Student Question
What is the "Matthew Effect" in Outliers?
Quick answer:
The Matthew Effect in Outliers refers to the fact that those who start out in life with advantages and resources at their disposal will wind up with more advantages and resources. On the other hand, those who start with few advantages will end up with even less.
The Matthew Effect refers to the unfortunate fact that those who get opportunities early on in life are likely to enjoy a knock-on effect in which these opportunities give rise to further opportunities. On the other hand, those who have disadvantages early in life are likely to find that these disadvantages compound as life goes on.
Gladwell makes the point that even being born earlier in the year can provide advantages according to the Matthew Effect. Based on the fact that they have been alive for longer, kids born early in the year will be bigger and stronger at the start of the school year than those who are even just slightly younger. To make his point here, Gladwell provides the example of children born soon after the cut-off date for youth hockey who end up being bigger, stronger, and more mature than others in the group to which they...
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Gladwell uses several examples to explain what the Matthew Effect is. These include the tax breaks given to people who are already wealthy and the extra attention that gifted young students will naturally receive from their teachers.
The Matthew Effect gets its name from a passage of scripture, which reads
For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
In other words, everyone that has more will be given more. Those who have less will have what little they started with taken away from them.
What is the "Matthew effect" in Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell?
The term "Matthew effect" was named for the Gospel of Matthew 25:29, which states:
For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
The term was invented by sociologist Robert K. Merton in 1968 and most recently popularized in Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.
The first chapter of Outliers describes how the Matthew effect contributes to the creation of "outliers." It describes several ways in which initial advantages multiply over lives and careers.
One type of advantage Merton discusses has to do with family circumstances. Young people from wealthy and well-educated families start with many advantages in life which act synergistically. For example, children of wealthy parents live in neighborhoods that can raise higher property taxes to support good schools. They have greater cultural capital and networking opportunities. Gladwell goes on to discuss these in later chapters, but in his first chapter focuses on birth dates.
Gladwell points out that children born early in the year will be bigger and stronger on average than the slightly younger children born later in the year. This means that they are more likely to get into sports teams, will get better coaching, and will have more opportunities to play at an advanced level for their age. This leads to the anomaly the people with certain birth months are more highly represented in professional hockey.
The "Matthew effect" alludes to one of Jesus's parables in the gospel of Matthew. In the parable, Jesus says that to him that has, more will be given. But, Gladwell says, you can't just bury your talent: you have to use it. Success takes work.
In Part I, Gladwell argues that slight advantages can have a disproportionate effect on helping people to pull away from the pack and become extra successful. In Part II, he discusses the extraordinary impact of one's culture on achievement. Success is not the result of being born with remarkable talent but the effect of having had the good luck to arrive in a culture that values and teaches virtues such as hard work and patience. The "Matthew effect" may start with being born with an advantage, however tenuous, but it ends with adding to it "10,000 hours of grinding."