Making sense of encounters with strangers

 

February 5, 2020



We are told that social connections are part of healthy living. Human contact is as important as eating healthful foods, getting exercise and plenty of sleep. There are times when it’s difficult to make those connections such as the first day of school or the first day in a new school, going to college away from home or moving to a new town.

A book I read recently illustrates this difficulty quite well. As a young girl, Captain Tammie Joe Schults dreamed of becoming a pilot in the military. After being turned away by other branches she found a Navy recruiter who encouraged her. At that time there were very few women in military flight school and none in her unit. Having grown up on a farm doing chores with her brothers, she was comfortable around the men. However, they treated her as if she were invisible or went out of their way to make her feel unwanted.

She asked her mother for advice and was told to invite them to a home-cooked meal. Overhearing one of the men talking about his birthday, she invited him to bring four of his friends to her place for a birthday dinner. They showed up and some of them became friends.

The book is titled “Nerves of Steel.” It tells the true story of Shults’ military experience and her work later as a pilot for Southwest Airlines. On April 17, 2018, she was the pilot of Flight 1380 when an engine exploded in mid-flight, blowing a hole in the passenger section of the plane.

I started this column planning to write about another book I just finished. But the illustration about the difficulty of turning strangers into friends applies.

Malcolm Gladwell has written a book titled “Talking to Strangers” that explores the way we see strangers, our misconceptions and default ways of thinking. It’s a fascinating examination of how our culture trains us to approach others and make incorrect assessments.

The book opens with descriptions of several recent and past news events: a traffic stop in Texas that went horribly wrong, a story of how Fidel Castro fooled the CIA for a generation, an exploration of why Neville Chamberlin thought he could trust Adolf Hitler. As one review of the book states, Gladwell believes “something is very wrong with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know.”

I was first introduced to Gladwell’s writing by a recommendation to my husband. Knowing Lynn enjoyed audio books, Dr. Philip Self sometimes suggested books he might like. One was by Malcolm Gladwell; I think it was “The Tipping Point.” Lynn usually wrote down the suggestions and then told me about them. I’d tell him whether or not I was familiar with that author or book, and if I hadn’t read one, I might look into it further. I’m always open to book recommendations.

Since then I’ve also read “Outliers” by Gladwell. He does a great deal of research into his topics and provides convincing proof for his conclusions.

In “Talking to Strangers,” Gladwell gathers information and studies about how we tend to default to truth. We generally accept that people we’ve just met are telling us the truth. He describes a study that pitted a computer program against the bail decisions of ten judges in New York. The computer and the judges had the same information, but the judges also met the defendants in person. The computer was much better at predicting which prisoners would commit a crime while out on bail.

This defaulting to truth characteristic explains how Bernard Madoff was able to convince some very smart people in the U.S. and Europe to invest in his Ponzi scheme. It’s why a Cuban spy was able to avoid detection while working for the CIA in the U.S.

Gladwell also exposes the fallacy in relying on reading the emotions on people’s faces. While actors in sitcoms may display those expressions to carry their message, real life people are much harder to read correctly.

He cites some studies that show how the “bad sections” of a city are fairly crime-free for the most part. But there are some small sections, perhaps a block or two, where crime is rampant. In Kansas City, researchers worked with the police to target one high-crime area of less than a square mile that sounded like a war zone at night. Four specially-trained officers worked nights and were told to make traffic stops for the most minor of infractions. They were told to confiscate any guns they found.

That special patrol caused a huge drop in the crime rate for that area. But Gladwell eventually shows how that same technique does not work in lower crime areas. It simply irritates regular citizens.

From officers making traffic stops to drunken fraternity parties, Gladwell describes how our misconceptions about strangers can cause big problems. It’s very thought-provoking.

By the way, Gladwell also says in most encounters we really don’t want to change our default to truth settings. It would be exhausting and off-putting if we were constantly suspicious and attributed bad motives to every stranger we met.

 

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