Nanothoughts

Split second decisions. Nanothoughts....           

Telstar Logistics

The trouble with split-second decisions is that they often feel as though they made themselves. It is not necessarily the case that simply that snap decisions are less accurate than other kinds of decisions, but it is easy to understand that there is just as much, if not more potential for error when making quick decisions.

If you only have 12 seconds, it is probably a bad idea to begin balancing your checkbook or making jam.

The other issue with quick decisions has to do with consequence. If you are an airline pilot steering a jet into a river because the engines failed, we care a lot about and, hopefully celebrate your ability to make quick, decisive and accurate decisions. Same thing does for the neurosurgeon and the bomb disposal technicians, and search committees.

Wait. What?

“[A research project] conducted by Frank Bernieri at the University of Toledo in Ohio, dealt with job-interview impressions. This researcher selected two participants to act as interviewers and had them professionally trained for 6 weeks on interview techniques. These two later interviewed nearly 100 people of various backgrounds and filled out an extensive six-page interview questionnaire on each. Bernieri’s goal was to determine whether there are particular mannerisms that could ingratiate some people with interviewers.

He found that wasn’t the case. There don’t seem to be any particular tricks one can use to win at an interview.

But then one of Bernieri’s students asked if the videotapes of these encounters could be used for another purpose. She had heard that “the handshake is everything” and wanted to test that old adage. Using a 15-second piece of video showing the candidate knocking on the door, shaking hands, and being greeted by the interviewer, she asked a group of new participants to rate these applicants on the same criteria that the two trained interviewers had been using.

“On nine out of the 11 traits that the applicants were being judged on, the observers significantly predicted the outcome of the interview,” Bernieri told The New Yorker. “In fact, the strength of the correlation was extraordinary.”

This is a disturbing conclusion. Here were well-trained interviewers, knowing just what to look for and how to get the information they sought, filling out a detailed, five-part form ensuring a complete and unbiased interview. Yet total strangers, who viewed only 15 seconds of video, arrived at similar conclusions.”

Wow. What they are saying is that the most qualified person doesn't always get the offer? Instead, the qualified candidate who makes the right first impression gets the offer? Yes, well, it gets worse.

Way back in 1993, a couple of experimental psychologists at Harvard University analyzed the nonverbal aspects of good teaching.  Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal enlisted the help of some Harvard teaching fellows who agreed to have their teaching videotaped.

A 10-second silent piece of that video was shown to outside observers, who were asked to rate the teachers on a 15-item checklist of personality traits. Trends emerged.

By athena.

Even when Ambady cut the video back even to just 2 seconds, the ratings remained the same. Apparently, all the important stuff happens in the first 2 seconds.

Now for the kicker: Ambady and Rosenthal discovered that a person's conclusions after watching that 2-second video clip of a teacher he has never met are very similar to the conclusions reached by classroom participants after an entire semester's exposure. The moral of the story is that impressions matter, sometimes more that they should. Of course, there is also the possibility – and some would argue, probability – of this impression being biased.

The ability to make sound decisions instantly over short spans of time is discussed in detail in Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink", which I highly recommend. Another of his works that I read last spring break entitled “What the Dog Saw”, is outstanding as well. Malcolm is been a staff writer with The New Yorker magazine since 1996 and has written four books. 

According to Gladwell, making split second decisions, based on what initially may appear to be a limited amount of information, occurs in a part of the brain called the adaptive unconscious.  This part of your brain is "a kind of giant computer that quickly and quietly processes a lot of the data we need in order to keep functioning as human beings.”

"There are lots of situations--particularly at times of high pressure and stress--when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions offer a much better means of making sense of the world.” Gladwell explains how this process works, how to develop and control this skill, and when to trust these decisions as opposed to a different decision process.

But neither search committees nor teaching are generally considered high-pressure or high-stress environments, at least most days, right?

Right. So what are we to do, if anything? I mean, what’s the point? Two seconds…?

There really is only one piece of advice. It was given to me by several of my mentors a long time ago and it was to “be true to myself”. In other words, be yourself and be at your best.

Perhaps the best way to influence that split second decision is to not worry about them. There's something liberating about the idea that you don't really have to perform, to pretend to be something you're not.  It appears, based on the studies, that it is really hard to "fake it" in both the classroom and an interview. Since there's nothing you can do about it anyway, you might as well be yourself.

It is, however, a reminder to pay attention to the smallest components of our everyday lives. Every day, whenever we meet a new person, or confront a complex situation, or have to make a decision under conditions of stress, pay attention to those instantaneous impressions and conclusions that you can’t help but form.

If we paid more attention to those fleeting moments, I think it just might change the way we interact with one another, our notions of civility, the way job interviews are conducted, how classes are taught, and on and on.

Isn’t that what we are all about?


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