THE TIPPING POINT:
HOW LITTLE THINGS CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE
Malcolm Gladwell

Freshman Connections Common Reader
2005-2006

Defining the precise moment when a idea becomes a trend, Malcolm Gladwell examines everyday occurrences to explain why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. He examines the power of word-of-mouth and explores how small changes can cause group behavior to "tip" in a desired direction.

In The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Gladwell uses case studies of people who have successfully started epidemics to explain specific concepts needed to be in place for an idea or event to "tip."  He takes social issues, such as teenage smoking, and breaks them down to examine what an epidemic approach to addressing such issues might look like.

In this book, you will learn about the 'broken window' theory of crime, why "Sesame Street" and "Blue's Clues" have been such successful children's programs, how to make a contagious message more memorable, and the significance of the "150 rule."  In the end, we hope you will have a sense of hwo to start and control 'positive' epidemics of your own--how little things can make a big difference.

Malcolm Gladwell was born in England and grew up in Canada.  He graduated with a degree in history from the University of Toronto.  He is a former business and science writer for the Washington Post, where he also served as the New York City brueau chief.  He currently is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine.

Biographical Information Sources:
Barnes and Noble. "From Our Editors" & "From the Publisher."  Retrieved from www.bn.com [on-line], 3-25-05.

Kwan, Patrick, (Sept. 2004). "Starting 'Positive' Epidemics: Anatomy of the Tipping Point: The Satya Interview with   Malcolm Gladwell. SATYA. Retrieved from www.satyamag.com/sept04/gladwell.html, 3-25-05.

CRITICAL READING GUIDE

Reflection Questions:
1. If you could ask Gladwell two questions, what would they be?
2. How has reading this book influenced your perception of social change?
3. Identify a "tipping point" you have had a hand in creating.  What was your role in making the idea/product tip?
4. Which topic in the book did you find most interesting or compelling?  Why?

General Questions:
1. What do you think are the strengths of the book?  The weaknesses?
2. How might someone go about creating a "tipping point" in his or her community?
3. What are the strengths/weaknesses of being a connector vs. a maven or salesman?  Which are most alike?  Why?
4. Think of someone you can identify as a connector, maven, or salesman.  Why should you identify this person this way?

Education Questions:
1. Imagine you are a classroom teacher working in a school with a significant student problem, such as bullying.  What role could you play in turning a 'negative' epidemic into a 'positive' one (changing/stopping the behavior)?
2. You want to increase the number of students who recycle in your residence hall/apartment complex/house--who are the connectors, mavens, and salesmen that you would want to make contacts with to assist you in starting a positive epidemic?
3. Referring to the Diffusion Model, in your opinion, are 'innovators' always 'innovators,' and are 'laggards' always 'laggards'?  What makes you believe that?
4. What "tipping point" do you wish to become associated with during your college career?  Why?

Mathematics Questions:
1. What is the "Rule of 150"?  Explain its relevance to a social epidemic.
2. In Chapter 5, Gladwell describes channel capacity and the research of Robin Dunbar.  What did Dunbar conclude about the brain size of primates?  How is this different from some other scientists' interpretation of brain size?
3. Explain the series of experiments performed by Allan Collins described in Chapter Seven.  What conclusions did Collins form from the outcomes of these experiments?
4. Ask several friends and family members to test their connectivity using the list of names on pages 39-40.  Based on these results, how would you explain the differences in the results?
5. How does the shape of a social epidemic differ from a parabola?  Explain how a "tipping point' differs from the vertex of a parabola.

History Questions:
1. Describe the growth pattern of crime in New York City from 1990 to 1996.  How has crime been viewed historically?  How does Gladwell's application of this theory apply to crime waves over time?
2. What was the cause of the syphilis outbreak discussed in Chapter 1?  What other events throughout history can be identified as "tipping points"?
3. According to the author, what might have happened if William Dawes had taken Paul Revere's route?  What was Gladwell's rationale?

OTHER RESOURCES

More Information on Malcolm Gladwell
http://www.gladwell.com, including The Tipping Point
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail230.html, lecture on Blink
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail478.html, lecture on Blink
http://www.sunysb.edu/writrhet/communitytext/gladwellinterview.htm, transcript of an interview with Gladwell

Reviews
http://www.amazon.com (search for "Gladwell" or "Tipping Point")
http://bn.com (search for "Gladwell" or "Tipping Point")
http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/brandautopsy/2004/12/
has_malcolm_gla.html

Web Links
http://blogs.msdn.com/bgroth/archive/2005/03/24/402098.aspx
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17137
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/, Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
http://www.stanleymilgram.com/milgram.html, who conducted the initial six degrees of separation experiment

Books
Blink: the Power of Thinking without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell, 2005
The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, Judith Rich Harris, 1998
Diffusion of Innovations, Everett M. Rogers, Designed by Nancy Singer Olaguera, 2003
Creating Contagious Commitment: Applying the Tipping Point to Organizational Change, Andrea Shapiro, 2003

Resources assembled by Denise Seabert, Robin Rufatto, Jennifer Warner, and Melinda Messineo

THE TIPPING POINT  IN FC CLASSES

Faculty members in Freshman Connections courses currently plan to use Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point in the following manner for their Fall 2005 courses:

• Yeno Matuka, Department of English— hoping to use the book not only for chapter journal writing, but also as the basis for the essay, "Career Exploration and Networking for Successful Employment--Stepping from College into Life."
• Brent Royster, Department of English—The Tipping Point is a great lesson in finding the right moment, the right people, and the right cause for action.  This is ultimately useful in my introductory composition classes (ENG 103), where I ask students to consider their own lived experience while also crafting essays meant to inform and persuade.  What's more, the book asks the reader to consider audience in order to make things happen; specifically with the analogy of Paul Revere, where we have the right man, behaving in the right way, in order to set the right series of events in motion.  For myself, I draw a similar analogy to the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, in which we have an apt spokesperson, delivering a powerful and evocative speech, at precisely the right moment in history.  Classical rhetoric, really.
• Paul Ranieri, Department of English—Will encourage those who are writing on similar topics to benefit from Gladwell's research and even extend it into their own essays.  These students will be encouraged to meet with him when he visits campus and to discuss their topics with him.  Also, the book will be used to illustrate exemplary writing strategies (e.g., framing a chapter, citing sources, sentence structure, the use of metaphors).
• Melinda Messineo, Department of Sociology--I am requiring that students of all class levels read the book in my Sociology 100 course.  A wide variety of topics discussed in the text that are related to sociology ranging from Durkheim to Zimbardo.  Each student will write an essay connecting concepts from the course to examples in the book.  I am making the support materials available to all students and will integrate examples of the book into class discussion as relevant.
• Kristin Ritchey, Department of Psychological Science--There are many obvious psychology references in the book, but here are few examples of how I might apply them in PSYSC 100:
  • The author discusses the idea of cultural micro-rhythms and how we engage in unconscious movements while conversing with others, and emotional contagion, unconsciously changing our facial expressions to match others. I will use these in a demonstration in class during our discussion of consciousness, perhaps by bringing students to the front of the room and giving them different messages, varying in emotional content, and watching their faces change. Most students are dismissive of Freud's idea of the unconscious mind influencing us, so I try to show students that there are varying levels of consciousness (dreams, hypnosis, etc.), and that even when we believe we are fully aware of our actions, we are subject to automatic, unconscious influences such as these.
  • The author discusses the Fundamental Attribution Error, and I bring this up in class as it relates to personal responsibility. I give the example of a woman who is murdered on her way home from having an affair, and we discuss who is most at fault for her murder… the murderer, or the woman, who chose to be out late at night on her own? (As you can imagine, many students say the woman is more responsible for her death than the actual murderer because she was cheating on her husband.) The connection is that students are fast to judge others by assuming a global, underlying personality characteristic about another person (e.g., the woman in the story is a tramp, and therefore deserves to die), without considering the context of the situation (what the book refers to as "Broken Window" theory). We also apply this then to more global events (e.g., did the Holocaust happen because Germans are fundamentally evil, or could a holocaust happen anywhere, given the right circumstances?).

TERMINOLOGY

Tipping Point--". . . one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once . . . " (p.9)

Three Rules of Epidemics--Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context (p.19)

Law of the Few--". . . a tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work" (p. 19); ". . . epidemics tip because of the extraordinary efforts of a few select carriers . . ." (p. 22); explained in detail in Chapter 2

Connectors--". . . people with a special gift for bringing the world together" (p. 38); they are the kinds of people who know everyone (p. 38); connectors "manage to occupy many different worlds and subcultures and niches" (p. 48).  On six degrees of separation (p. 36) and "Are you a connector?" (see p. 38 to determine how social you are)

Mavens--". . . comes from the Yiddish, and it means one who accumulates knowledge" (p. 60); the difference between collectors of information and Mavens is that once Mavens ". . . figure out how to get that deal, they want to tell you about it too" (p. 62)

Salesmen--persuaders

Stickiness Factor--". . . there are specific ways of making contagious message more memorable; there are relatively simple changes in the presentation and structuring of information that can make a big difference in how much of an impact it makes" (p. 25); explained in detail in Chapter 3

Power of Context--". . . human beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they may seem (p. 29); the Power of Context is based on the premise that "an epidemic can be reversed, can be tipped, by tinkering with the smallest details in the immediate environment" (p. 46); explained in detail in Chapters 3-4.  See specifically the "broken window theory" (pp. 141-146); "channel capacity" (pp. 175-179); and the "150 rule" (pp. 179-181)

Diffusion Model--". . . a detailed, academic way of looking at how a contagious idea or product or innovation moves through a population" (p. 196); key individuals include innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards (p. 197)