Malcolm Gladwell Power Of Context Analysis

Why is environment such a factor in today’s society? Many people are influenced by their environments and these environments shape the why people act. The environment also changes people's attitudes and behaviors psychologically. Both Malcolm Gladwell and Martha both express this concept in their writings. Malcolm Gladwell, author of Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime, talks about how concepts shape the way in which epidemics are performed through an individual’s involvement with his or her environment. Gladwell expresses these many concepts through citing several examples that show how one’s environment can change the way an individual acts and can change their perspective on certain things. Martha …show more content…
One of the experiments is the Stanford University prison experiment. This experiment was performed by Philip Zimbardo and a group of scientists wanted to see how normal people would act once they were put into a prison environment for two weeks whether they are a guard or a prisoner. The experiment was cut down to 6 days because of the information that the scientist discovered. Gladwell exclaimed “What Zimbardo found out shocked him. The guards, some whole previously identified themselves as pacifists, fell quickly into the role of hard-bitten disciplinarians” (Gladwell 158). Both the prisoners and the guards lost their identities and were reforming to the lifestyle and beliefs of actual prisoners and prison guards. The “prisoners” actually felt like they were in prison and became emotionally distraught and the guards became strict disciplinarians and lost their morals. When the people were put into the environment of a prison, they reverted from their morals and even led to them changing. Stout talks about this epidemic as well, she says “All human beings have the capacity to dissociate psychologically, though most of us are unaware of this, and consider “out-of-body” episodes to be far beyond the boundaries of our normal experience. In fact, dissociative experiences happen to everyone, and most of these events are quite …show more content…
The Power of Context is Gladwell’s radical theory that through the help of other big concept words, means, some people act the way they do because of the effect of their environment and how they were raised throughout their childhood. Also, the environment that people grow up in can also affect them and make them become someone else in the future. Stout gave the example that supports Gladwell’s theory of the power of context by talking about the psychological profile of a woman named Beverly. Beverly is a woman who lost her sister in a car crash when they were both young. When Beverly became older, she was frightened in the presence of a train zooming towards her. This initial reaction of Beverly being scared shows that her internal instinct of her sister dying from a moving vehicle still is a part of Beverly. The moment the train zoomed past her triggered her past and traumatized Beverly. Beverly’s environment changed from being comfortable to extremely frightened and sad. Stout states, “Beverly’s brain contains, effectively, a broken warning device in its limbic system, an old fuse box in which the fuses tend to melt for no good reason, emphatically declaring an emergency where none now exists” (Stout 422). This quote is talking about Beverly’s disposition to disregard an unconscious thought of her sister unexpectedly dying. This event shows how the environment of