Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell’s, discusses the idea of thin slicing, the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations from small samples. Gladwell also delves into the positive and negative effects of snap judgments and how people come to conclusions withoutbeing consciously aware of doing so. One topic of the book that intrigued me was the research of John Gottman and Paul Ekman. Gottman is a psychologist and professor who has spent most of his career studying interpersonal relationships. By watching a 15 minute video in slow motion, Gottman is able to predict with 90% accuracy whether or not the couple will eventually divorce.…
Many of these ideas are applicable to the rest of our lives.In particular Malcolm Gladwell's book explains a wealth of interesting information about humans and the way we think. Much of this information comes in discrete chunks, each of the results of a different social science experiment. The Love Lab, Marriage and Morse code,and Importance of contempt. In these chapters Gladwell observes and explains how much you can find out about a person,and relationships by watching clips to viewing a room to labeling a marriage.…
Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers focuses on the concept of success. Through various case studies and examples he challenges the notion that an individual's Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is a direct predictor of an individual's success. Gladwell's carefully chosen case studies and the manner in which he presents them is how he is able to connect to his audience. In the span of these two chapter the author references several areas of popular culture, sprinkles in statics and historical tidbits, all the while emphasizing his stance that "success" is independent of…
The 10,000 Hour Rule is the idea that it takes about 10,000 hours to master a skill. In Outliers, Gladwell uses Bill Gates as an example. According to Gladwell, Gates spent approximately 10,000 hours practicing coding, honing the skills that he would later use to build his multi-billion dollar software company known as Microsoft. Bill Gates is a real-life example of the idiom “Practice makes perfect”.…
As explained in Blink by Gladwell and Payne, unconscious discrimination is a type of discrimination that is very hard to recognize. We have all heard about explicit discrimination, which can take two forms: the individual level and the institutional level. At the individual level, people openly like. This can be seen in the case of bias hiring when an employer tells a postulant; “I will not hire you because you are a female.” At the institutional level, one of the most striking examples of discrimination occurs with the Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany. These laws restricted the rights of German citizens that were Jews. People working in the Nazi institutions had to enforce these discriminatory laws even if they disagreed with them. By discriminating against Jews, they were only “doing their job and following orders”.…
While going through the PBS website called Power of Illusion, we found many things that were new to us and that surprised us. The things that were new to us was the idea of race is actually a modern idea. Ancient societies did not divide people according to physical differences. Another idea that was new to us, was the adding of race to our census was not added until 1790, additionally the race of “Mexican” was not added until 1930. What surprised us the most was that us as humans actually have not been around long enough to put ourselves in subcategories based on our race or ethnicity.…
Malcolm Gladwell’s 2006 essay Troublemakers provides an interesting discussion about how we use generalizations in organizing and regulating our society. He frames his discussion with a consideration of the 2005 law banning pit bulls in Ontario, but in between he refers to generalizations in insurance (young male drivers pay higher premiums), medicine (overweight males will be counseled to have their cholesterol checked), law enforcement (what markers are used to identify terrorists) and our perceptions about crime rates in New York City. The pit bull ban is the only law that he considers, the rest are practices or perceptions. Gladwell concludes that the ban on pit bulls is overbroad, because not all pit bulls are dangerous, and that it…
In the first chapter of the “Outliers” Gladwell talks about the Matthew effect. Malcolm Gladwell takes a quote right out of the bible that states, “For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. - Matthew 25:29” (Gladwell, 2011, p 15) This means if you are given a small advantage over others to become successful, over time that small amount will start to widen. In this first part, it gives plenty of examples on how society chooses who becomes successful. Hard work doesn’t mean anything in this particular situation, but luck. One of the biggest example Gladwell gives is the hockey league. In the junior hockey league, there are cut out dates of who can…
In the first chapter of Outliers: The Matthew Effect, author Malcolm Gladwell introduces research done in showing that society has a unique way in perceiving success. He provides evidence of an uncontrollable source such as birthdates being a large factor in success by presenting the reader with charts. The author also tells of how children perceived as successful at a young age will continue to get ahead during life. The overabundance of proof shown in the text shows that the author has done an immense amount of research on this topic. Author Malcolm Gladwell effectively builds his argument of the connection of success to uncontrollable factors by appealing to the reader’s emotions, giving proof of research done by professionals, and giving…
Everyone experiences discoveries differently. Discoveries can be sudden and unplanned or they can evolve from a process of careful and precise planning. They can be emotional, intellectual, spiritual or physical. Both texts Away composed by Michael Gow and Into the Wild directed by Sean Penn, demonstrate the idea that new understandings and renewed perceptions of others and ourselves can be a result of an individual discovery.…
1. In the novel, Outliers, the author, Malcolm Gladwell, defines key factors that leads one to be successful. To begin with, Gladwell asserts that “parentage and patronage” are key factors of success (19). In other words, success is measured based on one's maturity level. For example, a younger child in the same grade level as an older child is more likely to be at a disadvantage because he/sh e lacks the cognitive skills that the older child has developed. Therefore, the older child is placed in a more advanced program,which leads to a higher rate of success because of the opportunities the older child is exposed to (28). Furthermore, Gladwell claims that people who are blessed with more fortunate upbringings have higher chances of being successful. He emphasizes that individuals with more fortunate circumstances are given more practice time than the less fortunate; the countless hours of practice are a key factor to success (59). Another factor of success is one’s culture. Towards the end of his book, Gladwell provides an justification of how those that are Asian are more likely to succeed because of the legacy from past generations that they have a growth mindset (259). This legacy and mindset has been…
The book Outliers written by Maclolm Gladwell is a book about success. Throughout the book he gives numerous examples of how people have achieved and in some instances, not achieved success. Popular belief would suggest that people who are considered outliers have gotten there through hard work and innate talent. Gladwell however, suggest that something is contributing to people being able to seek the levels of success that would make them an outlier. Gladwell believes that hidden advantages, extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies are the main factors of predicting success. Gladwell makes strong arguments to back up his claims chapter after chapter in the book. While I was reading Outliers one…
The song “All I Want” by Kodaline refers to Holden’s feelings toward Phoebe near the end of the book. For example, when Holden is delusional, he thinks he is going to die of pneumonia and says, “...so finally what I figured I’d do, I figured I’d better sneak home and see her, in case I died and all” (Salinger 156). Holden’s one wish before he dies (or so he thinks) was to go see his kid sister Phoebe. Holden has a very close relationship with his sister, and they are both very fond of the other. This mindset is displayed by the members of Kodaline when they sing “‘cause if I could see your face once more/ I could die a happy man I’m sure” (Kodaline). While “All I Want” is admittedly about a romantic relationship and not one of a sibling nature,…
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell explores the idea of “thin-slicing,” which is the act of the brain only using a small bit of information to make a decision. These types of snap judgements are sometimes thought to be inferior to well thought out and studied decisions. Gladwell shows that well researched decisions are not always better decisions.…
On page 285, Gladwell writes, “The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all.” An outlier is someone or something that is valued different from a main body. Gladwell is saying that in the end these outliers are not as different from everybody else. These people were just given advantages, or born into a well off family that helped them grow into a highly successful individual. Others are not as lucky as some and they grow to be the ordinary working-class individual. This quote by Gladwell, affects my outlook on my upcoming academic life by making it hazy. I was always so sure that somehow I was different and that I have achieved all I have on my own. Therefore, I thought for sure I could make it into an ivy league school. However, now I see that I will need some help to get there and who knows if it will come. In the end, I’m going to continue to study and thrive in my academic life ,so that hopefully I can reach my university goal. While reading this book and understanding its lessons, I have come to conclude, that I am only at the beginning of the story of my own success. First of all, there are many more things for me to achieve and I haven’t even begun to attempt…