The Locked Door Gladwell Summary

Starting in Chapter 6 Gladwell presents us with the mysterious and seemingly inexplicable series of events that occurred in Harlan, Kentucky in the 19th century to introduce the enormous effect of cultural legacies.

In Chapter Three, “The Warren Harding Error,” Gladwell focuses on what he calls “the dark side” of thin-slicing—the way that our unconscious minds tend toward Gladwell by arguing why our minds subconscious automatically assumes things based of stereotypes using the art of persuasion. Throughout this book you constantly hear of the idea of how we make snap judgements of everything and everyone and how we can be more aware of it in our lives. It also explains the good and bad side of "thin-slicing." (AKA snap judgements) In the book it says, "...to convince you that our snap judgements and first impression can be educated and controlled." (Gladwell Pg. 15) In chapter three of the book, Blink, it reflects on how snap judgements tie in with stereotypes. It says in the book, "We make connection much more quickly between pairs of ideas that are already related in our minds..." (Gladwell Pg. 77) The chapter starts off with exemplification when Gladwell gives the Warren Harding example which also explains the bad side to thin slicing. He then goes into classification and definition with the example of the IAT tests. The IAT tests are the perfect example as to how thin slicing is not always a good thing. This test measured that second level of attitude in an unconscious level, so it is our immediate associations that tumble out before you have time to think about them. The test also shows the unconscious attitudes that you might have even if they are completely opposite of what your

When people suffer in a chaotic environment, they may let the situation or emotions stay internally in that environment or themselves, or others will divert emotions externally to other people, and this idea are present in Gladwell’ Broken Windows Theory and the experience of losing a friend in Gadwall’s essay. Gladwell introduces the Broken Windows Theory in his essay; he explains how not only do small crimes, such as broken windows, cause people to create bigger crimes, but also the environment people are in pressures them to fit in a certain circumstance. Gladwell explains, “External environment, that the features of our immediate social and physical world-the streets we walk down, the people we encounter – play a huge role in shaping who

In Chapter Three, “The Warren Harding Error,” Gladwell focuses on what he calls “the dark side” of thin-slicing, which can be when our first instincts betray us, and we actually make errors based on our snap judgements. Gladwell begins by talking about Warren Harding, who was one of our presidents back in the 1900’s and explains how people felt he should be a good president based on his good looking appearance. Harding was tall, dark, and handsome and people felt he would be a good president because he had the “presidential appearance.” According to the book, historians said that Harding was the worst president of the United States. Gladwell’s exemplification of Harding expresses that it is okay to make snap decisions, but you have to keep

Gladwell began the book by describing a “thin-slice”, and then refers to that definition after each example. For instance, when Gladwell describes the “Warren Harding error” -- or the phenomenon where people are selected for jobs simply because they look like they are qualified – he says,

In Malcom Gladwell’s “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not be Retweeted” he argues that social media has negatively impacted activism. For the most part, I disagree with his argument, however I do disagree with some of his points. He uses multiple examples of protests from the past, like the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project in 1964, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement, the sit-in in the Greensboro case, which quickly spread like wild fire from four college students to thousands of people all over the country simply by using strong connections unlike those online today. Gladwell also uses examples of terrorist groups like the ones in Afghanistan, the Red Brigades in Italy, and even the movement that led to the tear down of the Berlin

Extra Credit: In this chapter, Gladwell does address and disprove a counterargument that everyone came from hardworking hunter-gatherers. Gladwell disproves this by showing that hunter-gathers diet was largely “a rich assortment of fruits, berries, roots, and nuts” (Gladwell 233) which isn’t that difficult to find. They didn’t grow crops, nor raise animals, so they never had any hard work that needed to get done. This shows that not everyone has the same hard working background that the Asians do, and their ore each culture grows different individuals that show different

In this part of the apparent book, instead of starting with a miraculous origin story, Gladwell decided to start the chapter off with a tale about a town in the backcountry. He uses the town of Harlan, Kentucky to set up his claim that have ties with success. Sure, the populus’ ancestors of the town was feuding a lot among each other, they had to do it to survive. Gladwell makes this clear throughout the chapter. Those ancestors, first settlers, town founders, basically anyone who lived particularly in the town before this relevant era, made the cultural legacy of the town and surrounding areas. Cultural legacy is a key factor to obtain success.

Throughout Malcolm Gladwell essay he describes several examples of activism of different political movements. I agree with Gladwell’s argument about social media, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc., is a form of weak-tie activism and strong-tie activism requires strong connections to other individuals who are willing to sacrifice for a cause. Throughout the essay, the author takes us through different scenarios in history to prove his point regarding the difference between traditional activism and non-traditional.

The New Yorker had a piece called, “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted,” by Malcolm Gladwell in the magazine on October 4, 2010. Overall the piece discussed social activism that occurred in the 1960’s to the era when social media took a more prominent role in everyday life. He explains the role of social media and social activism through examples of past protests and how it was said that social media was a tool that has reinvented social activism. He also explains the differences between both social media and hierarchies. Others can argue over both topics but the evidence used to back up Gladwell’s claims, made it clear for myself to agree that social media hasn’t made as big of an impact as other might think.

Gladwell uses the example of basketball like he mentioned in the previous chapters. This new basketball analogy has to do with height of the players. According to Gladwell, “Once the basketball player is tall enough, then we start to care about speed and court sense and agility and ball-handling skills and shooting touch.” (Outliers. Pg.

Gladwell’s piece explains why social media will not be an effective tool in organizing activism. He claims that social media is not a dangerous tool to truly change the existing state of affairs. Throughout his essay, Gladwell refers to many different protests throughout history and calls on the reader to discern that the events that did not use social media were better and more centrally organized and often more successful. The higher success rate in the protests without social media is cause of “strong tie“ phenomenon which is when people have an invested interest in the event due to emotional bonds and face to face social connections. An example that Gladwell uses of a successful protest was the Greensboro sit-ins. Due to face to face contact,

To summarize the two hundred ninety-five pages of text found within this bestseller would be a feat in and of itself if Gladwell didn’t make such a point of relating everything back to his overall argument. Chapters centered around Goliath, Vivek Ranadivé, Konrad Kellen, Emil Freireich, and many more all enforce the idea that, “… effort can trump ability and that conventions are made to be challenged.” (Gladwell, 35).

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell tells of many people and events that had disastrous or incredible outcomes because of the power of the subconscious to make decisions that the conscious mind is unaware of. Throughout Blink, Gladwell presents many ways to show that the mind and body give off hints to one’s true feelings in the “blink” of an eye. One of his many compelling arguments is the idea of “priming,” while one of his less compelling arguments is the idea of anyone having too much information to make a correct decision. Priming is such a compelling argument because it can account for such a large change in mindset. However, the idea of having too much information is misleading and confusing. Both arguments have the potential to change how one looks at their own

Gladwell pick up a Canadian youth hockey team in 2007. Also, he tells about Rpger Barnesly who is a Canadian Psychologist. He noticed that most of the players were born in January, February and march. On the other hand, few player on the team born between October and December. This is happening in other teams either. Gladwell was fill in the date of birth instead of the name even major hockey tournament.