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jess_mango's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars
Overall, as usual, Gladwell captures your attention with his theories and analysis of a social science concept. This time around it is how well are we able to judge if strangers are being sincere or if they are lying; if they are scared or being threatening. Gladwell uses many cases from recent and current events to showcase his concepts. This includes the Brock Turner sexual assault incident. I found his analysis of that particular case to be oversimplified by his focus on the involvement of alcohol making judgement myopic. Clearly, rape culture in general also played a part, but isn't really discussed.
What to Listen to While Reading (or during reading breaks)
-Hell you Talmbout by Janelle Monae
-Don't Talk to Strangers by Ariel Pink
-Misunderstanding by Genesis
-Truth Lies Low by Andrew Bird
-What do you Mean? by Jamie Cullum
-Body Language by Queen
-Truth Hurts by Lizzo
-Honesty by Pink Sweat$
Overall, as usual, Gladwell captures your attention with his theories and analysis of a social science concept. This time around it is how well are we able to judge if strangers are being sincere or if they are lying; if they are scared or being threatening. Gladwell uses many cases from recent and current events to showcase his concepts. This includes the Brock Turner sexual assault incident. I found his analysis of that particular case to be oversimplified by his focus on the involvement of alcohol making judgement myopic. Clearly, rape culture in general also played a part, but isn't really discussed.
What to Listen to While Reading (or during reading breaks)
-Hell you Talmbout by Janelle Monae
-Don't Talk to Strangers by Ariel Pink
-Misunderstanding by Genesis
-Truth Lies Low by Andrew Bird
-What do you Mean? by Jamie Cullum
-Body Language by Queen
-Truth Hurts by Lizzo
-Honesty by Pink Sweat$
kellysonofjohn's review against another edition
5.0
As someone who trusts easily, this was FASCINATING and had me questioning how I navigate interactions with strangers. Gladwell makes an excellent case for the necessity in society for a default to truth while also warning of the side effects.
fbroom's review against another edition
Malcolm Gladwell says that we often view strangers as simple to understand while we view ourselves are complicated and nuanced. If there is one takeaway that we should learn from this book is that this is completely wrong. He mentioned an experiment done where subjects were asked to complete a list of words that are missing letters. When subjects were asked if the list of words tells anything about their personality they immediately declined the possibility because they are “complex” and not “simple” while when they were asked what they thought about strangers responses to the same exercise, they immediately drew all kinds of conclusions.
Gladwell refers the to the research done by Tim Levine throughout the book. One particular concept is the concept of defaulting to truth. As humans we tend to trust, “defaulting to truth”. It requires a huge amount of evidence to convince us to cross the threshold. Gladwell of course presents this concept while telling the story of capturing the double agent, Anna Mortes (Queen of Cube). He tells the story of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. He also spends time discussing the Jerry Sandusky case and the Larry Nassar Case. How did these monster continue to abuse for at least a decade without being caught? Gladwell claims that it’s because we default to truth first.
A third concept was the Friends Fallacy where the gist is that you sometimes demeanors don’t match the truth in humans. You can’t just rely on facial expressions. Moreover these facial expressions might in fact leads to errors in judgment. For examples when analyzing the court records in NY to see if the judges made the right judgement, we see on average 50% judges were correct while John Kleinbeg’s AI was able to do much better (forgot the exact number). Why? Because the AI didn’t look at the facial expressions of the defendants and only relied on facts. Amanda Knox is a great example where her demeanors just didn’t match the truth. The police was so focused on that rather than the actual truth and DNA samples.
Gladwell turns then to the affect of alcohol consumption on interactions with strangers. He blames the increase in sexual assault on campus to the extreme alcohol consumption in recent years in fraternity parties and so on. I don’t know, not everyone who gets drunk will attempt rape. Seems too simplistic to me but I get the intention of wanting to stop the outrageous rise in alcohol consumption on campuses.
Gladwell also talks about the concept of coupling with examples from Sylvia Plath and the Golden Gate Bridge suicide nets. Coupling means certain events happen together or cause one another. Had the old gas oven not been there, Sylvia wouldn’t commit suicide? The Golden Gate Bridge net saved a lot of potential suicide that people in general doubt because they don’t get the concept of coupling.
In the end Gladwell talks about the Kanas Police experiment. He talks about how crime is concentrated in certain blocks and how crime doesn’t move because it’s coupled … I don’t have fresh notes since at this point I have read/listened to this 3 weeks ago ugh.
In the last chapter, he goes back to analyzing Sandra Bland’s case. I don’t have notes for this one but his analysis seems too simplistic ….
slflorence99's review against another edition
4.0
I actually listened to the Audible version. It was really well done and thought provoking.
art3mis9's review against another edition
1.0
Miscommunications dilute the aggressor’s actions to the victim. You can’t miscommunicate someone’s actions if they’re unconscious, as Brock Turner did to Chanel Miller. He spends the whole book downplaying crimes committed against innocent people.
ellenclibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
One of those books I wish everyone would listen to; and it should be listened to because the audio has great outtakes of real interviews, and chapter interludes of Janelle Monae music.
emilyb_chicago's review against another edition
5.0
I find Gladwell's books to be fascinating and have enjoyed every one since The Tipping Point came out in the early 2000s. This, like his others, is a very readable non-fiction book. It is thought provoking, with many examples to prove his hypothesis and stays focused on that hypothesis. Similar to the other books, there weren't counter points provided but I'm sure as before other authors will do that separately.
The audio book was produced like an episode of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History. Gladwell has a calm voice that is easy to listen to for hours. I highly recommend listening to this one.
The audio book was produced like an episode of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History. Gladwell has a calm voice that is easy to listen to for hours. I highly recommend listening to this one.