Sunday, January 1, 2017
The Matthew Effect
Gladwell opens the chapter by describing how a hockey player rose to the top in Canada. He works hard and rises to the top on his own merit. Players succeed because they perform well, and they succeed on the basis of their own ability, nothing else matters. Gladwell then questions this and asks us if this really is the case. Gladwell directs the readers attention to a 2007 roster for the Medicine Hat Tigers, an elite Canadian youth hockey team. He tells us that Roger Barrenly, a Canadian Psychologist looked at this roster and noticed that many players were born between January and March. In contrast to the very few who were born between October and December. The same pattern occurred elsewhere in other teams. Gladwell says this is because of the cutoff for age-class hockey is January 1st, which gives those who were born earlier more time to train and prepare than those born later on. "We overlook just how large a role we all play--and by 'we' I mean society--in determining who makes it and who doesn't" (Gladwell 33). Gladwell here shows us how society affects how much we succeed. Society personalizes success and this stops others from trying to succeed. Society makes rules that stop people from succeeding and writes off people as failures. But, Gladwell repeatedly tells the readers to overcome this enormous role that society plays and continue on to succeed. I chose this article because I really liked how Gladwell shows the readers how birth months really affects success. But then he shows us that this is really blocks made by society, with cutoff dates being in the beginning of the year. After reading this I realized how society is a huge block that hinders in the way of every person's success.
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I also really enjoyed reading about this, I have never really taken into account how much our society limits us from succeeding with things that seem trivial like cut-off ages but are actually very important. He also connects this disadvantage in the school system where the ones who are seen to have more "talent" or are more "adept" are given more opportunities. This not only limits those who just haven't had enough practice but ends up making the students feel as if they can't achieve better things. As a society we chose to not care about this and this has probably stopped a lot of people from succeeding.
ReplyDeleteGladwell also mentioned the reason the birth months were such a factor is that those born in the earlier months matured more and were larger than those born in the later months and therefore were chosen to advance to the better leagues. Though it is true as Gladwell mentions that society does hinder many peoples pathways to success such as in the education system where those that are older are put into the advanced programs and continue on to be successful, thus the self fulfilling prophecy is fulfilled, those students many not have been any smarter than their later born peers but they were given the advantage so therefore they would eventually become smarter.
ReplyDeleteThis part of the book was very interesting to me and at first when I started reading it, I did not believe Gladwell until he talked about cut off dates and he used the charts of players to back up his claim. This topic of the book goes far beyond hockey. It shows how limited people are in society. People try to work hard and achieve their goals but there will always be something hindering us from that. Gladwell discusses educational system and how those who are older are put into higher placements than others. It is all about the advantages that we are given and sometimes that is unfair. We can not control when we are born yet it affect us somehow. I feel that if someone wants to become successful, they should find a way to surpass those limitations.
ReplyDeleteI also really like this chapter because it highlights the limitations society has on people
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