Psychology
by Malcolm Gladwell
Why do we misread strangers?
Police officers, judges, spy-catchers and prime ministers all have to size up people they don't know, and most are sure they can. Malcolm Gladwell argues we're far worse at it than we think, and that our mistakes follow a pattern.
Hear a sample · read by Laura
Psychologist Tim Levine found we assume people are honest until the doubts pile too high to explain away. It's how Ana Montes spied for Cuba for years inside the US Defense Intelligence Agency. Gladwell argues the habit is still worth having, because constant suspicion would cost us more.
We assume people's feelings show on their faces, the way they do on the sitcom Friends. Often they don't. Tim Levine found we catch liars well only when they act guilty. Honest people who seem shifty and liars who seem sincere fool us badly. Gladwell calls them mismatched.
Neville Chamberlain met Hitler in 1938 and left sure he could be trusted. The people who read Hitler best had barely met him. In a study of New York bail hearings, judges who saw defendants in person did worse than a computer that knew only their age and criminal record.
Behaviour is tied to particular places and conditions. When Britain phased out its poisonous town gas, suicide by gas all but vanished and the overall suicide rate fell, because most people didn't switch to another method. Gladwell tells it through the death of the poet Sylvia Plath in 1963.
Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain met Hitler in person and still badly misread what he wanted.
Default to truth
We assume people are honest unless the evidence against them becomes overwhelming.
Worth the cost
Trusting by default gets us fooled now and then, but without it society couldn't work.
Transparency
We expect faces to show what people feel, but many people's faces don't match their feelings.
Coupling
Some behaviour is tied to a setting. When British homes stopped using coal gas, suicides dropped.
A story from the book
In 2015 a Texas trooper stopped Sandra Bland for failing to signal. The encounter escalated into her arrest, and three days later she was found dead in her cell. Gladwell argues the trooper had been trained to distrust every driver and to read her irritation as danger.
One thing to try
Next time you size up someone new, like a landlord or a builder, write down what you actually know about them, separately from how they came across. The research Gladwell cites says the second list is the less reliable one. Check the first before you trust the second.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. Talking to Strangers comes with a Spot the Trap case to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appWhy do we misread strangers? Police officers, judges, spy-catchers and prime ministers all have to size up people they don't know, and most are sure they can. Malcolm Gladwell argues we're far worse at it than we think, and that our mistakes follow a pattern.
Default to truth; The transparency problem; Meeting them can make it worse; Coupling.
Next time you size up someone new, like a landlord or a builder, write down what you actually know about them, separately from how they came across. The research Gladwell cites says the second list is the less reliable one. Check the first before you trust the second.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from Talking to Strangers in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Spot the Trap case to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
