The Tipping Point of Group Psychology

This is a summary of the NYT best seller Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. The beauty of this book is in its stories that paint a picture without needing to hammer a point. They are enticing and captivating which makes this book a fun read and, for the same reason, a difficult one to capture well without going over every story.

The book is about tipping points, the point at which a cultural zeitgeist changes. The author cites many stories of cultural phenomena that passed this tipping point in bizarre ways from bank robbing, to cheetahs dying, to Harvard sports teams, to the opiate epidemic. Even the Holocaust wasn’t talked about or really discussed until the 1980’s nearly 40 years after it happened. Why? The book investigates what creates the tipping point for such events.

The most common factor was the defined group hitting a 25-33% magic percentage threshold which resulted in a tipping point. Apparently this magic number can cause social movements and certain organizations such as Harvard have capitalized on this knowledge to maintain a desired culture. When below this number people are regarded as a minority and tend to experience adverse effects as a result but as soon as this magic number is hit the negative side effects tend to disappear. The book went over examples of racism, sexism, and conformity to show that the magic third or fourth is a real phenomenon with real perspective shifts. Enough people just need to jump on the bandwagon and before you know it bandwagons are creating traffic jams.

A separate factor is that of the superspreader. A superspreader is a person who wields undue influence in spreading a particular concept such as a very, very small percentage of doctors that more or less created the opioid epidemic by prescribing Oxycontin with indiscriminate vigor. Their contribution to the situation was remarkable, basically carrying the tipping point on their back. When you have the right superspreader, you don’t even need a meaningful consensus to get things going. While those who carry social media influence may be the natural superspreaders in today’s world, a single, relatively unremarkable person may tip the scales in truly unexpected ways.

The power of a well-timed and powerful story can get the ball rolling. The author mentioned Will and Grace, a popular sitcom featuring a gay man and his female friend, as being a large influencer of public opinion around gay rights and overall prejudice against gay people. The Holocaust became a discussion topic only after a mini-series was created that gave voice to a topic that hitherto marinated in shame and silence. Common stories in cities that robbing banks or cheating Medicaid was easy money led to out-of-control bank robberies and fraud. Stories are what shape our lives and experiences and their cultural ripples leading to tipping points should not be understated.

Lastly is the concept of monocultures. Monocultures are cultures that lack diversity and that lack leads them to experience tipping points in extreme ways. For cheetahs that meant necessary inbreeding due to population loss and extreme susceptibility to certain diseases as a result. For a community of high achievers that meant a significantly higher rate of teenage suicides than the general population. While as a species we tend to gravitate towards and appreciate those that are like us more than those that are different, the lack of diversity can have unintended negative consequences.

Any group, no matter how small or large, is subject to tipping points. The author noted many examples of how this information is used intentionally to produce a desired outcome and suggests that readers use this information to their advantage as well. Hooray social science!