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Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell
fowadijaz's review against another edition
4.5
sandrah bland commits suicide after she is stopped for failing to signal a turn. gladwell then weaves an improbable connection between a pedophile, Hitler, Amanda Knox, the Kentucky pd, suicides, and the milgram experiments.
amazing. I thought I knew where the book was going but it just went everywhere and covered everything. a tour de force , never knew I could find this subject so fascinating. I thought for sure it would veer into the realm of pop Psychology But the recommendation it made actually followed really well from the thesis. excellent book
amazing. I thought I knew where the book was going but it just went everywhere and covered everything. a tour de force , never knew I could find this subject so fascinating. I thought for sure it would veer into the realm of pop Psychology But the recommendation it made actually followed really well from the thesis. excellent book
dkremraf's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.75
This was a difficult but I think necessary read. Difficult because all of the cases presented in the book include content that could carry plenty of trigger warnings. Other cases are simply depressing because it is showing how bad we all are at reading other people. I went into the book pretty blind and did not expect to learn quite so much about policing, but that is really the focus and clearly Gladwell's intention (as explained in the Afterword). It provoked a lot of reflection on how I've approached strangers and the inherent biases we all carry. Should be required reading by all police departments!
sarahetc's review against another edition
4.0
A very interesting premise that fits well, but not tightly, with both Gladwell's other works and what we know about cognitive bias. Most research says that our primary cognitive bias is a default to negativity-- that this is evolutionary and why we have survived as a species. We wait for the other guy to eat the berries and see what happens to him before we try them. And if he turns blue and falls over? We don't eat those berries. But as we grew out of smallish tribes, we had to develop another bias: default to truth. Someone from another tribe offers us berries when we're starving. He doesn't look blue or dead so... we believe him. And many times we eat and thrive and are well and grow our community. These almost competing biases are how most humans have become as successful as they are.
But then, there are, in Gladwellian terms, outliers. And not just individuals (although he takes pains to point out sociopaths like Bernie Madoff who seemed to have been created especially to exploit a default to truth). There are swathes of outliers that form core parts of society, like many police forces who practice a certain type of policing that defaults to lies. Default to lie undoes the all the communal progress of default to truth and, if you're watching, you can start to see it happen in real time.
Interesting, a little infuriating, and definitely thought provoking. I'm rating it against his other works, which is probably unfair, but I can't unread them. Still recommended for those interested in cognitive bias. Bonus for its many, many shout outs to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (Go Blazers!) where psychologists are doing incredible work on lying and our perceptions of it. In the end, I'm probably still going to talk to strangers and default to truth. But I might have a better idea of why sometimes strangers don't make sense.
But then, there are, in Gladwellian terms, outliers. And not just individuals (although he takes pains to point out sociopaths like Bernie Madoff who seemed to have been created especially to exploit a default to truth). There are swathes of outliers that form core parts of society, like many police forces who practice a certain type of policing that defaults to lies. Default to lie undoes the all the communal progress of default to truth and, if you're watching, you can start to see it happen in real time.
Interesting, a little infuriating, and definitely thought provoking. I'm rating it against his other works, which is probably unfair, but I can't unread them. Still recommended for those interested in cognitive bias. Bonus for its many, many shout outs to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (Go Blazers!) where psychologists are doing incredible work on lying and our perceptions of it. In the end, I'm probably still going to talk to strangers and default to truth. But I might have a better idea of why sometimes strangers don't make sense.
dompling's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
nikogo's review against another edition
4.0
This book is definitely worth reading. Mostly, in order to think about the ideas Malcolm Gladwell puts into it. I don’t agree with all his conclusions, interpretations, and connections. But I’m glad he raised the topic, provided a lot of material to consider, and made me come to my own conclusions.
It’s about our flimsy attempts to understand and decipher other people, and about connections between people, their actions, and seemingly independent circumstances and events.
It’s about our flimsy attempts to understand and decipher other people, and about connections between people, their actions, and seemingly independent circumstances and events.
abstab's review against another edition
3.0
interesting book but not exactly what i thought it was about. more an analysis of different cases of communication and not really knowing people, but i thought it was going to be a social book teaching how to speak with people!
crichards9's review against another edition
5.0
My favorite of MG’s books!!! It might come off a little “liberal” but facts are facts. And Malcolm Gladwell is all about providing the data even if others are unwilling to see it.