The Tipping Point

I enjoyed reading this book. It dealt with three fairly simple factors responsible for starting epidemics: The Law of the Few, Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. In the chapter on stickiness, Gladwell mentions an experiment done in which students were given pamphlets on tetanus shots in which it was most effective, or "sticky", to give directions along with fear inducing pictures. This experiment was also mentioned in The Social Animal in the chapter on persuasion. His conclusion was that persuasion is most effective with specific directions along with fear. This conclusion can be explain by Gladwell's stickiness explanation. Another experiment cited by Gladwell was the experiment in which a prison is simulated in a basement to see how volunteers would act in the environment. This experiment was also talked about in The Social Animal as well.

Gladwell brings up the idea that humans can, on average, retain up to about six or seven (7-number of God, coincidence? I think not) things in a certain area of information at a time, such as phone numbers, tones, or sizes of dots. I thought of Outliers, in which it talks about Asians being able to remember numbers and add better than Americans because of the shortness of their numbers in the system.

TOTAL READING TIME: 67 hr.

Page: Complete 259 Pages