Summary Of Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

1 Westinghouse

Alexandra Westinghouse

Professor ?

Interdisciplinary Studies 101

? February 2017

An Analysis of Gladwell?s ?The Trouble with Geniuses?

Malcom Gladwell?s 2008 book Outliers, a 2008 book by Malcolm Gladwell, focuses on our society's perception of success. CIn chapters 3 three and four,4 a two-part section he titles, ?Tthe Ttrouble with Ggeniuses?, 1 and 2. challenge the notion that IQ is a directly correlated predictor of success. Gladwell does this byThrough presenting various case studies and examples that support his argument Gladwell challenges the notion that IQ is a directly

section is to point outis that intelligence has a ?threshold.? Once a person someone reaches a certain level of intelligence, they are indistinguishable from others in their same league and are ?smart enough? to do the things their equally intelligent counterparts are qualified to dofor. Once the threshold of intelligence is reached, Gladwell says, other factors begin to weigh in, and it is those factors are whatthat ultimately spellare the difference between success and failure, as is seen in the examples of Chris Langanm and Robert Oppenheimer. While an impoverished Langanm bowed his head and accepted defeat, Oppenheimer?s learned position of entitlement and his willingness to argue and fight for himself ultimately led to a successful career appointment. These contrasting e examples illustrate Gladwell?s final purpose that came across in ?The Trouble with Geniuses,? Parts 1 and 2for this section: , exploringes the important idea of ?practical intelligence,?, which can essentially be translated into what is commonly known as ?street smarts.?. The exact opposite of ?book

He wants to present data to his readers in a way they can understand, using simple and in a way that is persuasive language in the hopes of encouraging change and the way we think about the world and the people within it. It is especially the educators, policy makers and parents These identified groups of people who are the ones most likely to to be able to produce a change in the way peoplewe think about achieving success in the world. These people have the ability to influence and alter educational policies presently in effect that were primarily influenced by Stanford professor Lewis Terman. According to Terman?s incorrect hypothesis, his very influential studies that tracked children, known as ?The Termites,? with high IQ?s. widely known Terman is responsible for. The Stanford professor?s hypothesis that children with higher IQ?s would be more successful as adults than the rest of the population. Subsequent tracking of a group of these ?Termites? in Terman?s experiment proved that this was not true, as Gladwell strongly points out. is still present to this day, even though it isn?t true ? according to