...Liliana Tenorio Sherry AP Psychology - 3 27 August 2015 Book Review: Outliers Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers explores the societal forces that give opportunity to individuals willing to put in the effort to become successful. Through the events and experiments he has researched, Gladwell has come to the conclusion that to become a successful person you must be given a specific and miraculous string of opportunities that pave the way for you, insisting that there is no such creature as a “self-made man”. He argues that they “are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” In scientific terms an...
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...In the novel Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Gladwell discusses several key aspects throughout the book that contribute to people becoming successful. Mostly, Gladwell argues that "hidden advantages", "extraordinary opportunities", and "cultural legacies" are the main factors that play a part in a person's level of success. So, due to these particular aspects that help make a person a success, not everyone is capable of becoming an outlier. People must have certain things working for them in order to become successful. A person must have "hidden advantages" working for them. They must have "extraordinary opportunities" that they are able to take. Furthermore, certain cultures have traits that are important in becoming successful, so a person's "cultural legacies" play a large part in the journey to success. In Outliers, Gladwell provides numerous examples of these key aspects being a part of a successful person's life, but are they actually true for every person that is an outlier?...
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...Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers” is a book that exposes the hidden patterns of everyday life especially when it comes down to success and some prominent figures in modern day or in the past. For example he uses Bill Gates, The Beatles, a man with an IQ of 195, and students in Asian countries, to show how their pasts, cultures, uncanny dedication, and rare circumstances led them to be what they were. He does this in an intriguingly simplistic manner, in that he uses common sense to expose reasons and develop connections on why these people’s past have such a big influence on how they handle situations and have the tools to become successful. Gladwell takes an alternative to the common thought that natural ability and ‘god-given’ talent isn’t...
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...In chapter 8 of Outliers, Gladwell discusses the concept of stereotypes, their formations, and their truth. Gladwell posits that most stereotypes are based in truth, and come from cultural factors within the specific ethnicity. To showcase his point, he examines the Chinese, and their stereotype of intelligence and increased skill at math. After investigating their language, and more specifically their numerical system, Gladwell deduces that due to their numbers being far more logical than many other cultures, their understanding of math is clearer from a younger age. Finding success in math at a young age leads them to continue their pursuit of the subject, leading them to become better than other cultures at math. Thus, the stereotype...
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...phrase "Lies, damned lies and statistics". However, this doesn't happen all the time and there is no reason not to believe in the conclusions of a statistical analysis. Ethics in statistics is not straightforward and can be quite complex at times. It also greatly depends on what kind of statistical analysis is being done. Unethical behavior might arise at any point - from data collection to data interpretation. For example, data collection can be made inherently biased by posing the wrong questions that stimulate strong emotions rather than objective realities. This happens all the time when the survey is aimed to try and prove a viewpoint rather than find out the truth. Other unethical behaviors might include scientists not including data outliers in their report and analysis to validate their theory or viewpoint. This happens both in pure and social sciences. By obscuring data or taking only the data points that reinforce a particular theory, scientists are indulging in unethical behavior. Ethics in statistics are very important during data representation as well. Numbers don't lie but their interpretation and representation can be misleading. For example, after a broad survey of many customers, a company might decide to publish and make available only the numbers and figures that reflect well on the company and either totally neglect or not give due importance to other figures. For example, a car might be ranked high on comfort but low on safety. By showing only the comfort figures...
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...Basic Definitions & Concepts: Data: facts/figures from which conclusions can be drawn Data Set: data that are collected for particular study Elements: people, objects, events, or other entries Variable: any characteristic of an element Population: set of all elements about which we wish to draw conclusions Census: examination of all population measurements Sample: subset of the units of a population Population (Param.) & Sample (Stat.) Population: group of all items of interest and then the Sample: is the set of data drawn from the pop. Parameter: A descriptive measure of population Statistic: A descriptive measure of a sample “A politician is running for office of mayor in a city w/ 25,000 voters. In survey, 48% of the 200 voters that were interviewed say they will vote for her.” Pop: voters, Sample: 200 voters, Parameter/Statistic: Statistic Descriptive vs. Inferential Stats Descriptive: Organize, Summarize, Simplify, Presentation of data describes data Inferential: Generalize from sample to pop, Hypothesis testing, Relationship among variables Make predictions from this Categorical vs. Quantitative Var. Categ: places individual into a category (Also Ordinal if there is an order in the categ. Nominal if it is a name of something) Quant: numerical and math operations make sense (Interval if can find interval b/w the data) Shapes of Histograms Symmetry: draw vertical line in the middle= will be same on both sides Skew: Long tail on one side...
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...Success is Out of Our Hands Is there a significant correlation between success and skill? Nowadays, the path to success seems to be different for each individual, as some people have unfair advantages to help them excel faster. Often times, these advantages stem from circumstances, no one even has control over. Through his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell claims that the idea of a self-made man is a logical fallacy as almost all successful people have had a leg up over others. While a small portion of success is due to pure talent, to a large extent, Gladwell’s argument holds true as most super-achievers can attribute their accomplishments to their time of birth, family upbringing, and receiving extra opportunities to perfect their skills. There...
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...Outliers summary When it comes to success, we are taught from day one that hard work, perseverance and the will to succeed would overcome any obstacle. Every day, the stories of success can be shared and used to inspire others who hope to one day reach similar happiness. The extremely incredible entrepreneur who rose from rags to riches or the tale of the underdog sports team that surprised all competitors and won the championship are the stories that continuously drive the dreams of individuals and make success seem possible to all. But what if success was not attainable for all, regardless of work ethic and all other factors that may contribute to it. What if, based on predetermined occurrences, success was easier for some to obtain because of those occurrences? The Outliers written by Malcolm Gladwell, is the author’s compiled study of success and how it very much so can be attributed to all of the normal factors (i.e. talent, work ethic, passion) but are also heavily influenced by the cultural and societal forces that give rise to opportunistic individuals. Through several cases of well known individuals who are deemed to be successful, we as a society easily fall into the myth that successful people are self-made. Gladwell writes that most successful people “are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” Gladwell’s definition...
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...LAB’S MODULE: FORECASTING In this exercise, you will learn how to create forecasts for a product group through SAP. SAP provides a complete set of forecasting tools that can be used in a number of sales and operations areas. The most flexible set of forecasting tools are provided in the Sales and Operations Planning (SOP) transaction. The flow of the forecasting flowchart can be seen below: [pic] 1: Create Product Group |Purpose of Exercise | |To assist with Sales Order Planning you firstly need to create a Product Group. Product groups (product families) support high-level | |planning. A product group combines other product groups and materials. | |Menu Path |Logistics ( Production ( SOP ( Product Group ( Create | |Trans Code | | The Create Product Group: Initial Screen appears. 1. Type KidBikeGrp### in the Product group field. 2. Type ### Sport & Fun Kid Bike Prod Grp in the Description field. 3. Type DL00 (Plant Dallas) in the Plant field. 4. Type ST (items) in the Base Unit field. 5. Check that Materials radio button has been selected. ...
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...Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is a book written by Malcolm Gladwell. This book introduces the concept of “thin slicing”. The concept refers to how in a split second or blink of an eye people can make an unconscious and accurate assessment of someone. Using the concept of thin slicing we can determine what is really important within the first few seconds when meeting someone. Malcolm Gladwell explained that first impressions or spontaneous decisions can be just as important as decisions that are made carefully and planned out. According to Gladwell, people make better decisions with quick judgments than they do with a lot of analysis. Gladwell believes that the power of thin slicing is not just something certain gifted people can do, it is something that everyone has the ability do. Gladwell also explains that our first decisions or first impressions can be easily corrupted by our likes, dislikes, prejudices, and stereotypes. We are thin slicing all the time according to Gladwell. Throughout the book Gladwell gives us many examples and experiments that support his concept of “thin Slicing”. Some of these examples include; predicting divorce, speed dating, gambling, malpractice suits, movies, military war games, and music. One of the important things that I have learned from reading this book is how important the process of decision making can be as a leader in business. As a business leader making...
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...of shoes already being produced by Nyke, however, we can make some recommendations based on these numbers. We will assume these numbers are correct, and the process of picking these data points were random. Statistical Testing There are many tests we can run on this sample of data to determine if it is viable. First we need to turn this data into numbers that we can use in our equations to calculate our values. So we need to convert the numbers into the mean, median, mode, range of values, x, x2 and the standard deviation of the data. Second, we will use the data to construct several graphs, such as a boxplot, histogram, stem and leaf plot and a scatter plot to determine if or how the data is skewed and if there are any outliers. If we identify any outliers we will determine whether these are errors. Third we will use a t-test, Chi squares and binomial approximation to construct a hypothesis about the data. Fourth, we will construct a linear regression and look for correlation. The analyzed data from these...
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...| 6667777 | | | 12 | 889999 | | | 13 | 00011111111 | | | 13 | 2222222222333333333333333 | | | 13 | 44444444444444444455555555555555555555 | 13 | 6666666666667777777777 | | | 13 | 888888888888999999 | | | 14 | 0000001111 | | | 14 | 2333333 | | | 14 | 444 | | | 14 | 77 | | | The observations are highly concentrated at 134 – 135, where the display suggests the typical value falls. b. The histogram is symmetric and unimodal, with the point of symmetry at approximately 135. 15 Crunchy | | Creamy | | 2 | 2 | 644 | 3 | 69 | 77220 | 4 | 145 | 6320 | 5 | 3666 | 222 | 6 | 258 | 55 | 7 | | 0 | 8 | | Both sets of scores are reasonably spread out. There appear to be no outliers. The three highest scores are for the crunchy peanut butter, the three lowest for the creamy peanut butter. 17 a Number Nonconforming Frequency RelativeFrequency(Freq/60) 0 7 0.117 1 12 0.200 2 13 0.217 3 14 0.233 4 6 0.100 5 3 0.050 6 3 0.050 7 1 0.017 8 1 0.017 doesn't add exactly to 1 because relative frequencies have been rounded 1.001 b The number of batches with at most 5 nonconforming items is 7+12+13+14+6+3 = 55, which is a proportion of 55/60 = .917. The proportion of batches with (strictly) fewer than 5 nonconforming items is 52/60 = .867. Notice that these proportions could also have...
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...The reason Gladwell wrote “The Trouble with Geniuses," Part 1 and 2, was to share his thoughts on why some people are so successful while others are not as successful, in life. It is possible that Gladwell was inspired by seeing Langan on the TV show “1 vs 100”. This caused Gladwell to question what happened to Langan in his past life for him to be not as successful as others given that Langan was such a genius. In the first chapter of the Outliers Gladwell talked about how having a birthday in January and February was an advantage over someone whose birthday was later in the year. In chapter two of this book Gladwell suggests that there is no innate ability, but instead if you practice a craft for 10,000 hours you can master that craft. In...
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...ISU Critical Essay – Short Essay Option Our second mind is not as simple as it seems. Blink is a behavioral economics book written in 2005 by British-Canadian Journalist Malcolm Gladwell, focusing on our ability to ‘’Thin Slice’’. He explains through this ability we are able to determine what is truly important from a narrow experience, suggesting our spontaneous decisions are often better than the ones we consider. Using several engaging examples, he warns however that this ability of ours is challenged by personal likes, dislikes and overload of information, and is in our best interest to train our first impression to understand this reality through experience. The lack of scientific research in Blink also suggests that it is anecdotal, but Gladwell accepts this reality himself and thoroughly explains every point he makes in regards to this single flaw. Drawing scenarios that practice this rapid cognition from science, advertising, medicine and many others, he is also able to directly engage the reader’s subconscious by random screening and thought provocation. Malcolm Gladwell’s theory brings awareness to the power of our unconscious decision-making and proposes various strategies that offer a solution to its fallacy, maintaining his veracity in the research presented despite the lack of scientific method. Malcolm Gladwell’s theory brings awareness to the power of our unconscious decision-making. Decisions made quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously...
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...OUTLIER’S REACTION PAPER The book „Outliers‟ is basically are success stories wherein Malcolm Gladwell, a renowned writer, gives practical explanations of how extraordinary people gain success. The stories situated in the book always involve different aspects of success such as the environment, patience and hard work, coincidences and other things happening around. Basically, the ideas give „common-sense‟ answer to the question. These people have succeeded because of the things that surrounds them and not just only by themselves. As stated “It makes a difference where and when we grew up”, this clearly explains that a person don‟t achieve success not only by himself but it matters on the situations and opportunities that lies around him. Gladwell investigates place, time and culture of these success stories in order to come up with practical explanations behind it. This also includes the relevant events that happened in certain period of time where these people are part and been to these events. So in other words, these people have been to certain event in their lives that made them succeed. Gladwell thought of these idea to see the logic about being successful or not, in this case is by asking where these people came from. One way Gladwell explains it is by determining the important events in certain period of time which are based on patterns of birthdates of a group of people such as the Canadian hockey team, Czechoslovakian National Junior Soccer team and the people behind...
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