The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

by Malcolm Gladwell

Walter Mischel argues that the human mind has a kind of “reducing valve” that “creates and maintains the perception of continuity even in the face of perpetual observed changes in actual behavior.” He writes: When we observe a woman who seems hostile and fiercely independent some of the time but passive, dependent and feminine on other occasions, our reducing valve usually makes us choose between the two syndromes. We decide that one pattern is in the service of the other, or that both are in the service of a third motive. She must be a really castrating lady with a facade of passivity—or perhaps she is a warm, passive-dependent woman with a surface defense of aggressiveness. But perhaps nature is bigger than our concepts