Bernard Goetz is the man who shot the four youth on the subway, when they demanded five dollars.
New York City was a mess the subway was dirty and violent. Gladwell said New York City crime tipped by cleaning up what seemed to be small things, like graffiti.
The Broken Window theory is that “If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge.” This causes people to think that it is okay to do things, they might not normally do.
I do think that little things matter, no one wants to shop in a dirty store, however I am not convinced that behavior is a function of social context.
David Gunn began by cleaning up the subway cars.
William Bratton started catching and arresting people who weren’t paying for the subway.
The prison experiment had volunteers be guards and prisoners based on the fact they scored normal on psychological tests. According to their results people do act according to their environment.
Birth order is a myth that only holds up in family situations. It is a Fundamental Attribution Error according to the book.
Good Samaritan research says that actions can be effected by what is going on around us. For example telling the group they were late caused them to be in a hurry and not help. I do think that when you are in a hurry or have other things on your mind you can be less observant to your environment.
I think environment can impact our actions, but I think it is in extreme circumstances. For example in war soldiers do things because of their outer circumstances that they normally wouldn’t do.
Character is who you are and what you believe. Gladwell defines it as what we want it to be. I will agree that environment can control our character, but the environment we chose to be in is part of our character. I disagree that it is what you want it to be. There are people out there that you want to have good character, but they don’t.
I would like to think that I follow what I believe in. I think of kids, it would be much easier to give into the context of behavior instead of your convictions. At the store the kids may want something and start to whine, it would be easier to buy what they wanted and go on, but I believe you shouldn’t get something because you whined about it.
Chapter 5
The Ya-Ya Sisterhood tipped because it is “sticky”, Wells book reads were more like performances, the “Power of Context”, and the small groups that were reading her books.
Channel capacity is the amount of space in our brain for information.
Robin Dunbar’s argument about brain evolution is that they get bigger to handle larger social groups.
The Rule of 150 is that groups around 150 are more effective. Gladwell has several military, religious, and business group examples that validate the rule
Gore has stuck to the Rule of 150; they have run a huge profitable company like a small business. Employees have been given apart in the company. There are no executives everyone are associates.
I believe that companies can get to large and then you go back to the 80/20 principal from the first of the book. The smaller the feel the more involved a person can feel in the company and work harder.
Transactive memory is joint memory. I do think there is basis to this. If I need something from the garage, I ask my husband where it is.
Yes
The groups that I have belonged to have probably all fallen into the Rule of 150. They are smaller and it is easy to feel apart of what is going on.
