We do not understand the importance of the context in which the stranger is operating.” But on top of those errors we add another, which pushes our problem with strangers into crisis. “The first set of mistakes we make with strangers-the default to truth and the illusion of transparency-has to do with our inability to make sense of the stranger as an individual. We assume truthfulness in the plainest sense, despite our knowledge of the complexity and nuances of human interaction.Ģ: Transparency - “the assumption that people's behaviour and demeanour – what they represent themselves on the OUTSIDE – provides an authentic window into the way they feel on the INSIDE.”ģ: Coupling - the idea that behaviours are linked to very specific circumstances and conditions. Gladwell’s three main concerns are about the assumptions we necessarily but sometimes mistakenly make:ġ: Default to truth - Gladwell devotes significant time to psychologist Tim Levine’s notion of Truth-Default Theory (TDT): that most people will, most of the time, assume that people are telling the truth until enough doubt overcomes that default position. So why do I do it? Why do we? Because we assume that our experience, our specialist knowledge, our effort can be of benefit to them. It struck me again: I spend most of my work days trying to understand and engage with humans I know relatively little about. Only as we began packing up did I run into someone I’d spent huge slabs of work and social time with 20 years ago.

I recently represented Ability Consultants at the Shoalhaven Disability Expo: I talked to strangers all day, figuring out what they wanted, if I could be useful and how. The printing press, the postal system, fast transportation, radio, television, the telephone and now the internet have all completely changed that. Mostly I would talk to people I already knew. 500 years ago if I wanted to communicate with another human I DID NOT already know I’d have needed to either walk or ride a horse for many hours or write a single copy of a letter.

Using the fabled but all too real struggles of Cortés and Montezuma as an example, Gladwell examines the massive influence communication and transportation technologies have had on how we talk to other people. The first startlingly obvious revelation the book makes is that talking to someone you don’t know at all is, in social evolutionary terms, very new. It really crystallised in my head and heart this time – it talks in detail about WHY we seek to understand strangers and the assumptions that all too often trip us up along the way. That’s what excites me about work in this team – we care about what we do.īut I recently re-read (or I should say re-listened to on Audible) Malcolm Gladwell’s 2019 social psychology analysis ‘Talking to Strangers’. We focus on the who, what, when and how we can deliver better support, better plans, better strategies. At Ability Consultants we have spent a whole bunch of time and effort thinking about and building a structure around what Positive Behaviour Support is and can be.

Malcolm hard decisions