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Ana Belen Montes
Tim Levine is a psychologist at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. His research in deception detection studies led him to create the Truth Default Theory (TDT), which explains humankind’s bias toward truth—our tendency to believe that people are being honest with us. Levine discovered this bias toward truth when subjects who participated in a deception detection study were consistently more successful in identifying people who were telling the truth than discerning between truths and lies. In other words, in situations where study participants were uncertain of whether they were hearing a truth or a lie, they “defaulted to truth.” Gladwell uses Levine’s ideas as a lens through which to analyze many of the case studies he presents throughout Talking to Strangers. Another important element of Levine’s research that Gladwell emphasizes is the point at which doubt compels a person to stop believing. According to Levine, engaging in the truth-default mode requires a “trigger,” or an action that compels a person to stop “gathering evidence” of deceit and accept the version of reality that allows them to cast their doubts aside. Levine’s philosophy on deception theorizes that people believe not because they have no doubts, but because they “don’t have enough doubts[.]”
Tim Levine Quotes in Talking to Strangers
The Talking to Strangers quotes below are all either spoken by Tim Levine or refer to Tim Levine. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
The issue with spies is not that there is something brilliant with them. It is that there is something wrong with us.
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We fall out of truth-default mode only when the case against our initial assumption becomes definitive. We do not behave, in other words, like sober-minded scientists, slowly gathering evidence of the truth or falsity of something before reaching a conclusion. We do the opposite. We start by believing. And we stop believing only when our doubts and misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away.
You should have known. There were all kinds of red flags. You had doubts. Levine would say that’s the wrong way to think about the problem. The right question is: were there enough red flags to push you over the threshold of belief? If there weren’t, then by defaulting to truth you were only being human.
Chapter 4
Quotes
What sets the Holy Fool apart is a different sense of the possibility of deception. In real life, Tim Levine reminds us, lies are rare. And those lies that are told are told by a very small subset of people. That’s why it doesn’t matter so much that we are terrible at detecting lies in real life. Under the circumstances, in fact, defaulting to truth makes logical sense. If the person behind the counter at the coffee shop says your total with tax is $6.74, you can do the math yourself to double-check their calculations, holding up the line and wasting thirty seconds of your time. Or you can simply assume the salesperson is telling you the truth, because on balance most people do tell the truth.
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Chapter 5
Quotes
The fact that Nassar was doing something monstrous is exactly what makes the parents’ position so difficult.
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Tim Levine Quotes in Talking to Strangers
The Talking to Strangers quotes below are all either spoken by Tim Levine or refer to Tim Levine. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
The issue with spies is not that there is something brilliant with them. It is that there is something wrong with us.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
We fall out of truth-default mode only when the case against our initial assumption becomes definitive. We do not behave, in other words, like sober-minded scientists, slowly gathering evidence of the truth or falsity of something before reaching a conclusion. We do the opposite. We start by believing. And we stop believing only when our doubts and misgivings rise to the point where we can no longer explain them away.
You should have known. There were all kinds of red flags. You had doubts. Levine would say that’s the wrong way to think about the problem. The right question is: were there enough red flags to push you over the threshold of belief? If there weren’t, then by defaulting to truth you were only being human.
Chapter 4
Quotes
What sets the Holy Fool apart is a different sense of the possibility of deception. In real life, Tim Levine reminds us, lies are rare. And those lies that are told are told by a very small subset of people. That’s why it doesn’t matter so much that we are terrible at detecting lies in real life. Under the circumstances, in fact, defaulting to truth makes logical sense. If the person behind the counter at the coffee shop says your total with tax is $6.74, you can do the math yourself to double-check their calculations, holding up the line and wasting thirty seconds of your time. Or you can simply assume the salesperson is telling you the truth, because on balance most people do tell the truth.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5
Quotes
The fact that Nassar was doing something monstrous is exactly what makes the parents’ position so difficult.
