Blink Essay

Ian Youngs
Robert Bricker & Kristine Kelly
SAGES
10/9/08

Blink Essay

Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, delves into a very interesting topic of the human mind. The subtitle of the book is “The power of thinking without thinking.” This small phrase talks about the human brain’s ability to respond to situations without consciously doing so. Gladwell refers to this power of the brain as the “adaptive unconscious.” What this means is that a part of your brain analyzes situations and sends a message to your body to respond. The adaptive unconscious does not need a conscious command in order to function. It uses the senses that your body experiences, assesses them, and tells your body to respond. This function of the brain has been used for a long time without the general population knowing it. The adaptive unconscious affects what we buy, how we feel, and how we interpret the world.
One way that the adaptive unconscious is used is advertising. Gladwell mentions different experiments in which different products were tested. The first test was one on margarine. “Margarine came out in the late 1940’s. Unfortunately it was not popular among customers; the product just would not sell. Louis Cheskin, an immigrant from the Ukraine, thought that there must be a reason for this (Gladwell 160).” What was it about margarine that made it so unappealing to the public’s eye?
“Cheskin decided to hold a luncheon where he would pit margarine against butter. But in order to make the margarine undistinguishable, Cheskin colored it yellow, to match the color of butter. After the luncheon was over, the guests were asked to rate everything about the event; including the food. As it turned out the yellow margarine was rated just as high as the butter.”
“Cheskin decided to go further with his experiment. He told the makers of a brand of margarine to name the product Imperial Margarine. This enabled the label artists to use a crown as an emblem. Cheskin also told the makers that the margarine had to be yellow, and that it must be wrapped in foil, as foil was thought to represent high quality. So what would happen if this spread was pitted against regular whit margarine? The answer was that the yellow, impressively packaged margarine won; no contest (Gladwell 160-161).”
This experiment shows us two things. One, our adaptive unconscious is a powerful mechanism. When the color of the margarine, its packaging and name were changed, it was automatically chosen above the regular looking margarine. The adaptive unconscious sensed there was something better about the changed margarine. The name, color, and packaging, all gave the adaptive unconscious good vibes, thus making it acceptable. When the margarine was left unchanged the adaptive unconscious threw out warning signs because it sensed a difference, an overall negative appeal.
Two, our adaptive unconscious can be tricked. When the margarine appeared to be butter, taste tests proved that margarine was just as good. Once the color that differentiated butter from margarine was removed, the margarine became acceptable. Butter was a comfortable commodity to people. The color made them feel “safe” and “happy”. So when the margarine was changed to the “happy” color, people felt that it was safe. Their adaptive unconsciouses were fooled into acceptance. This means that when something “harmful” is disguised as “safe”, people will go near it.
This change in appearance is discussed by Gladwell later on in the chapter. He talks with Davis Masten and Darrel Rhea, two men employed by Cheskin. Their job is to help companies advertise efficiently. Gladwell, Rhea and Masten, travel to a supermarket where the duo shows Gladwell some of the products they have worked on. “Rhea leaned over and picked up a can of 7-Up. “We tested Seven-Up… what we found is that if you add fifteen percent more yellow to the green on this package… [what] people report [is] that the taste experience has a lot more lime or lemon flavor. And people were upset”… Masten picked up a can of Hormel canned meat. “We did this too. We tested the Hormel logo.” He pointed at the tiny sprig of parsley between the r and the m. “That little bit of parsley helps bring freshness to canned food.” (Gladwell 163-164).”
What Masten and Rhea have done is utilize the adaptive unconscious. When buying a product, the first thing we see is the packaging. This first impression must make a positive an impact. When the adaptive unconscious senses something positive, it gives the rest of the body a good, comfortable feeling. So by utilizing different images and colors, a buyer’s opinion is manipulated. Utilization of colors is a technique not only used by marketing firms, but also by artists.
Most everyone knows of the famous artist Pablo Picasso. Picasso was born October 25th, 1881 in a Malaga, a small coastal town in Spain. Skilled in drawing from an early age, Picasso later became a painter. He is most noted for his impressionistic works, which revolutionized the world of art forever. He co-founded the style cubism, for which he would become famous.
Picasso went through two very specific periods in his artistic career. In this time his art reflects his feelings. The two periods were known as the Blue Period and the Rose Period respectively.
Picasso’s Blue Period occurred from 1900-1904. Picasso slipped into a deep depression after the suicide of his dear friend Carlos Casagemas. Soon after hearing of Casagema’s death, Picasso started to paint the majority of his works with a blue and green tint to them. The subject matter was usually morose, and the colors brought out the emotions of the paintings. A portrait of a man picking at a guitar called “The Old Guitarist” is the most notable and iconic work of this period.
The time preceding The Blue Period is known as the Rose Period. This period lasted from 1904-1906. Picasso’s relationship with model Fernande Olivier caused this period to occur. The subject matter is much more festive and jolly, and the colors are brilliant reds, oranges, and pinks. This period is what eventually spawns Picasso’s iconic cubist works.
When an admirer looks at works from these specific periods, he can feel Picasso’s emotions. A sense of despair and angst can be felt when looking at works from the Blue Period, while jollity and joy can be felt from those of the Rose Period. Picasso’s use of specific color schemes helps to bring out these emotions. Subject matter aside, the colors of these paintings is what our adaptive unconscious notices first.
Cooler colors such as blue and green carry a negative message with them, a sense of foreboding and sadness. When the adaptive unconscious looks at these colors, the emotions associated with the colors come out and affect the viewer. So when looking at a picture from the Blue Period the viewer gets a sense of longing and sadness.
The opposite can be said for the Rose Period pictures. The reds and oranges used together correctly bring out happiness and rebirth. They signify warmth and a sense that everything will turn out okay in the end. Again the adaptive unconscious picks up on this and tells the body to react accordingly. For a more “popular” look at the use of adaptive unconscious, we turn to the cinematic mind-teasers, The Matrix Trilogy.
Though the back-story of the Trilogy is quite intriguing, the “nutshell” version will suffice for the purpose of this essay. The Matrix Trilogies takes place in three locations; the Matrix, an extremely large computer program that uses humans for power; the Machine World, the upper layer of the earth which is now run by machines; and Zion, the human city where the survivors of the machine onslaught live. Each of the three locations has a preset color theme that gives the movie its feeling.
In the Matrix, the color theme is green. Everything that takes place in the Matrix is coated in a green tint. From the people to the sky, you get a feeling that you are inside an old-school computer program. The Machine World is colored blue. Like the Matrix, everything here is covered in a blue tint. The machines themselves are bluer than they are silver. Lastly Zion has a red/brown tint. Since Zion is underground and close to the Earth’s core, this is fitting. Most of the humans in Zion are of African-American descent, adding to the color scheme.
Each color gives each location a different feel to it, and the adaptive unconscious senses this. Anytime a character enters the Matrix, the green setting, the viewer gets a sense of falsehood. The adaptive unconscious notices the green of the shot and warns the body. You do not have to be a genius to figure out that the Matrix is not a good place to be. The same can be said of the Machine World. The dark blues of the landscape are caught by the adaptive unconscious, sending warnings to the conscious mind to stay alert because evil lurks in this world. But when adaptive unconscious “sees” the warming reds and browns of Zion, the body relaxes. The viewer knows that while they are in this setting, they are safe and secure, like they are at home.
The adaptive unconscious is in operation throughout the entire movie. It is sending signals whether you should be wary or calm. The last scene of the Trilogy really exemplifies what the adaptive unconscious has done.
The final act takes place in the Matrix. The scene starts out green, as it has for the first portion of the films. Slowly the visual effects team lifts the green tint from the scene, adding in more reds, yellows, oranges, and browns; the colors that signify safety and calm.
Whether the viewer understands the plot does not matter. The adaptive unconscious picks up the color change and send s messages to your body saying, “Relax, do not worry, everything is going to be okay.” If the viewer has the ending of the movie go right over their head, they have had the adaptive unconscious help them out. Now the viewer can understand that the Matrix is not so “artificial” anymore. Now that the “human” colors have been added, change is going to happen.
Whether we like it or not our adaptive unconscious is always at work. It is telling us what to buy, and what to feel. It controls how we think and interpret the world. Colors and pictures help us interpret what is around us. Whether it is to say, “I do not like this,” or “This could be exciting,” the adaptive unconscious is helping us out. How we feel is directly affected by colors because the adaptive unconscious tells us what to feel. What we buy is directly affected by this mechanism. Whatever looks more pleasing, we buy. Whatever causes us to have happy emotions, we buy. Without the adaptive unconscious, we could not be human at all.