Why more of you idiots should read

When I can't take anymore of the ignorance and stupidity around me I tend to read more, which is my current state. I have been reading quite a bit lately. One of of these days I am going to live-blog a book, take that Edgrimley. Right now I am reading Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. Its been around for a couple of years but I've always resisted it because I don't often get into these self-help books. I always figure, "You don't know me." And don't even try to read them. But I went to Barnes and Noble and always look at the employee picks, and have selected books from the same employee and have always been satisfied. This month the selection was Blink, so I figured why not. Well last night I read 110 pages in one sitting and was mesmerized.

The book is about how we make rash decsions without thinking, and the positives and negatives of these decisions. They showed studies in which people met someone for 30 seconds and answered questions about these people on surveys better than people that have known them for years could. (I've always said my friends are idiots.) One study had individuals watch 10, 30 second clips of teachers, without sound, and had them fill out evaluation forms. These forms were almost identical to those filled by students who had them all semester. Its basically about that gut feeling that we sometime feel and sometimes don't. Now to the point of this blog, The Warren Harding error.

One day Harding was getting his shoes shined next to a local lobbyist. The lobbyist thought that Harding had this great presence about him and would make a great politician. Harding went on to become a senator and eventually president. He served 2 years before dying, and many regard him as the worst president ever (Jimmy Carter may argue different). The Harding error is that people make judgments about people all that time that have nothing to do with anything, yet affect our decisions of people. Often times, especially in males, a tall and demanding physique can take you a lot farther than your skills can. The author of this book polled half of the Fortune 500 companies and found that the average height was 6', the national average is only 5'9". Only 14.5% of all men in the U.S. are 6' or taller, yet among Fortune 500 CEO's, 58% are 6' or taller. I find that very interesting. (3.9% of U.S. are over 6'2", yet 30% of CEO's are). This shows that being short is almost as big of a handicap in today's business world as being a women or a minority (not quite as bad but...)

Harvard offers these online IAT (Implicit Association Test) in which they show pictures and words of different things and you group them as fast as possible. For example there is one with a category of bad and white on one side and good and black on the other. Its crazy but you will notice in your head that it takes longer to categorize "good" words like love and peace in the black category. At the end they give you a rating and compare it to all users, its quite interesting.

Note: I have chosen not to blog on the Michael McGee situation because I believe the absurdity of it all explains itself.