Washington. Gottman established the standing of being in a position to establish with a ninety percent accurate rate if a particular marriage will last. He accomplished this by observing couples for not more than fifteen minutes (Gladwell, 2005). In addition, Gottman also trained the assistants he had in the Love Lab to swiftly code facial expressions as well as tones so that the underlying messages which spouses sent to one another could be determined. Of course, the couples sent different messages including those related to defensiveness, disgust, anger, contempt, and neutrality subconsciously. Therefore, Gottman and the assistants never study the words of the couples practically as much as the gestures and reactions are studied. Gladwell provides other effective thin slicing examples in the chapter. For example, strangers who have never been friends before can be able to identify someone’s personality more accurately based on a fifteen minutes assessment at her or him in a dormitory.
Thesis
When faced with big challenges, people can apply the finding the simple findings from Gottman’s experiment.
Purpose
This chapter is very vital considering that the research by Gottman helps in establishing the view that people never really need to be familiar with a lot of aspects about someone to establish the personality of that person.
Means of accomplishing the purpose
Through the experiments, Gottman aimed to make evident the fact that our mind are continuously searing for patterns. Therefore, when interacting with or meeting a person for the first time, the mind is normally very keen to notice any patterns or repeated indicators of who the new person really is. This is despite the fact that there might be very little information available. Basically, what Gottman was doing is trying to fully make use of this ability through the simple patterns on his machine. If people are aware of the amazing ability that they have, then they would be more aggressive in using it to know the real truth about new people.
The main ideas
The chapter has a lot to teach about couples in marriage. Without doubt, married couples fight once in a while. In essence, no couple that really loves each can go a year without quarreling, fighting, or arguing. Many of them even fight as if they want to murder each other. Nonetheless, after the two go for a vacation together, they return as newlyweds would. When couples fight or argue with each other, the reasons can differ and range from serious to small matters. After a while, the couples reach a point where once again, they are lovely and happy. In connection to this, the relationships of couples can be demonstrated in the form of graphs, where there are the usual up and downs based on their emotions. This mainly points to the idea that love is quite complex to the extent that it requires considerable time to closely learn about the relationship status of the couple. Indeed, so as to be able to predict a thing like marriage, people would really need to be familiar with many aspects of the partner (Carrиre & Gottman, 1999).
Nonetheless, psychologist John Gottman has proven that people never really have to engage in all this. At one time, he did an experiment on 3000 married couples in a small room, which is called a love lab. This was close to the Washington university campus. There was videotaping of each couple, and the results were analyzed using a machine. There are several numbers on this machine and specific numerals are related to particular emotional status. For instance, 1 is for disgust, 2 for contempt, 7 for anger, 10 for defensiveness, 11 for whining, 12 for sadness, 14 for neutral and many others. In the analysis is included other facial expressions and physical motions. For example, if the result is 7, 7, 14, 10, 11, 11, this implies that one person was angry briefly, then neutral, there was an instance of defensiveness, and later, whining started (Gladwell, 2005).
This experiment makes it evident that according to Gottman, there is something remarkable. He proved that analyzing the conversation of a couple for sixty minutes can forecast with ninety five percent accuracy if the two will remain married fifteen years to come. In addition, Sybil Carrere who was working with Gottman also established that it was still possible to forecast with fairly exact accuracy to determine who was more likely to have a divorce or not by only assessing carefully three minutes of the conversations that couples have.
Many would greatly agree that the idea of finding the marriage destiny of a person by examining the conversations he or she is having with the partner is just brilliant. The author has a keen reference to a critical rapid cognition part referred to as thin-slicing (Gladwell, 2005). Through this reference, the author intends to make people aware of their unconscious’ ability to establish patterns in behavior as well as situations based on considerably narrow experience slices. Basically, I think that the author is warning people getting into relationships to be particularly keen so as to note any cues or the slightest indicators of being bored with the relationship, losing interest, or lacking interest. There is a strong assertion that our brains are unconsciously searching for patterns, despite the fact that there might be very limited information. I strongly believe that Gottman was making efforts to take full advantage of this ability through the simple patterns on the machine. Nonetheless, I have a strong belief that out rapid cognition or thin-slicing is reliable.
Many times, people’s words and emotions might be influenced by stresses in other parts of their lives. For example, if facing financial difficulties or the extended families’ burdens’, many men tend to reflect such stresses on their spouses or children, and this might obscure the results given by the machine. The unreliability of the machine’s findings is based on the fact that there is inadequate information to make the conclusions, and particularly within the short span. Moreover, how precise the findings are is doubtful. According to the book, when people’s unconscious indulges in thin-slicing, then what is actually happening is a robotic accelerated unconscious account of all that Gottman does with the equations and videotapes. Therefore, many people are bound to wonder how marriage can be understood with a single setting. Regardless of how doubtful the machine experiments might seem, there have some truth. People can actually handle such complicated situations (Carrиre & Gottman, 1999). Because of this, very many couples are able to marry and live together in the absence of any unfortunate divorces. Therefore, the experiment by Gottman was mainly aimed at showing us that this is possible, as well as how it can be done. Through learning about thin-slicing, individuals around the globe can universally the simple knowledge when encountering huge challenges.
Therefore, thin slicing can assist in solving all the situations that life throws at us. Following the observation of small interactions, it is possible to come up with accurate conclusions. This can be compared to the saying that one does not have to take the whole pie so as to know how it tastes (Gladwell, 2005). There is also the idea that we only have a single chance of making the first impression. The first impression a person makes is usually very hard to be erased. The horsemen of marriage; contempt, criticism, stonewalling, and defensiveness are very intriguing. With these, the marriage can barely last fifteen years, especially if contempt is prevailing.
Malcolm Gladwell Thin Slices Analysis Paper References
Carrиre, S., & Gottman, J. (1999). Predicting Divorce Among Newlyweds from the First Three Minutes of a Marital Conflict Discussion. Family Process 38(3), 293-301.
Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. New York: Little, Brown and Co.
