The Theory of Thin Slices

My son moved out this week.  He has just been back from his Air Force training for about a week and a half.  He said one morning that he wanted to move out and by that evening, had decided upon a place to rent and was packing his things. It’s nothing personal.  He’s 22 years old and wants his freedom.  I understand that.  What I can’t understand is how he decided to do it and actually found a place in one day.  I would have taken weeks analyzing the pros and cons of each prospect.  

Malcolm Gladwell has an explanation.  He calls it the theory of thin slices.  In Chapter One, Gladwell lays a solid foundation for his theory.  He relates how in one study at the University of Iowa, subjects were given four decks of cards: two red and two blue.  As the subject turns a card over, they either add money to their pool, or lose money.  Of course the objective is to win as much money as you can.  The twist is that although the rewards are occasionally high, the losses in the red decks are very high.  You can only win by selecting cards from the blue decks.  They discovered that after 50 cards, most people start to develop a hunch.  They can’t define it yet, but they prefer the blue decks.  Most people have it figured out and can articulate it at about eighty cards.  That is the learning curve.

The scientists at Iowa also hooked the subjects to instruments that measured the activity in the sweat glands in the palms of their hands.  That is where they realized something very interesting.  They found that the subjects generated stress responses to the red decks by the tenth card.  Gladwell goes on to lay a very convincing argument for what he calls the “adaptive unconscious”.  He believes that we make unconscious (not sub-conscious) decisions based on small bits of information, while consciously we clamor for more information to make a decision.  

Gladwell argues that we can cut through the chase by focusing on certain bits of information that he calls “thin slices”.  Gladwell tells the story of John Gottman at the University of Washington who, by studying thousands of couples can predict with a very high level of accuracy, those couples who will end in divorce.  He watches just a few video taped moments of seeming innocuous dialog.  I won’t divulge the method (go buy the book!) but it is quite interesting.

I teased my wife about her low fat/low carb bread.  I said, “It only has less fat and carbs, because it is thinner slices.”  She shot back that there is just enough bread to do the job.  I can’t argue.  Why do we need more?  My son decided where to move very quickly.  Yes, it could turn out that he is rash and prone to hasty decisions, but in reality, he is usually right.  Is it possible that we can learn to make decisions by focusing on “thin slices” of data?  Can it be that, like my wife’s bread, thinner slices are just enough to do the job?  If so, how do we determine what are the correct slices to focus in on?  

If it is true, how did we get stuck on making conscious decisions based on a glut of information?

Just something to think about… and while you do, I think I’ll go make a sandwich.  Hmmmm!?  Thin or thick slices of bread?  I think thin is just enough…