Book Review: Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

 I have read Gladwell's other books including Outliers and Tipping Point. I like his narrative style and the rigorous research that goes into each of his books. So when someone suggested the book 'Talking to Strangers' by Malcolm Gladwell, I thought I would give it a shot.
If you expect this book to provide path-breaking new insights and life perspectives you would be disappointed. If you expect this book as a guide to talk to people, you would be disappointed too. 
The book starts with the obvious assumption - People are Complex and no generic approach will work while dealing with them. However it is impossible to try to understand the thousands of people with whom you deal with and hence you resort to making assumptions. 
The first assumption we make is that PEOPLE are TRUTHFUL. You start your interaction by assuming that the other party is honest and truthful in their interactions with you. Psychologists call it the 'Truth Default Theory'. A couple of minor transgressions, a lie here or a half - truth there will not break this belief. You will consider them as transgressions. It will take many number of lies told and promises broken for you to change your views about that 'specific' individual. 
Most of the people fall into this category. There are some, for whom, this theory is not default. They start their interactions with doubt and skepticism. We call them 'Cynics'. 
Cynics are very important, otherwise criminals will have a field day. 
Example is of Bernie Madoff. A lot of people had doubts that Madoff was resorting to illegal means to make his riches, but they gave him the benefit of doubt. In other words they resorted to Truth Default Theory. It took a couple of cynics to expose his ponzi schemes and bring him to justice. 
The second assumption we make is that 'PEOPLE are TRANSPARENT'. This assumption is popularized by the saying 'eyes are window to the souls'. We assume that if people behave in a certain ways they MUST be telling the truth. For example, classic symptoms of lie assumption is shifty eyes. Or nervousness. If someone exhibits these behaviours, we assume that they must be telling the truth. 
Author narrates the story of Amanda Knox to illustrate this phenomenon. This 20 year girl spend four years in Italian prison on fake charges because her behaviour were not considered transparent, they didn't meet the traditional definitions of expressing sadness, eventhough there was zero proof against her involvement in the crime. 
Transparency assumption working together with Truth Default Theory, enables many psychopaths and sociopaths to go undetected. 
How do you handle this? Author sites a study where given the same information to a Judge and AI, AI came out with much more accurate predictions that Judges did. The drawback for judges was their personal connection, their 'looking into the eyes of the criminal', to make the judgement. AI was unaffected by personal contact and hence made more objective and accurate decisions. 
The book site the chilling case of a Young man who was arrested for trying to kill his ex-girlfriend. He couldn't succeed since his gun got jammed and did not fire. The judge in case looked into his eyes and saw a 'Repentant young man' and set him on bail. Four months into his bail, the young man shot and killed his Ex.
AI would never have allowed him on bail. It would have noted that his intention was to kill his girlfriend and the only reason he failed was that the gun got jammed. He would be sure to try again.
Which he did.
The third challenge in dealing with people is what is called 'COUPLING'. Cases like suicides and crimes happen in a context. In the state of Kansas, it was observed that the crime rate in a very small part of the state was very high. It was observed that the rise in crimes was associated with the availability of Guns. Once the police started intensive patrolling in that area, specifically looking for guns in the cars and confiscating the guns, the crime rate dwindled quickly. 
Unfortunately the lesson that the police department in other states took was that intensive and intrusive patrolling will lead to reduced crimes. They incentivized the stop and search of personal vehicles. This was as far from the localized intensity of the Kansas experiment. They gave wide latitude to the police personnel in such cases. 
The result was widespread dissatisfaction with the police procedures. 
And Sandra Bland case. She was a 28 year old black woman who was stopped for a very minor case of not signalling before changing lanes. The officer in question, Brian Encinia, a white police officer, stopped her. He started the standard process of delaying searching the car for guns or any suspicious material. He was instructed that he should not trust anyone. In short, do not follow the 'Truth Default Theory'
Sandra Bland was getting more and more agitated and getting nervous. This in turn led the officer to doubt her even more. This violated the 'Transparency' assumption, because her behaviour did not MATCH the assumption of innocence. 
Finally, Sandra Bland was a native of Illinois and had come to Texas for a job interview at a university. She was outside her natural context. Also, she had prior traffic citings and unpaid fines of 8000 dollars, which was huge money. Perhaps that stressed her and made her behaviour erratic and aggressive. The officer did not know about any of these and he arrested her on three counts. 
For a signal violation!
After three days, Bland was found hanging from the ceiling in her cell.
Author says that every lesson that you learned from the past was violated in this case.
There are other fascinating insights in this book like how one forgets key information, or manufactures information when  subject to severe stress, for even a short period as 30 minutes of exposure. Even when you voluntarily accept the trauma, your post-traumatic behaviour may not be predictable or accurate. 
However, the quality of content, or real insights,  in this book is minimal. So I rate it 3 Stars.