The Tipping Point/Gladwell 146-160

150 The Power of Context is an environmental argument. It says that behavior is a function of social context.

154 …there are specific situations so powerful that thy can overwhelm our inherent predispositions.

155 …there are certain times and places and conditions when much of that can be swept away, that there are instances where you can take normal people from good schools and happy families and good neighborhoods and powerfully affect their behavior merely by changing the immediate details of their situation.

160…human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of the situation and context. We will always reach for a dispositional explanation for events, as opposed to a contextual explanation.