Using short bursts of experience to Induce your way to a general truth.
Thin Slicing is using Inductive reasoning to arrive at general truths about a system (usually a person) based on patterns observed in small windows of experience. Thin Slicing can be carried out systematically, using the conscious thinking mind (as in the John Gottman Marriage Study) and is also carried out constantly by the more basic parts of the brain, the Adaptive Unconscious, using Emotional Algorithms.
Other Examples from Blink
- German telegraph operators were individually identifiable by the cadence of their beeps and boops
- Malpractice Suits predicted by a doctor’s tone of voice alone
- Your room is more telling than your friendship