Roseto mystery outliers

Outliers: Introduction The Roseto Mystery

An outlier is a person (or situation) that is different from other people or situations.

Roseto Valfortore is an Italian village 100 miles from Rome. Many of these Italians emigrated and ended up all living in the same small town in Pennsylvania, U.S.A which they named Roseto.

Over time, they remained a close-knit community, closed off from the rest of the world for the most part.

In the 1950’s a doctor named Wolf discovered that no one in Roseto died of heart disease.

Roseto Mystery: Why no heart disease?

Wolf studied the people of Roseto including their physical makeup, culture, lifestyle, and all other possible factors that could play a role in heart disease.

Surprisingly, Rosetans did not eat healthily, exercise much, or have very active lifestyles. So why didn’t they have heart disease?

Wolf concluded that their lack of heart disease was caused by their attitude and close-knit lifestyle. The people in the community were close; they knew each other well, supported each other, said hello to each other, and lived with multiple generations in their homes. This close-knit support group was the only explanation for the lack of heart disease.

Roseto was an outlier when it came to heart disease

The town was different from the rest of the American population which suffers from heart disease.

Rosetto was healthy not because of individual efforts to stay healthy but because the people lived in a supportive environment surrounded by their close friends and family members.

“Roseto was an outlier – a place that lay outside of everyday experience, where the normal rules did not apply.” P.7

Thesis of book

Wolf had to convince the medical establishment “to think of health and heart attacks in an entirely new way…They had to look beyond the individual. They had to understand the culture he or she was a part of, and who their friends and families were…They had to appreciate the idea that…the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.” p. 10-11

In the same way, to understand success, we need to look beyond the individual. We need to consider other factors such as family, culture, and other influences.

“In Outliers, I want to do for our understanding of success what Stewart Wolf did for our understanding of health.” p. 11