'The Tipping Point' By Malcolm Gladwell: An Analysis

520 Words2 Pages

In his novel The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell explains how the little things in society can cause major epidemics. To show this, Gladwell uses examples of social epidemics that prove how changing little things in a situation can have a positive or negative effect. By using these examples, Gladwell is trying to figure out how people can make their own positive epidemics and make them stick. Gladwell first talks about a case of syphilis that spread in Baltimore in the 1990s. He found that the outbreak of syphilis spread so drastically because people who lived in the projects of East and West Baltimore had to move, there was limited access to clinics to get checked for syphilis and other STDs, and …show more content…

He finds that children learn better when fantasy and reality collide and when everything is told in a story type of way. The things that Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues teaches usually have to be repeated before they stick. In Chapters Four and Five, Gladwell explains “The Power of Context.” “The Power of Context” has to do with a person’s environment and situation that stress them to do something. For example, he talks about how crime rates in New York fell when police began to clean up graffiti and enforce the rule that people have to pay the fare to use the subway. Gladwell also found that religious groups, companies, and even the military, work better in a group of no more than 150 people. If the group goes over 150, no one will work together. Lastly, Gladwell does case studies of how epidemics fail and grow. He shows that rumors are powerful in the way people chose to remember things. He tells how people look to trendsetters for the latest fashion. In his case study of smoking and another case study of suicide, Gladwell finds that people who do it first and their stories are told, are usually the “permission” that others look for to do the same. When suicide stories get out in the news, People who are feeling suicidal will take that as the initiative to do the same. People who smoke found that they started smoking because of someone they know who they thought was cool or sophisticated.

Open Document