Our minds are crazy

For our BLA this term, our group read the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. This book was all about how our mind works in very short windows of time–how we make quick decisions. He called this "thin slicing". I thought it was an extremely interesting view of how our minds work. Previously, I would have believed that I am in control of my mind, but now I know that I am not, really. Many major decisions are the result of my subconscious mind. One example that stuck out to me was racism. Sure, we don't act racist, but there were tests done that showed that everybody has a somewhat racist subconscious. This threw me for a loop for a little bit, since I don't like the idea of being racist at all, but being aware of how it works was interesting.

The documentary that we watched was called How to Make Better Decisions and it was made by the BBC. This documentary, instead of focusing on what happens when we have to make decisions, focused on how we can be affected in the decision making process. For example, you can be primed by holding something hot or cold that will make you make a different decision directly afterward. You can also see into the future! (maybe) This was a different view than Blink because it didn't take into account how our brain works on the subconscious level, but it added a lot of useful information that I will use in conjunction with what I learned from Blink.

The main thing I got out of these was that psychology is complicated. Yes, it sounds stupid. But I did not know how complex our mind could be. We need to recognize that sometimes, what our brain does is not under our control. We should know that our brain is capable of much more than we think it is. We should be on the lookout for attempts to manipulate our brains. Also, we can't have just one philosophy for the way our minds work. Different methods work with different situations, and its important to know what works well when.

Overall, I am very glad I read this book and watched the documentary. After really not enjoying the BLA last term, actually getting a good book this time around was a pleasant change. I had read another Malcolm Gladwell book recently, so I knew that this one would be good as well. The documentary was done as part of BBC Horizon, which is a program (or a programme, I suppose, as it's British) that makes tons of wonderful documentaries, of which I have seen several, so I knew the documentary would be good too.