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A review by kathywadolowski
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell
5.0
What an amazing, insightful read! "Talking to Strangers" is the rare book that is applicable to every single person who reads it, and for that reason alone I'd recommend it to anyone; but I'd also recommend it because it's damn interesting, and will disrupt everything you think you know about your ability to read people and the likelihood you'll ever get it right.
I consider myself a person with pretty high emotional intelligence, and I like to think I can read people pretty well. And while the [excellent! intriguing!!] examples in this book are rather extreme—when's the next time I'll be sussing out a spy in the midst of the CIA or talking to a would-be authoritarian trying to downplay his intentions?—they illustrate that in making any assumption about another person and your ability to see through them, you're setting yourself up to fail. We have the tendency to believe that people's emotions can be read right on their faces (aka "transparency"), and that liars all follow the same physical cues except in rare cases. WE ARE SO WRONG. In TV shows and movies, we're *supposed* to be able to read characters' faces and glean their feelings; this is how we get nuance from a storyline, and we therefore expect similar interactions in our real lives. But as Malcolm Gladwell tells us, real humans rarely act or react in the ways we expect to see thanks to TV. In fact, people think THEIR OWN faces mirror the things they feel in studies, when in fact they're totally unaware the faces they are pulling and what other people are reading.
Critically, when we expect someone's face to show something and it doesn't, we often think that person might be lying. Take Amanda Knox—because she didn't act or look like we thought an innocent person would, scores of people mentally convicted her of murder...even when the facts of the case (as well as the conviction of the ACTUAL murderer) made it obvious she was guiltless. We think we should know the difference between innocent people and guilty ones, and when someone doesn't fit the mold we wade into dangerous territory. And the problem is, in reality this happens more than we'd like and more than we'd think.
In addition to transparency, Gladwell informs us that as humans we are also conditioned to default to truth—meaning that, even in extreme circumstances, we assume that our peers are telling us the truth because, well, it's much easier that way. And that’s what also makes society go round—if we can't trust ANYONE, how can we accomplish anything when a society requires codependence and teamwork? This default to truth, coupled with our expectation for transparency in body language and expression, makes us extremely vulnerable to deception. We don't want to see liars, and we don't really think they're in front of us. In the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State football scandal, for instance, the leadership of the school did not really intentionally cover for a pedophile; they just didn't want to believe that an employee was taking such horrible advantage of his position, and it was hard to fully get on board with the evidence they had.
In fact, I've seen Malcolm Gladwell's lessons in action outside this book—I just watched a documentary episode about John Spano, the would-be owner of the New York Islanders who essentially lied his way into the position. He claimed he had the money to buy the team (in the hundreds of millions of dollars), and though he was very obviously covering up his lack of funding he was still able to buy the team because everyone involved took him at his word (and his falsified documents) that he was legit. "Who would lie about this?!" people interviewed exclaimed. And that's exactly the point—we think we should be able to tell straight away when someone is telling a lie this big, and we assume people WON'T tell a lie this big, so even when there's evidence of doubt, we cling to our belief because it just makes more sense.
The lessons of this book will stay with me far into the future, and may also shape much more effective interaction for me and for society as a whole if we let it. Gladwell's chapters on policing and Sandra Bland, for instance, give some insight into the ways we fail each other when we rely on what we *think* we can tell about people. So let's all pause more, listen more, and refuse to lean into our assumptions about strangers. And give this book to everyone you know.
I consider myself a person with pretty high emotional intelligence, and I like to think I can read people pretty well. And while the [excellent! intriguing!!] examples in this book are rather extreme—when's the next time I'll be sussing out a spy in the midst of the CIA or talking to a would-be authoritarian trying to downplay his intentions?—they illustrate that in making any assumption about another person and your ability to see through them, you're setting yourself up to fail. We have the tendency to believe that people's emotions can be read right on their faces (aka "transparency"), and that liars all follow the same physical cues except in rare cases. WE ARE SO WRONG. In TV shows and movies, we're *supposed* to be able to read characters' faces and glean their feelings; this is how we get nuance from a storyline, and we therefore expect similar interactions in our real lives. But as Malcolm Gladwell tells us, real humans rarely act or react in the ways we expect to see thanks to TV. In fact, people think THEIR OWN faces mirror the things they feel in studies, when in fact they're totally unaware the faces they are pulling and what other people are reading.
Critically, when we expect someone's face to show something and it doesn't, we often think that person might be lying. Take Amanda Knox—because she didn't act or look like we thought an innocent person would, scores of people mentally convicted her of murder...even when the facts of the case (as well as the conviction of the ACTUAL murderer) made it obvious she was guiltless. We think we should know the difference between innocent people and guilty ones, and when someone doesn't fit the mold we wade into dangerous territory. And the problem is, in reality this happens more than we'd like and more than we'd think.
In addition to transparency, Gladwell informs us that as humans we are also conditioned to default to truth—meaning that, even in extreme circumstances, we assume that our peers are telling us the truth because, well, it's much easier that way. And that’s what also makes society go round—if we can't trust ANYONE, how can we accomplish anything when a society requires codependence and teamwork? This default to truth, coupled with our expectation for transparency in body language and expression, makes us extremely vulnerable to deception. We don't want to see liars, and we don't really think they're in front of us. In the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State football scandal, for instance, the leadership of the school did not really intentionally cover for a pedophile; they just didn't want to believe that an employee was taking such horrible advantage of his position, and it was hard to fully get on board with the evidence they had.
In fact, I've seen Malcolm Gladwell's lessons in action outside this book—I just watched a documentary episode about John Spano, the would-be owner of the New York Islanders who essentially lied his way into the position. He claimed he had the money to buy the team (in the hundreds of millions of dollars), and though he was very obviously covering up his lack of funding he was still able to buy the team because everyone involved took him at his word (and his falsified documents) that he was legit. "Who would lie about this?!" people interviewed exclaimed. And that's exactly the point—we think we should be able to tell straight away when someone is telling a lie this big, and we assume people WON'T tell a lie this big, so even when there's evidence of doubt, we cling to our belief because it just makes more sense.
The lessons of this book will stay with me far into the future, and may also shape much more effective interaction for me and for society as a whole if we let it. Gladwell's chapters on policing and Sandra Bland, for instance, give some insight into the ways we fail each other when we rely on what we *think* we can tell about people. So let's all pause more, listen more, and refuse to lean into our assumptions about strangers. And give this book to everyone you know.