Thin Slicing: The Power of Intuition in Decision-Making

Imagine you are holding interviews to fill an important position at your company. The next person you are about to interview looks impeccable on paper and has all the credentials you are looking for, but as soon as that person walks through the door you suddenly get a gut feeling that this person is not the right person for the job. Based on intuition alone, without even interviewing the applicant, you cannot hire this individual. This is what is known as thin slicing. Malcom Gladwell describes thin slicing as, “the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience” (Gladwell 2013, p. 23). Gladwell’s definition explains the reasoning behind that “gut” feeling you just had about the candidate, it was your unconscious telling you that something was not quite right. Thin slicing can be useful in many situations but can also be misleading, which is why it can

Gladwell gives many examples of how thin slicing has been helpful and can also lead us astray because of things like implicit bias. The examples examined by Gladwell have shown me that sometimes my snap judgment of a thing or person can be just as accurate and helpful as my research perception. However, with something like implicit bias, I need to be aware of that because my past experiences shape this bias and can often misconstrue a snap judgement. Think slicing could be a problem when bias comes into play because it could lead to poor decisions and could result in negative consequences. I think that thin slicing can be useful in certain situations and not for others because very critical decisions deserve careful thought and understanding multiple perspectives. For example, it would be useful in situations when you need to make quick decisions like deciding whether to get into a car with someone you do not know or walking home alone in the