View my Affiliate Disclosure page Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. I thought the subject matter was interesting and the research well-done. I'm glad that those nice people at Goodreads chose me randomly to receive an old-school paper copy of this book, free of charge. Malcolm Gladwell is here to tell us that the evidence shows that we are not good at this at all. I never would have picked up this book if it hadn’t been a book club selection. Think about it: what would life be like if we didn’t default to the idea that strangers are inherently good and honest people?Transparency is the idea that people’s behaviour and how they represent themselves on the outside, provides an authentic window into the way they feel on the inside. Malcolm Gladwell took me into worlds that I had never even considered.This is a wonderful book about major issues when talking to people. Answered Questions (7) In 2009 a well known Harvard psychologist, Steven pinker, wrote the following in a review: "Readers have much to learn from Gladwell the journalist and essayist. it’s negligent and dangerous. Malcolm Gladwell is viewed as a hugely influential writer and I was eagerly anticipating reading this, my first taste of his work, a body of his thinking on how we, the people, are extraordinarily gullible when it comes to strangers, all too easily taken in by them in our general eagerness to trust rather than be more cautious. Trying to figure out what to read next? How good are you at reading the intentions of strangers?As someone who has spent many years learning how to understand other people’s behaviour, I like to think that I’m quite good at it. What I love about Gladwell's books is the thing that I think many people find frustrating: I don't agree with everything he says. This book really irritated me. It will be a novel feeling to actually have read a controversial book before it hits the shelves and generates the predictably shallow I'm glad that those nice people at Goodreads chose me randomly to receive an old-school paper copy of this book, free of charge. "Perhaps we should think twice before drawing conclusions about the behaviour of others.I enjoyed the book, although for some reason not as much as Tipping Point. The audiobook had an added bonus of providing the reader with actual or reproduced interviews and transcripts of the cases he used as examples. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Gladwell describes how Judge Soloman of New Work City was pitted against an AI programme to compare which could more accurately predict if defendants would be likely to commit crimes if granted bail. Gladwell is fantastic at crafting arguments which is what holds this book together but the content is flimsy and offensive. What to say about Gladwell? We’d love your help. Clearly the author has never been sexually assaulted.
His job is to ask questions -- lots of them -- to people he's never met before. Seiden followed up with the 515 people between 1937 and 1971 who attempted to jump but who had somehow been restrained or stopped before they could do it. A psychologist named Richard Seiden proved that this isn’t the case. What should I read next?If you have any recommendations let me know below or via Want regular personal development tips and reminders?decisions, psychology, procrastination, safe problems
Still, I don't think the book is bad. We started talking and we started going to the dance evenings on Wednesdays in addition to the Monday classes. He's an excellent writer and storyteller and there are two few good writers these days so I will read all of them if I can--even without buying what they're selling.This is certainly a provocative book, enough so that despite my anger and frustration I finished reading it in the hope it would conclude with a complex and thoughtful analysis of why our differences and history result in so much misunderstanding when strangers interact with each other. The biggest technical issue is that there is no definition of “stranger” which allows Gladwell to mold his thin arguments to any hot button topic he chooses. I think everyone gets that it's complicated and that there are two sides to these stories, but I don't think this telling is all that helpful in understanding these intricacies.
Gladwell extensively used well-known cases that show that, when dealing with people we do not know, wTalking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell appears to be a contentious book: the readers and reviewers have either hated it or loved it, nothing in between. 0316478520