Thin-slicing - History and Overview

History and Overview

Many studies have shown indication that brief observations can be used to assess outcomes, at levels higher than expected by chance. Once comparing these observations of less than five minutes to greater than five minutes, the data showed no significant change, thus implying that observations made within the first few minutes were unchanging.

One of the first series conducted by James Bugental and his colleagues showed that parents' expectancies, identified from brief clips of their tone, are related to their children's behavior process. The tone of a mother with a normal child and one whose child has behavioral problems differed significantly. These conceptions provide an underlying basis that there actually is an ability to judge from brief observations. Research in classrooms has shown that judges can distinguish biased teachers from unbiased teachers along with "differential teacher expectancies" simply from brief clips of teachers' behaviors. Likewise, research in the courtroom has shown that in brief excerpts of judges' instructions to jurors in trials, raters could predict the judge's expectations for the trial.

The term thin-slicing means making very quick decisions with minimal amounts of information. Thinking has always been described as a conscious effort. Henri Cartier-Bresson called thinking a "decisive moment" of consciousness, but in reality thin-slicing is an unconscious behavior. Thin-slicing also produces distinct biological and sociocultural effects. In one of Nalini Ambady's experiments, she reminded the female Asian students about their gender or their ethnicity before they took a math test. There are many prevailing social stereotypes that suggest women are not good at math and Asians are good at math. Her study showed that subtly cueing students' gender or ethnic identities affects their performance. The individuals whose ethnicity was cued scored higher than the control group, who in turn scored higher than the students whose gender was cued.