Gladwell M. Talking to Strangers: Why We Make Mistakes About People and Trust Liars / Malcolm Gladwell; translated from English — Moscow: Alpina Publisher, 2024. — 488 pages. — (Series "Alpina: Psychology and Philosophy").
Imagine yourself as a judge who must decide whether to release a suspect on bail. You are offered either to simply review the dry facts of the suspect’s biography or to meet and talk to him personally, look into his eyes and see his reaction. Many of us would choose the second option — because often we consider information obtained through personal contact extraordinarily valuable. But, according to Malcolm Gladwell, this is precisely the reason for tragic errors, personal tragedies, wrongful court decisions, and even catastrophic events on a global scale. A spy who worked for many years in the Pentagon, passing information to Cuban intelligence. Politicians who failed to recognize Hitler's double game, leading the world to catastrophe. Police officers shooting innocent people simply because their reactions seemed suspicious. Parents who cannot recognize a sports doctor as a molester of their children. The author analyzes all these stories and comes to shocking conclusions. It turns out we are unable to detect a liar even when interacting with them for a long time. All our usual ideas about suspicious behavior, facial expressions, gestures, intonations are fundamentally wrong. Malcolm Gladwell invites us on an intellectual adventure into the dark side of human nature. You will be convinced that our notions about strangers almost always do not match reality, and misjudging their behavior can have catastrophic consequences. UDC 159.925 BBK 88.252.1