Think of snow: The difference between 34 and 31 degrees Fahrenheit doesn’t feel much colder than the difference between 37 and 34 degrees. the moment the water crests the river bank). But the tipping point is a critical moment when minor change makes all the difference (e.g. a river doesn’t flood instantaneously when a storm hits the water steadily rises over hours of heavy rain). It can be hard to wrap our head around the notion that drastic change happens at one particular point because we tend to think that significant changes occur in a steady progression (e.g. That threshold is called the tipping point. It’s based on the idea of medical epidemics.Įpidemics don’t build gradually and steadily they grow and reach a boiling point or critical mass, at which point they explode and turn into an epidemic. What Is the Tipping Point?īefore we look at our tipping point examples, we need to know what the tipping point is. We’ll look at two powerful tipping-point examples from Gladwell’s book and discuss how epidemics occur in both the medical and social worlds. What are some good tipping-point examples? In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell explains how social epidemics - spreading ideas, messages, behaviors, and products - function like viruses, growing gradually until they reach a critical mass (the tipping point) and explode. Like this article? Sign up for a free trial here. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading. This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell.
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