Emotions and behaviors are difficult to decode and understand. Its hard and complicated to define what causes us to react a certain way when we under pressure, tension, or stress. Thanks to Malcom Gladwell, and his study, I’m now aware on the multiple reasons I act differently in specific situations. Throughout the article, Gladwell explains and illustrates different types of failures caused by two different main factors. These two mains factors are explicit learning and implicit learning. According to the author, these two factors might seem the same but “ they are words apart” (p86). Explicit learning is when someone starts thinking too much about something and lost focus on everything else. It defines as a choke, which occurs “ under conditions of stress” (p85) and pressure. Implicit learning is determinates when a person is panicked and think too little, “ learning that takes place outside of awareness”. This limits and narrows the memory of a person and make them react without thinking; “ Panic is reversion to instinct”.
Each one of us could refer to these situations because we all go through these situations whether you are a student, you have a job or participate in any kind of competition or presentation. I could go on and on and describe different situations I went through related to what Gladwell discusses. I actually have a speech to give today for my speech class and I’m afraid to panic and earn a bad grade!!!!!
As a student, I constantly go through the implicit learning while I’m taking a test. I remember for my SAT test, on my way to the room I was confident and promised myself to take my time to answer all the questions; however, once I got the paper in front of me, everything went blank. I panicked and didn’t know where to start, for some reason all the night I spent studying disappeared and all I can remember was “ finish the SAT, answer all the questions, don’t leave nothing out!!!!!”. I was horrified and I end up doing poorly.
I remember one day, I was going in the city with my family to a shop, it was sunny and warm. I’m the type of person who takes hours to get ready because I don’t like to rush myself; however, my dad is the entire opposite. He is always first at the door yelling at me because I’m taking too long. That day I was upstairs wondering which shoes I was going to wear and heard my dad in the car honking and screaming because I was taking too long again (the usual). Once I chose the shoes, I started heading to the car when I remember I forgot to bring my sunglasses. I ran upstairs and started looking for my glasses. For some reasons, I had misplaced them , I couldn’t find it. I was looking around, searching for the box where I usually put my glasses and I didn’t realize that my sun glasses were actually right in front of me out of the box. I was thinking too (implicit learning) much about the box and forgot that may be the glasses wasn’t in the box but outside.
Now that I’m aware of the type of failure we face in our everyday routine, I will be able to control them and avoid them.
