Malcolm Gladwell

A Closer Look at Malcolm Gladwell’s “Magic Third”

Twelve years ago, I wrote a post on this blog about the “10,000 hour rule” that Malcolm Gladwell promoted in his book Outliers. Gladwell claimed that 10,000 hours was the “magic number of greatness” – that 10,000 hours of practice was required to excel at an activity.  The author of the study that Gladwell cited as supporting this claim said that Gladwell misinterpreted the study’s results. Others have pointed out that the “10,000 hour rule” is misleading in suggesting that the total time spent on an activity is the only predictor of success. It doesn’t take into account other variables that might affect skill development, such as deliberate practice, innate or acquired talent, the age at which someone begins the activity, and access to appropriate equipment, coaching, and training sites.

While there are debates about exactly how much effect some of these variables have, it’s clear that Gladwell took the 10,000-hour figure out of context, and also skimmed over some important details that are necessary to fully understand how skill development works.

The post I wrote on the “10,000-hour rule” is by far the most popular post ever on this blog. That shows how interested people are in what Gladwell says. It also shows the importance of looking closely at his claims – to see what evidence he cites to support them, and to see whether experts on the subject agree with his interpretations.

This is not to say that only experts can discuss these kinds of topics. Sometimes an outsider can see details or trends that experts don’t notice. And there’s always a place for a writer who’s not a scientist or researcher to explain research and its outcomes to a general audience. But the writer needs to get the details right, and not simplify things to the point where important pieces of information are omitted.

Gladwell has just released a new book, Revenge of the Tipping Point. One of its chapters is about a new “magic number”: the “Magic Third”. This, Gladwell claims, is the number of minority members in a group that’s necessary for the minority to be accepted as part of the group. I’m going to look at this claim in detail because this general subject (organization and group dynamics) falls into my own area of professional expertise, so I have some familiarity with the relevant research.

The chapter subtitle of “The Magic Third” is a quote from one of Gladwell’s interviewees: “I would say, absolutely, there is some tipping point in my experience”. Notice that the quote doesn’t mention the “magic third”, or any number for that matter; it only says that there is a demographic tipping point which causes group dynamics to change. This type of change is well-documented in research on the effects of group composition. The fact that group dynamics change if group membership changes also won’t be a surprise to anyone.

Gladwell starts out by discussing (more…)

Anders Ericsson

I found out a few days ago that Anders Ericsson passed away in early May. Ericsson was a professor of psychology at Florida State University, and his research on the relationship between practice and achievement was the basis for Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000-hour rule”.

As I wrote in an earlier blog post, Gladwell selectively interpreted Ericsson’s findings, and overlooked some of the key concepts that are important in understanding the results of that research  – for example, that the quality of practice (“deliberate practice”) is as important, if not more important, than the amount of practice.

David Epstein, whose excellent book The Sports Gene explores all of the factors in addition to practice that make athletes successful, has written a lovely tribute to Ericsson and the impact of his research. I was going to write a longer post myself, but David has said everything that I wanted to say and said it much better. So I’ll link you to his article instead. You can read David’s tribute here.

All About Work’s Fifth Birthday

From “Scriptores historiae Augustae” (Milan, 1475). Photo credit: University of Glasgow Libraries on Flickr

All About Work turned five years old on March 18. Usually I do a photo with my minikin to mark the blogiversary, but this year has been exceptionally busy – so in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this beautiful Roman numeral five from an Italian illuminated manuscript.

To date, the blog has had more than 148,000 views. The most-read posts of all time are: (more…)

TIPPING POINTS? MALCOLM GLADWELL COULD USE A FEW

An excellent investigation of Malcolm Gladwell‘s questionable use of uncredited secondary sources. Here’s some of my earlier posts on other problems with Gladwell’s work:

Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hour Rule Doesn’t Add Up

Malcolm Gladwell’s Weak Defense of the 10,000 Hour Rule

Who’s David, and Who’s Goliath?: Malcolm Gladwell and His Critics

Malcolm Gladwell and His Critics, Round Two

 

blupman's avatarOur Bad Media

In the summer of 2012, just days before a certain columnist was found to have plagiarized from The New Yorker, a staff writer at the prominent magazine itself resigned in the wake of a widespread plagiarism scandal. The journalist, famous for pop-science works that generated scathing reviews, had been using unattributed quotations taken from other people’s interviews. He had copied-and-pasted from his peers. Generally, he had faked his credentials as an original researcher and thinker.

The New Yorker itself had a doozy on its hands. The scandal had tarred the magazine’s famed fact-checking department, despite claims that its procedure was “geared toward print, not the Web.” Editor-in-chief David Remnick was embarrassed. He’d initially kept the writer on board, distinguishing one bout of self-plagiarism from the more serious offense of “appropriating other people’s work.” Now, his magazine was losing a star that had been groomed as “Malcolm Gladwell 2.0.”

That…

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The Return of Jonah Lehrer

When we last heard about writer Jonah Lehrer – whose career self-destructed after his writing was found to have numerous instances of plagiarism and factual inaccuracies – he had been paid $20,000 to give a much-criticized speech about journalistic ethics. A few months after that, he was reported to be circulating a book proposal – which also allegedly included plagiarized content. Then….nothing.

And now, very quietly, he’s back.

At the end of March, (more…)

Spurious Correlations, or, Why Nicolas Cage Must Be Stopped

There is a misguided assumption in a lot of media reporting on research that correlation equals causation. Correlation is a statistical relationship between two variables – for example, amounts of social service funding and crime rates – that assumes that one variable has some degree of dependence on the other.  In other words, if one variable changes, there should be a change in the other variable if the two are correlated.

There is a problem with this assumption, however – (more…)

Some Thoughts on Malcolm Gladwell’s “David and Goliath”

At last I got to the top of my public library’s waitlist for Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath – so I finally had the chance this week to read the entire book.

The impression that I came away with was: this is not a good book.

It starts out promisingly by using the story of David and Goliath to introduce the idea of the triumph of the underdog. However, (more…)

Malcolm Gladwell and His Critics, Round Two

Malcolm Gladwell’s promotional tour for his book David and Goliath is rolling along, but his responses to criticism aren’t getting any more persuasive.

When he appeared on CBS This Morning, he was asked about the contention that he  “cherry picks” from published research, and only discusses results that support his points. Here’s his answer: (more…)

Who’s David, and Who’s Goliath?: Malcolm Gladwell and His Critics

Malcolm Gladwell’s new book David and Goliath is on both the New York Times bestseller list and the Amazon bestseller list – and since I’m number 15 on its waiting list at my local public library, there’s clearly an eager audience waiting to read it. However, the book has received some less than positive reviews, even from admitted Gladwell admirers, and has also been the subject of some harsh criticism. The most widely read critiques are probably this article by dyslexia expert Mark Seidenberg, contending that there are significant factual errors in the book’s discussion of dyslexia, and this article by psychologist Christopher Chabris challenging some of the book’s reasoning and research. Chabris’ article generated this response from Gladwell himself, which was unfortunately more of a personal attack on Chabris (and his wife) rather than a response to Chabris’ criticisms.

A couple of themes have arisen in discussions of the book. I want to (more…)

Malcolm Gladwell’s Weak Defense of the “10,000 Hour Rule”

The “10,000 hour rule” – the idea that 10,000 hours of practice is the amount needed to excel in an activity, as described in Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008 book Outliers – has been getting more attention than usual recently. The attention is partly because of the release of Gladwell’s new book, David and Goliath, but it’s also because of the discussion of the rule in another new book –  The Sports Gene, by former Sports Illustrated senior writer David Epstein. In his investigation of what leads to outstanding athletic performance, Epstein points out some contradictions to Gladwell’s rule – for example, that athletes at the same level of competition can have very different amounts of practice time or playing experience, and that success in sports isn’t determined only by how much an athlete practices.

A few weeks ago, in this article in the New Yorker, Gladwell responded to Epstein and to other critics of the “10,000 hour rule”.  Since I’ve written a blog post about Gladwell’s misinterpretations of the research cited in Outliers in support of the rule, I was very interested in what Gladwell had to say. But it seems that the article is full of  (more…)