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With effortless ease, Malcolm Gladwell once again proves he is a master of conceptualizing the abstract, simplifying the complex, and articulating the mundane. Blending together a rich tapestry of scientific literature, illustrative examples, anecdotal accounts, and intuitive observation, Gladwell poses his argument on how the outliers of society - those individual that are distinctly more successful than the norm - are more a result of their sociodemographics, family lineage, and societal evolutions than they are individual capabilities. In short, Gladwell states that pure genetic endowment or aptitude alone is not enough to predict our future, but that culture also plays an undeniable role in steering our course. While not the most profound notion ever proffered, Gladwell does do an amazing job of attracting a readership to an interesting topic. He has a keen eye for questioning the status quo and helping us realize how much chance and environmental variation go into shaping icons, moguls, and geniuses. Simultaneously, he is a progenitor of ideas and an inventor of expressions. However, much of Malcom's intellectual opportunism relies heavily upon isolated research, broad generalizations, and a nonsensical number of "if, then" contingencies that nearly create a tautological story. It may truly be that achieving eminence, in the sense of achieving supreme social status or creating a legacy, is the result of a unique set of circumstances that allow one to achieve their full potential. However, at the same time, it is also true that achieving such status is the result of a particular configuration of independent traits all of which have to be present or present in a certain degree to yield the result. Gladwell only manages to dance around both these ideas without producing any sound or substantial evidence as to what makes success, simply only chalking a major influence up to "culture" and "practice." Instead, he cites intelligent studies that are nearly 100 years old (e.g., Terman, 1920), highlights the failure of "one" intellectual genius named Chris Lagan while arbitrarily discussing the success of a wealthy physicist, provides untestable hypotheses about the role of culture in influencing behavior. Combine these disjointed statements together and ... presto, you have Gladwell's selective examples to form a somewhat coherent argument for his notion of the deterministic forces in our lives. It is almost a truism in any science that post hoc theorizing and single cases are an impossible basis for making any kind of argument about causation. Any one of Gladwell's "anecdotes" could be easily accounted for by another alternative explanation. For instance, Gladwell asserts that a major reason for success is due to practice. He uses the example of Bill Gates, who, being born in 1955, was perfectly situated to embrace and practice the computer during his twenties. He also states, due to cultural differences, that Asian children are statistically better at math than American children due to a practice-orientated attitude. These are sound arguments. One of the main ingredients to learning is practice: this allows time to make errors and correct ourselves while converting learning from short-term memory to long-term memory. Practice also clarifies and strengthens the neural connections that are formed while we confront new and familiar material, thus allowing us to build deeper comprehension and cognitive schemas. Nevertheless, there is much more. Mastering materials requires the appropriate focus and attention of the individual. Bill Gates, Asian children, or any other "anecdote", must be able to remain vigilant and persistent in the material they are pursuing. If one is able to maintain greater attention, they may be able to extract more information at a single time. For example, if any student is to become better at math, they may simply need to place greater care and intention into their actual studies by focusing on what is being said, what they are actually understanding, and what they can actually remember. In another vein of reasoning, there is much to be said about natural abilities and aptitudes. A higher cognitive ability can, and does, facilitate a greater amount of knowledge acquisition and is highly predictive of future job performance (Hunter & Schmidt, 1998). On a similar note, one can read Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences or Steinberg's triarchic theory of intelligence to see how people may naturally excel in different domains of life, such as musical or interpersonal skills. This would imply that someone like Bill Gates had a predisposition to understanding logical/mathematical concepts, thus providing him a natural advantage in his field. Finally, one might consider research by Csikszentmihalyi (1991, 1996) on creative giants, flow, and experts. People that excel are essentially those with a singular commitment to mastering one domain. These individuals have an "intense curiosity" and find the topic "so absorbing and challenging" that they enter a pure state of engagement known as "flow." In short, one must be intensely passionate, interested, and stimulated by their goals and life aims, not simply a sum of practice hours. Mr. Gladwell similarly raises the notion that cultural traditions may play a role in plane crashes, that the 1990 crash of Avianca Flight 52 over Long Island might have had something to do with the pilots' being Colombian. Mr. Gladwell argues that the pilots came from a culture with "a deep and abiding respect for authority" -- which suggests that the first officer was reluctant to speak up when the exhausted captain failed to do so, and that both men failed to talk forcefully to the air traffic controllers, who were tough New Yorkers, unaccustomed to the pilots' polite language. Of course, Gladwell, not being a cross-cultural researcher, uses an extreme example without any empirical evidence of his own to rule out other alternatives. For instance, what if the pilots simply had timid or introverted personalities? What if the specific flight school they attended taught them to always listen to the air traffic controllers? Perhaps climate differences between New York and Colombia accounted for the crash, with the pilots not being used to differences in landing conditions? What if it was differences in the family lives of these two specific pilots as opposed to macro-cultural differences (e.g., really strict parents)? What if the pilots are simply responding with anxiety and fear to a novel situation (e.g., being in a new country or having a new job), thus causing them to make mistakes? Going beyond Gladwell's arguments, materialistic success in life (getting ahead through achieving power, status, or recognition) is at least partially influenced by differences in personality. Those who are dominant, aggressive, ambitious, and entrepreneurial tend to take more risks, be more assertive, be more determined, and take on heavier work load (Hogan, 1996). These individual tend to obsess about making gains and achievements through their life and establishing a prominent career. These individual are "more likely" to work harder and exert greater effort in obtaining their goals. Furthermore, individuals that have higher degrees of self-efficacy or competence in a specific area tend to cope better during setbacks, exert more effort in learning material, and approach novel tasks with enthusiasm. To conclude, Gladwell once again demonstrates he does a good job of writing a book that captures the imagination and reasoning of many. However, its flaw rests in the lack of critical reasoning, extreme oversimplification, and biased selectivity in finding examples to support his ideas. If you enjoy an intriguing read without a substantial amount of sound scientific theory and evidence, then check out "Outliers." However, if you want to read a more rigorous, stimulating, and substantial piece, please check out Simonton's "Greatness: Who Makes History and Why" - [...] For additional reads on natural individual differences, please look into William Wright's (1998) "Born That Way" discussing how genetics account for nearly 50 percent of who we are, or Judith Richard Harris's (1998) "Nurture Assumption," contending that the primary source of environmental influence on personality comes from our peer groups. The preponderance of evidence in the behavioral sciences indicate that there is a strong genetic basis for individual differences which interact in unique ways with our environment to determine who we will become.