Page 78 - Malcolm Gladwell - Talking to Strangers

Solomon: So while I guess there’s a sliver of my brain that’s saying, “Oh, yeah. Well, it’d be
easier not to look,” I have the person looking at me and me looking at them. Having their
family in the audience waving to me during the defense argument, you know, and he has three
family members back here. It should be.…You should know that you’re impacting a person. It
shouldn’t be taken lightly.

1 It was developed by legendary psychologist Paul Ekman, whom I wrote about in my second book, Blink. See the Notes for an
explanation of how my views on Ekman’s work have evolved since then.
2 The plaintiff was Ginnah Muhammad. Her reply: “Well, first of all, I’m a practicing Muslim, and this is my way of life, and I
believe in the Holy Koran, and God is first in my life. I don’t have a problem with taking my veil off if it’s a female judge, so I
want to know, do you have a female that I could be in front of? Then I have no problem. But otherwise, I can’t follow that
order.”
3 The 17 percent figure includes the three people (5 percent) who displayed all three expressions. Only seven people showed
exactly two expressions. Also, although the vast majority of people believed they had expressed their surprise, one unusually
self-aware person said he did not think his surprise had shown at all.