I wonder why I’m still reading Gladwell.
The short answer is he gets me thinking. Please see this post for a more thorough breakdown of my thoughts on reading or now reading this author. This book certainly falls into the same category.
Beyond the usual tropes of confusing correlation and causation, and the predictably good storytelling there are a few basically correct and simultaneously good conclusions to be drawn from this book.
People aren’t very good at interpreting what strangers are thinking or who they are. We are much worse at it than we think. (contrary to the authors earlier assertions in Blink). Nevel Chamberlin’s confidence that Hitler was “trustworthy” is a good case-in-point. Gladwell also drew in some statistical evidence from criminality cases etc.
Certain types of people are intrinsically more suspicious. This might be due to personality, this might be due to profession. Most people tend to error on the side of trust( Type II error), some people, particularly cops and fraud specialists, error on the side of caution (a statistical type I error).
Gladwell concludes that’s it’s better to error on the side of Trust (much of the book is about police erroring on the side of caution) but I’m confident that is an insufficiently nuanced view. Read some Clancy if you have doubts.