Houston Southard

Malcolm GLadwell - Talking to strangers

Love him or hate him, Malcolm has practically invented a genre of nonfiction writing: finely turned counterintuitive narratives underpinned by social science studies.

Police forces were trained to use minor traffic violations to uncover major crimes. In doing so they pathologized a whole range of normal behavior and exacerbated pre-existing racial bias. Trying to systemize doubt empowers poor instincts. There are evolutionary social reasons why we’re inclined more towards trust than suspicion. If it was suspicion that formed the basis of all interaction between strangers, we would never have learned to cooperate to scale.

Gladwell covers anthropological research and case studies to show why we're bad at it, including the Jerry Sandusky scandal, the trial of Amanda Knox, Sandra Bland and Sylvia Plath's suicide.

NYC bail judges make a point to look at the people he sentences in the eye. . Economists fed a program the same information the judges got before making their decisions. Defendants judges gave bail to were 25% more likely to reoffend than those the computer chose. We think we can make a decision on a feeling, but we’re overconfident about an ability that doesn’t exist.

We assume people are telling the truth until we have enough evidence they're lying. We need a trigger, but emotions aren’t expressed in the same way by everyone. We have an illusion of transparency, thinking we can understand what someone else is feeling by how they behave or their facial expressions. But this is a cultural phenomenon, not one ubiquitous to humans.

It's cognitive bias propped up by watching tv and reading books. Shock is shown by wide eyes and a jaw drop, while anger is narrow-eyed and furrowed brows. You can read their faces like a book.

Spanish children attribute smiles to happiness, while Trobriand Islanders rate them as neutral. Children recognize a scared face as showing fear while the Trobriands interpret it as a threat. The Mwani and people of Namibia cannot make sense of smiling faces.

This book is less insight than oversight. Because we don't know how to talk to strangers, when things go awry with strangers, we blame the stranger. So it goes.