In Chapter 7: The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes, Gladwell introduces the history of Korean Airline and the devastating crash of Korean Air Flight 801 that killed almost everyone aboard, an accident that occurred despite the beyond satisfactory conditions of the plane. Contrary to popular perspectives, a large number of plane crashes are not the result of poor piloting techniques or a lack of practice but a combination of seemingly unimportant and superficial factors such as the pilot’s cultural legacies or ability to communicate effectively. For example, in the crash of Korean Air Flight 801, it was the Korean culture and social norms that had the greatest impact on its failure. In Korea, it is extremely important to treat elderly or others …show more content…
As a result, Korean speech normally forces a large amount of responsibility on the interpreter because the he or she must now decipher and grasp the meaning of the complicated words expressed. Thus, in Korean Air Flight 801, the ambiguity and lack of assertiveness in the copilot’s speech as well as the decreased attentiveness of the pilot to the copilot’s messages caused by high stress and exhaustion resulted in the unfortunate death of hundreds of people on board. However, after the devastating crash, Korean Airline became much more aware of the negative effects of their cultural legacies on their ability to communicate effectively and address issues when needed. Fortunately, Korean Airline was given “an opportunity to transform their relationship to their work” and reputation for success (Gladwell 219). As a result, Korean Airline was able to successfully reflect on its mistakes and turn itself around by completely transforming its system through speaking English, which lowered the cultural barriers placed upon them, and training to be more assertive when communicating …show more content…
One of the supporting theories is Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory which emphasizes the involvement of individuals in their cultural legacies as well as the importance of culture and society in shaping the perspectives, languages, and development of individuals. Furthermore, it portrays the importance of social communication on the cognitive development of children as they grow and mature. Therefore, the sociocultural theory focuses on the perspective that individuals are products of both social and cultural influences, which is a central idea of many chapters in Outliers that illustrate the significance of culture and society in shaping an individual’s values and behaviors. These culture-oriented chapters include The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes, Roseto Mystery, the Importance of Being Jewish, Bill Gates, Chris Langan, and countless more. Another similar supporting theory is the systems theory which focuses on society as an outcome of the complicated arrangement of “interrelated” and “functional” constituents that influence each other. These constituents include social interactions, families, organizations, and communities, not just an individual and his or her beliefs (Zastrow 185). Thus, the systems theory clearly relates to Gladwell’s modern theory of success, for he illustrates success as a result of collective factors that continuously impact each
A quote from Bennett “Of all the countries in the world, we Americans have been the greatest destroyers of land of any race of people barbaric or civilized,” (Egan, 2006) makes your realize the self-inflicted destruction of the great planes. This book is not only about people who died but the ones who survived and lived on to tell their story directly to Egan.
This might be due to the demand, in the first, of a highly advance society, and the influence in the second of religious and moral values. INTRODUCTION ------------ Relationships between culture and knowledge development have a peculiar character. Societies provide to their members with different types of experience that affects and conditionate their knowledge. At the present time many developmental psychologists analyse the cognitive development in relation with the cultural context (Hichman, 1987).
The importance of cultural legacies is very prevalent throughout chapter seven of Outliers. The chapter, “The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes”, discusses the history of Korean Air and the unbelievable number of plane crashes the company had throughout the 1980’s and 90’s. The author, Malcolm Gladwell, then goes on to investigate the causes of the crashes and more specifically the cultural traditions that cause the accidents.
The culture of a community invariably determines the social structures and the formation of a society. Developed over time, culture is the collection of beliefs and values that a group of people maintain together. Culture is never constant, and thought to be continually renewed over years as new ideas and concepts become mainstream. It ranges from how people live, day to day topics for conversations, religion, and even entertainment. It is analogous to guidelines, or the rulebook of the said group of people. Society, on the other hand, emanates from the social structure of the community. It is the very institutions to which create a regulated and acceptable form of interaction between peoples. Indeed, culture and society are so perversely intertwined in a
Malcolm Gladwell informs his audience he knows why the airplane crashes occurred. He believes it comes down to the pilot and his co-pilot lacking social skills.
On December 5th, 2014, an incident in Korea had heated public opinion. Since this incident was reported, many people have been shocked, and later became known not only in Korea but also abroad. It is Korean Air Return case, (aka. peanut return case). To summarize, former Vice President Cho, Hyun-ah, the eldest daughter of Korean Air Chairman Cho Yang-ho, was having trouble with the service of the crew who brought Macadamia to the first class on Korean Air from New York on December 5, 2014. Not only this, it caused the controversy both inside and outside of Korea by making the plane returned, which was on the runway for take-off, and made the chief crew down from the plane. As a result of this action, 250 passengers who boarded the same plane suffered a delay of about 20 minutes from departure. The case, which seemed to be quietly silenced, was released on December 8th in the media, triggering a controversy over peanuts return and the chaebols (a South Korean conglomerate, usually owned by a single family, based on authoritarian management and centralized decision making-dictionary.com) overusing power. In particular, there has been a great deal of
This book serves to teach readers about the varieties of cultures, social
Becvar, D. S., & Becvar, R. J. (1999). Systems theory and family systems (2 ed.). Lanham, NY: University Press of America.
The main point behind Peter Berger’s work Introduction to Sociology is that in order to find out the truth about a person or perhaps a situation, one must take a deeper look than just looking at the deceptive superficial surface. He starts off making this point by saying that not everything is as clear as it may appear. The world that we live in has many different sides to it. The general public is usually not aware of all these different aspects of our world. Berger uses the term “cultural shock,” which refers to the sudden impact on a person by entering into a completely different culture not previously experienced by that person, to describe the way that a person feels when they first uncover a sociological aspect of the world. This shocking discovery takes place when a person’s eyes are opened to the environment around them and they perceive more than just the obvious, regardless of how drastic or subtle the realization may be. One example that Berger uses to aid in describing this phenomenon is when someone discovers that money going to their church is actually being contributed to a business that manufactures projectile weapons. While not all realizations are this dramatic, it still arouses a sense of enthusiasm within the discoverer. Once Berger fully explains how this sociological phenomenon takes place, he goes on to warn the reader that sociology is not fo...
Talcott Parson (Parsons 1951) sees society as a collection of systems within systems Parson determined that each individual has expectations of the other's action and reaction to his own behaviour, and that these expectations would be derived from the accepted norms and values of th...
In Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory, there are five systems that ultimately influence an individual. The first system is the microsystem, which consists of the people who have direct contact to an individual. In my own life, my immediate family consists of my mother and I. I am an only child to my mother and since my mother and my father have been separated since I was a baby, he has not been part of my microsystem. In addition, I am also a student at CCP. I have a network of friends whom I keep in close contact with. The people that I encounter at home, school, and work have direct contact with me and thus, they are part of my microsystem.
social system that must be met for the system to survive and the corresponding structures that
In the end, what we learn from this article is very realistic and logical. Furthermore, it is supported with real-life examples. Culture is ordinary, each individual has it, and it is both individual and common. It’s a result of both traditional values and an individual effort. Therefore, trying to fit it into certain sharp-edged models would be wrong.
The discussion of verbal communication and the barriers associated with it, highlights the importance pilots need to focus on effective and clear communication. Nonverbal communication is a lot larger than most believe and encompasses multiple sources of information for the pilot to use in order to fly the aircraft safely. Flight decks contain numerous visualizations to quickly and accurately transfer large amounts of data to pilots for continuous processing throughout a flight. All these forms of communication combine and are used as a resource for pilots, and is only one part of the crew resource management
Parsons, Talcott. (1938). The Role of Theory in Social Research. American Sociological Review. 3(1), 13-20.