Talking to Strangers: Prejudice in Interpersonal Communication

Introduction

Charles Dickens once said, “Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true” I agree with Dickens that communication that is done face to face will always be much better than conversations through electronics. Communication is an interaction that humans have every single day. Some people are better at communicating than others. I believe that communication can always be worked on. People can learn how to become a more efficient communicator. After searching online for books that involve interpersonal skills; I decided to read Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. The book attempts to mere the idea that books can have an effect on the way people think. Talking to Strangers explores the assumptions and mistakes that people make when dealing with people we do not know. Gladwell brings up many topics within this book. Some of them are default to truth problems, transparency, and the coupling phenomenon. Gladwell chooses to bring up each topic by using criminal cases and other public stories.

Default to Truth Problem: Sandra Bland's Case

The book began with an introduction to a story about an African American woman named Sandra Bland. In July 2015, she was stopped by a traffic police officer in a small town in Texas. One thing led to another, Bland ended up arrested and put in jail for three days. On the third day, she was found hanged in her cell. This leads to the first topic, default to the truth problem. Gladwell mentions the idea of how people in our society should be strategically inserting people where they have a blind eye and be whistle-blowers. Even though we want to strategically to insert those positions, society needs to make sure that it does not blanket their judgment on the people they surround themselves with. With whistleblower or having a blind eye they could influence how other people view things like racial problems, any crimes, etc. Gladwell was taught to blanket perfectly innocent people with suspicion in case of the rare instance of a criminal. Growing up I was always told not to talk to strangers because they could be a potential threat to me or my safety. As I’ve gotten older, I realize that it’s not necessarily strangers that we should be afraid of. It could be the people that you already know. This kind of thinking leads to the distrust we see between police and the community today.

High profiles incidents like Sandra Bland is one of the many reasons that led to the aggressive behavior of police officers toward African American and other minority groups. It led to the movement of Black Lives Matter. The case with Sandra Bland was just one big misunderstanding. According to London Business School Professor Julian Birkinshaw “As individuals, we are struggling to understand the present, and it is getting hard to predict the future. The result is a form of cognitive dissonance. As thoughtful beings, we like to be in control, but increasingly we cannot. So how do we resolve this dissonance? We fall back on belief — on our own intuition” (Birkinshaw). I agree with Birkinshaw regarding how individuals fall back on their own intuition when encountering the problem of dissonance. In Sandra Bland’s case, she objected to putting out her lit cigarette which could be looked at as some sort of threat since she did not listen to the officer’s command. Not trying to argue the case of right and wrong. The police officer who arrested her may have just felt unsafe, so he arrested her on the assumption of feeling unsafe. Holding her for over 48 hours without probable cause is another issue that escalated the arrest/ issue.

Another case that relates to default to the truth is the case regarding Larry Nassar, a doctor of the US gymnastic women’s team. One of the reasons why parents could sit in a room with him knowing that their children has complained about his intrusive examination is because no one could believe what he has done was true. Even if parents or the chair of the US Olympic team did not want to protect Nassar, their actions did just that. He was a profiled abuser and he got away with it for years before anyone truly looked into it. The reason he got away with crime for so long is because society believes that people in positions of power are just acting according to their position. We are not good at telling people apart in regard to who is a liar and who is not. After reading about Gladwell’s idea about default to truth I research a bit more and came upon something called a truth bias. Truth bias allows society to run smoothly because people want to believe that others are telling the truth even if there is evidence to say otherwise. According to Jack Schafer, “Faced with minor discrepancies in a story, people tend to excuse away inconsistencies because they want to believe the person who is telling the story” (Schafer), which is what occurred with Larry Nassar.

Transparency Myth: Misjudging Stranger's Feelings

Next problem is with transparency; Gladwell brings up that transparency may be a myth. How people are feeling inside does not usually reflect on how they appear on the outside. Since they may not match how they are feeling with their outside appearance, our intentions become misjudged. This occurs the most with strangers. When people are faced with strangers, they begin to try to fill in the pieces they don’t know. They substitute a stereotype for their direct experience. Often times stereotypes are an inaccurate representation of an individual. It is a strategy that mostly everyone uses to navigate through life, even knowing that it is deeply flawed. There is a massive amount of human error and as a society we have to tolerate a massive amount of error. Tolerating human error is the paradox of talking to strangers. We need to constantly talk to strangers. For example, every time you go to a coffee shops or going to a company party you will encounter strangers who will strike up a conversation with you or vice versa. Gladwell says you have to interact with strangers even though we are terrible at it, but not everyone is honest about how terrible they are at speaking with strangers. Being terrible at communicating with strangers does not mean you should stop speaking with them because there are benefits to speaking with strangers. A psychologist, Gillian Sandstrom conducted research studies regarding the benefits of talking to strangers. Sandstrom found that, “people are happier on days when they have more interactions with acquaintances they don’t know well and that students enjoy class more when they interact with their classmates” (Bernstein). I had a recent experience with the result of how people are happier on days when they have more interaction with acquaintances. In my case it involved strangers, every time I go to the beach, I usually do not interact with any of the walkers on the beach. I figure that people are there for their morning walks either alone or with their dog(s) or trying to have some alone time. On this particular day I was on the beach collecting rocks and walking along the water. The tide came up a little high, so I ran up towards land because I didn’t want my jeans to get wet. As I was reaching dry land, I came across a woman, she starts a conversation with me by stating it a really nice day for September. I agreed with her and proceeded to tell her about how I was there last week to read, and the beach was packed with people. She asked why I liked to read at the beach and how she couldn’t get into reading, but her daughter loves to read. She asked me what kind of books I enjoy reading and if I had any recommendation. I gave her some recommendation and then said our goodbyes. That interaction that the beach surprisingly boosted my mood for the day; I was having one of those days and just wanted to spend some time alone. But I ended up meeting a nice woman and conversing with her.

Conclusion

The coupling phenomenon is another assumption that people have when they are interacting with strangers. The idea behind coupling is the idea that behaviors are linked to specific circumstances and conditions. The coupling phenomenon has many mistakes linked with it. When people see or meet a stranger, there is an inability to individualize the person. People begin to group them by their own personal bias or by their age, race, how they dress, etc. Another error is that we people have an inability to appreciate or try to be okay with the way a stranger operates. Most people are quick to judge strangers with a lack of knowledge about them. Gladwell explains all of his ideas well in the book regarding how people treat and speak with strangers. An example of coupling is crime and suicides. The reason both are tied to specific places and contexts is that outside of spec places and contexts, the rate of crime and suicides drop very drastically. Another is when you are confronting a stranger whether it is for a good or bad reason you will ask yourself when you should confront and where. The setting can. Influence if. You confront someone. If you are at a place where you deem it could be unsafe you are less likely to confront a stranger. 

Works Cited

1. Birkinshaw, Julian. 'As thoughtful beings, we like to be in control, but increasingly we cannot.' London Business School. https://www.london.edu/faculty-and-research/lbsr/how-to-think-our-way-into-the-future#.YQdH9XUza1s
2. Schafer, Jack. 'Why Do People Lie? Because We're 'Blind to the Truth'.' Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/201608/why-do-people-lie-because-were-blind-the-truth
3. Bernstein, Elizabeth. 'Conversations with Strangers Make People Happier.' Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/conversations-with-strangers-make-people-happier-11565645999