think or blink

in his book "blink," malcolm gladwell describes the processes of rapid cognition. as i've followed his entertaining descriptions from chapter to chapter, i've met some people who follow their gut instincts and win and others who stumble miserably into error when going on their intuition alone.

in any case, this book is about choices made in an instant - a blink of any eye. sometimes we should take our first impressions seriously, but other times we should recognize when they lead us astray. recently, psychologists have begun to look more closely at the role that unconscious associations play in our beliefs and behavior, and one group has developed a fascinating tool called the implicit association test (IAT). to try a computerized IAT yourself, go to www.implicit.harvard.edu. you just might feel squeamish when you're done. it can be a real wake-up call to burrow into the locked box of the unconscious and unearth prejudices or discrimination that you swore weren't a part of you.

like gladwell, i took the race IAT. it turns out, according to gladwell, that more than 80 percent of all those who have ever taken this test end up having pro-white associations. should those who have any degree of pro-white association be chastised as racists? probably not, since our attitudes about race, gender, sexuality, or anything else of the like operate on two levels. first, we have our conscious attitudes, our stated values, which we use to direct our behavior. these are the most telling and most likely to spur change. but lurking beneath the surface are our unconscious attitudes, those immediate associations that tumble out before we even have time to think.

we may speak our minds, but do we really know our minds? despite our stated commitments to tolerance and equality for all, will we behave slightly differently, even though unaware of these subtleties, in the company of a black person, a gay person, a muslim, or a high-power female executive?

maybe most importantly of all, if something is happening outside of our awareness, how can we possibly fix it? for example, how can a white person ensure she treats a black person as an equal in every way? ah, this requires more than just a simple commitment to tolerance and equality. instead, it requires an altering of our experiences and environments such that we gradually cultivate new unconscious associations, decreasing the likelihood that we are betrayed by any sense of hesitation or discomfort.

gladwell's acknowledgement of the power for better or for worse of rapid cognition certainly has many implications for communication in our daily lives. maybe we should think in new ways about meeting, hiring, dating, talking...