Purpose or Theme of the book
The main theme of the book is that little changes can have a big effect on future events. This is why the book is called “the Tipping Point” since it focuses on “the concept of an event being important enough that it would result in a big change. From this, it can be thought that a variety of different events can happen which can bring about big changes in the world as we know it”.
Intended Audience
When going over the contents of the book, the intended audience seems to be most people in the world since the concepts can be used in a wide variety of different ways. The concept of events having big effects can be applied to subjects such as history and psychology because of the connection between events and the resulting actions that follow. From a psychological point of view, the book can help psychologists develop a method for knowing why the concept of change happens.
For instance, utilizing the framework developed by the author, you could answer the following queries: Why did beanie babies become popular when they have no actual value? Why do youngsters smoke in more prominent and more noteworthy numbers when each individual in the nation realizes that cigarettes would kill them? To answer such questions, all that would be needed is the concepts given in the “tipping point” and examine the events that cause change. The result is that you would be able to determine the reason behind each change. For example, the popularity of an item (ex: the iPhone) can suddenly have an explanation since its cause is usually a series of events that get stuck together.
Psychological Issues that are addressed
One of the first psychological issues that are addressed in the book is the desire for imitation and how it influences the general public. Imitation can be defined as the tendency for people to copy the actions of other people. This particular psychological concept can help to explain the sudden development of popularity surrounding new trends or pop culture icons (ex: Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, etc.).
For instance, the popularity surrounding bands such as One Direction, Boys to Men and even the Backstreet Boys are often stated as being the result of imitation where they developed their popularity through people copying others who consider these bands popular in order to “fit in”. This concept showcases the impact of modern day pop culture on the thinking of various groups in society where through the influence of imitation, they are convinced that the pop icons they are supporting are actually good when in reality their music is actually very bad.
Psychological Theories that Support the Author’s Point of View
The psychological theory that supports the author’s point of view in “The Tipping Point” is the one that focuses on people having the desire to imitate others. This theory says that people often have the desire to imitate others to fit in. It is this theory that Gladwell apparently used to develop his explanation behind the development of trends in society and how certain things become popular. This aspect is seen when it comes to the tipping points in various historical events which are created through the popularity of particular ideas. For instance, in the book Gladwell states that “the popularity of beanie babies is a direct result of a tipping point in popularity wherein their supposed rarity and scarcity convinced people that they were valuable”.
Basically, Gladwell shows that an individual or an item becomes popular simply because a group of people believe that it is popular resulting in other people believing it is popular which in the end makes it popular. This particular behavior can actually described as a way in which people act like sheep and merely follow the crowd wherein people accept the popularity of an item or individual (ex: beanie babies in the book) simply because the group believes it to be popular. This point of view helps to explain how social trends take place and how the “tipping point” in the case of pop culture appears.
The “trigger” in this case is: “the desire to belong wherein people will consider something to be popular if there are other individuals that say something is popular”. This helps to explain why artists that have little in the way of significant talent (i.e. Justin Bieber, the Jonas Brothers, etc.) become popular since they are marketed as being popular by the various companies that they are under.
Implications for Personality Developed and Personality Theory
The implication of Gladwell’s work on personality theory is that there is the possibility that the development of certain traits in individuals or even shifts in an individual’s personality could come about as a direct result of a “tipping point”. This does have a certain level of truth since the exposure of people to traumatic events can lead to sudden changes in their personality and how they interact with people (ex: nearly being killed in a car accident).
The “theoretical soundness” of the author’s point
The first problem with the theoretical soundness of the book is the fact that it is lacking when it comes to using enough examples to prove the various ideas that it makes. For instance, Gladwell does not refer any actual expert in order to validate the truth of what he is saying. Readers are left trying to think where the information comes from and are supposed to take the author on his word instead of verifying it through the words of various researchers on the issue being presented. Aside from this, while the book contains a great deal of interesting thoughts, there is little in the way of enough examples (fictional or otherwise) that would have enabled readers to better understand the material.
The second problem is the fact that the book itself is not really easy to read while just sitting down. This is because it is like it is between academic literature and fiction to the extent that it combines the two in a weird way. From my perspective, the combination was not done in a proper way and the book comes out as a boring form of academic text. However, for those interested in looking at the origin of things or events, there are almost ten pages of notes at the end of the book that clarify the ideas of the author.
Would I recommend this book? Why or Why not?
Gladwell utilizes a variety of cases and examples that make the arguments in the books convincing and gives readers a variety of ways on how they can apply the model he developed in order to understand the origin of events and what the triggers were. The main strength of the work of Gladwell comes from its use of a lot of historical knowledge and various thoughts in social learning that formed the foundation of his work. Yet, despite this abundance of literature, it must be noted that Gladwell fails to “think out of the box” when it comes to examining the causes of particular events. When I was reading through it I noticed that it did not take into account individual actions of a person (i.e. how one person can make a great change).
Not only that, I noticed it did not show the contribution of culture and how such aspects combine into creating events. Instead, the author single mindedly focuses on the concept of a “critical point of change” that he had brought up at the start of the text as the main causes of behind events occurring. Overall, Gladwell’s work is rather well written when it comes to combining his views regarding “the tipping point” and combining it with a variety of examples
I have to state that “the Tipping Point” was a relatively good book that was very entertaining to read and helped me considerably in understanding a variety of different factors related to causation that I had not realized early on. The book is actually not that boring with the author utilizing a variety of interesting and amusing viewpoints in order to illustrate a variety of points and arguments regarding the origin of events and the various methods that could be utilized in order help understand the origins of change. As such, I would highly recommend this book not only as a text to help understand the changes that have occurred in a business environment, but also as a means of understand the development of society as a whole.