PDF Summary:Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell

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The First Real Strangers

Throughout human history, the vast majority of human interactions occurred between neighbors, relatives, or people that had at least some things in common, such as worshipping the same God. But when Hernán Cortés sailed from Spain to Mexico in 1519, he began an entirely new kind of encounter in human history. This is an example of one of the first times in human history that two people with entirely different assumptions, histories, and cultural backgrounds were thrown into contact. Upon meeting the Aztec ruler Montezuma II and discovering the capital, Tenochtitlán, Cortés and his men were in awe. They had never seen a city as grand or a culture as drastically different from their own.

The two leaders, Cortés and Montezuma, knew absolutely nothing about each other’s language, civilization, or cultural nuances. They had to go through a long and complicated chain of translation to communicate with each other. The result? Montezuma’s capture and murder at the hand of Cortés, followed by the death of nearly 20 million Aztecs. But why?

One answer to this question lies in the difference between the way Cortés and Montezuma communicated, based on...

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The Latin American division of the CIA was shocked and horrified by the news. They were supposed to be the most sophisticated intelligence agency in the world, but they had been made to look like fools.

This was not the first time in the history of the CIA that something like this had happened. In East Germany, Aldrich Ames, one of the most senior officers in the Soviet Counterintelligence agency, was working as a double agent for the Soviet Union. And, even though the Mountain Climber later said he had always held a low opinion of Ames, he never suspected Ames as a traitor.

If the Mountain Climber, one of the best agents at one of the most selective agencies in the world, can’t pick out a liar among his own team of spies, how can a person be expected to be able to catch a stranger in a lie?

Puzzle 2 Example: Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler

In 1938, Adolf Hitler announced his plan to invade the German-speaking side of Czechoslovakia. In response, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain decided to go to Germany and meet with Adolf Hitler face-to-face. He hoped to look Hitler in the eyes, get a sense of his true intentions, and measure Hitler’s...

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Truth-Default Triggers

The Trivia Experiment itself is an example of how TDT plays a role in human behavior. Each participant that goes through the trivia test knows she is part of an experiment. Suddenly Rachel leaves the room and just so happens to leave the answers on the desk. The participant’s partner, who she’s never met before, suggests cheating. Wouldn’t you expect at least some of these college-educated participants to be suspicious at that point?

Every once in a while, a participant might catch on that one or more aspects of the trivia test is a setup, part of the experiment. However, they almost never assume that their partner is involved. Why not?

Levine concluded that a participant can have a suspicion, or even a series of doubts, but they will continue to believe the truth of the situation. The only way a person will snap out of the truth-default is if they gather enough doubts—if their suspicions rise to a level that they cannot explain away or rationalize. He called this a “trigger.”

So when a person (let’s call him Fred) comes across a stranger, Fred will generally believe what the stranger says. Even if he doubts the stranger...

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He argues that truth-default is highly advantageous to survival because it allows for effective communication and social coordination. From an evolutionary standpoint, being vulnerable to deception does not threaten human survival, but not being able to communicate does threaten human survival. To better understand this point, we have to look at what happens when we don’t default to truth.

Bernie Madoff and Harry Markopolos

In the 1900’s and early 2000’s, Bernie Madoff was a well-known name within the financial industry. He was successful, wealthy, imperious, and reclusive—the kind of mysterious figure that draws attention.

In 2003, he drew the attention of Nat Simon and the executives at Renaissance Technologies. The firm looked into Madoff’s trading strategies and decided that something wasn’t quite right. They held an internal investigation and became even more skeptical of how Madoff was making money. But did Renaissance Technologies cut ties with Madoff completely? No. They only cut their stake in half. They didn’t have enough doubts to write him off completely.

Five years later, Madoff turned himself over to the authorities. He was exposed as the...

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Even a case as clear-cut as Nassar’s was hindered by Truth-Default. So how can we expect witnesses to be any better when the details of a case are inscrutable?

Pennsylvania State University’s Leadership Team

One day in 2001, Michael McQueary entered the locker room of the Lasch Football Building at Pennsylvania State University. He expected the building to be empty, so he was surprised when he heard slapping sounds coming from the showers. Looking around, McQueary saw Jerry Sandusky, retired defensive coordinator of the Penn State football team, showering (naked) with a “minor individual.” McQueary later said that the boy looked to be about ten to twelve years old. Sandusky and the boy were standing close enough to be touching.

McQueary didn’t know what to do. He ran upstairs and called his parents to tell them what he had seen. Some days later, McQueary went to Penn State football’s head coach, Joe Paterno, to tell him about what he saw. Eventually, Paterno took McQueary’s story to the university’s athletic director Tim Curley, senior administrator Gary Schultz, and president Graham Spanier.

A full decade later, in 2011, Jerry Sandusky was finally arrested and...

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At the beginning of the episode, Ross sees Chandler and Monica in a romantic moment. This is significant because Chandler is Ross’s best friend and Monica is Ross’s sister. Ross rushes to Monica’s apartment to bust in and stop them. He is frantic. Joey and Rachel come into the scene, while Chandler hides behind Monica to stay out of Ross’s warpath. Monica and Chandler announce that they are in love. Slowly, Ross comes around to being happy for them.

That might seem like a lot to keep up with, but Friends is incredibly easy to follow. Why is that? Because the characters are transparent, as Jennifer Fugate proved with her FACS reading of the scene.

The Results

• In the moment that Ross sees Chandler and Monica embrace, his face reads: upper-lip raise, lower-lip depress, lips part, and jaw drop—all at the highest intensity rating. This is the stereotypical look of anger and disgust.
• In the moment that Monica tells Ross she’s sorry for surprising him but that she’s in love with Chandler, her face reads: 1 + 2, which communicates classic sadness, then eyebrow raise, then the AU 12 flight attendant smile. This combines to express that she is sad to upset Ross,...

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There were a lot of participants like Nelly and Sally, who got the same response from nearly every viewer. In fact, some participants were judged correctly by 80% of judges or more. And some participants were judged incorrectly by 80% of judges or more. Why?

Levine argues that this is an example of a judge using demeanor as a clue to someone’s honesty—an example of the assumption of transparency. These viewers were operating under the assumption that a liar in reality would behave like a liar on Friends.

A person will be judged as honest if she is:

• Well-spoken
• Confident
• Friendly/Engaging
• Has a firm handshake

A person will be judged as dishonest if she is:

• Nervous
• Fidgety
• Inarticulate
• Disengaged

The participants that were judged correctly 80% of the time were those whose internal state and external demeanor were matching. For example, Sally matched—she was being dishonest and she was acting dishonestly. The participants who were judged incorrectly were mismatched. For example, Nervous Nelly mismatched—she was being honest but her demeanor seemed stereotypically dishonest.

**In other words, the average person is only...

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The misunderstanding of consent is essentially an assumption of transparency gone wrong, and alcohol only adds to the confusion. Consent is something that two people must negotiate together, and it requires both people to be who they say they are and want what they say they want. When under the influence of alcohol, neither person is their true self and neither person can manage their short-term wants with the long-term consequences. (Shortform note: Gladwell doesn't address situations in which rape happens with true lack of consent, rather than when alcohol is involved.)

Alcohol and Myopia

Alcohol induces myopia, a state in which the drinker’s mental and emotional field of vision becomes narrow. In other words, the drinker becomes short-sighted and his behavior and emotions are strongly affected by his immediate experience.

Myopia is a result of alcohol’s effects on the brain:

• Alcohol reduces activity in the frontal lobe, which governs attention, motivation, and learning. Essentially, it makes the drinker dumber and less capable.
• Alcohol triggers the brain’s reward centers and increases feelings of euphoria.
• Alcohol enters the amygdala and makes...

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Charles Morgan and the Impact of Stress on Memory

In the late 1990’s, psychiatrist Charles Morgan was interested in researching post traumatic stress disorder—primarily why some veterans suffer from PTSD but others don’t. So Morgan decided to study the military personnel going through a SERE training program.

SERE programs are designed to teach Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape techniques to any key military personnel that might be captured by enemy forces. These key personnel were arrested by surprise and brought to a mock prisoner of war camp at a SERE facility, where they were subjected to common interrogative practices in a simulated traumatic environment.

To test his questions about PTSD, Morgan did three primary tests on the soldiers before and after the simulated interrogations:

Test #1: Morgan tested blood and saliva samples.

• Result: Soldiers subjected to SERE interrogation experienced rapid changes of cortisol, thyroid hormone, and testosterone levels, consistent with real trauma.

Test #2: Morgan conducted a figure drawing test, in which the soldiers were shown a complex image made up of abstract lines and shapes and then...

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But by 1977, every gas appliance in Britain had been updated to use natural gas, which had no carbon monoxide in it at all. As the amount of town gas used in the United Kingdom went down (as more and more homes were converted to natural gas), the number of carbon-monoxide suicides fell at nearly the exact same rate. But did the number of total suicides change during that time? How did people commit suicide once the number one method became more and more impossible?

The displacement theory would assume that people who wanted to kill themselves would simply find another way. If suicide could be displaced, it would mean that a suicidal person would be just as likely to commit suicide no matter what methods were readily available to them. The rate of suicides would be relatively steady over time.

The alternative possibility, the coupling theory, would assume that suicide is coupled to a particular context, such as the availability of carbon monoxide. If suicide is a coupled behavior, it would mean that to commit suicide does not only require a depressed person—it requires a depressed person, in a particular mindset, with a particular means of killing themselves readily...

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Sherman was careful to warn police leaders about the dangers of aggressive preventative patrol. He knew that overly suspicious (and therefore aggressive) police officers could create distrust between the police and the public. That’s why the four officers in Sherman’s experiment went through specialized training and only worked in District 144 at night—Sherman wanted to make sure that they knew how to target the right kind of traffic stops, in the right kind of locations, at the right times, that led to the right kind of searches.

The Results

The four officers deployed by Sherman worked from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. every night for 200 consecutive nights in District 144. During that time, Sherman’s officers issued 1,090 traffic citations, stopped 948 vehicles, arrested 616 people, and seized 29 guns. They averaged one stop every 40 minutes. And the result? Gun crime was cut in half in District 144 over those 200 days.

Sherman was able to prevent violent crime with only four officers, simply by keeping the officers extremely busy searching for guns. The experiment was successful because it made** crime-fighting strategies more focused—it targeted one aspect of the...

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Assumption of Total Transparency

When Brian Encinia approached Sandra Bland’s car on the passenger side, he immediately noticed that she was upset. Remember, Encinia was trained to assume transparency in people. So when Sandra Bland acted irritated and defensive, Encinia automatically began to assume the worst. In his testimony, Encinia said that he “immediately” knew that there was something “wrong” about Bland, based on her demeanor. He felt afraid that she was “aggressive,” and even suspected she might have a gun.

Sandra Bland was mismatched—she was an innocent driver who behaved in ways that Brian Encinia believed to indicate criminal intention. But he never stopped to consider that she was innocent, because his assumption of transparency was ingrained through his police training.

Neglect of Coupled Behaviors

In a single day on the job, Encinia often pulled over as many as 15 drivers in Prairie View, Texas for small infractions, like failure to signal a lane change. In fact, he had stopped three other drivers in the 30 minutes before he pulled over Sandra Bland. His post-Kansas City police training taught him that more stops would mean less crime. But...