Book Review: Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know

For me, Malcolm Gladwell’s books are just enjoyable to read. He has the ability to make you think as he weaves together countless stories that seem to be interconnected. The trouble I have with his books is that I really don’t remember them other than I know that I enjoy them. Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know is one such book. I know while I was reading it that I was clinging to every word, but in the end, I was not sure what I learned.

Talking to Strangers is 386 pages long. Gladwell arranged the twelve chapters into five parts. The five parts include

• Spies and Diplomats: Two Puzzles
• Default to Truth
• Transparency
• Lessons
• Coupling

The introduction and chapter twelve concentrated on Sandra Bland. This is the woman who was pulled over for not signaling, was taken to jail, and subsequently hung herself. Gladwell focused on the events that set this tragedy into motion. As he pointed out, this incident stems from an experiment on policing in Kansas City many years earlier. Under a pilot study, Kansas City Police were successful in reducing murders in its city under a well regulated but aggressive plan. The plan required an increase in stop and search. Unfortunately, other police departments adopted the plan without the same constraints. The unintended consequence is that a greater number of the population has lost their respect for our policing and more innocent people are hurt in interactions with the police.

As usual, Gladwell shared extensive research about every topic he discussed. In this book, he told stories about CIA double agents. It seems the CIA was 100% certain that our agents were trustworthy but when a level Cuban agent turned himself in, he reported that a majority of the CIA agents were also working for the Cubans. One of the agents had a position of power in the CIA. We are not good at differentiating between truth and lies. We default to the truth.

Our willingness to default to the truth is why Jerry Sandusky was able to avoid detection for so long. No one was willing to believe the allegations of sexual assault with children. The people investigating were not willing to believe the worst. They were willing to justify everything that was put in front of them. They continued to believe in Sandusky until they couldn’t.

Gladwell also included an interesting section on what our outside demeanor says about our authenticity. Your brain can rapidly detect subtle tells that give away what your true feelings are. Unfortunately, we are not good at deciphering the meaning. It seems professionals perform worse on assessments where they must discern meaning. This becomes more problematic when you are interacting with different cultures. We presume guilt or innocence based on how someone presents themselves. Only to discover that we are not good at doing this. When presented with the facts, computers are better at determining guilt than people.

The Amanda Knox case is an example of problems with determining guilt stemming from misinterpreting cultural clues.

Our ability to navigate the signs of what someone means is further clouded when alcohol is involved. Gladwell highlighted another famous case of sexual assault. In this case, like many other cases, alcohol was a factor. As Gladwell noted, “But so long as we refuse to acknowledge what alcohol does to the interaction between strangers, that evening at Kappa Alpha will be repeated again. And again” (Gladwell, 2019, p. 232).

We don’t really know what others are thinking and their reasons for acting. Gladwell pulled together many different stories to highlight this. When we engage with someone else we try to be perceptive to everything about the relationship. But in the end, we can never be sure. Like I noted, I enjoy reading what Gladwell has researched. I like how he ties different stories together with research. Still, I do not grasp the point of Talking to Strangers. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading it.

Additional Reading

• Book Review: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
• Book Review: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
• Book Review: Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era

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