What is a summary of chapter 6 of Outliers?

Chapter 6 of
Outliers, titled Harlan, Kentucky, is divided into four numbered parts. As he does
throughout the book, Gladwell first presents a story, and then he follows it up with relevant
explanatory research.

Part 1. Harlan County is located in the southeastern
corner of Kentucky, in the part of the Appalachian Mountains called the Cumberland Plateau. The
towns two founding families, the Howards and the Turners, did not get along. They had a
long-standing family feud that resulted in multiple killings over the years, on both sides.
There were places in nineteenth-century America where people lived in harmony, Gladwell
writes. Harlan, Kentucky, was not one of them.

Part 2. The most famous
family feud in the larger region of Appalachia was the one between the Hatfields and the McCoys
on the West Virginia-Kentucky border, not far from Harlan. But many more can be documented,
including the Howard-Turner feud. Gladwell says, When one family fights with another, its a
feud. When lots of families fight with one another €¦ its a pattern.
Sociologists believe this pattern is caused by the continuance of the culture of honor that
the Scotch-Irish immigrants had brought to this mountain region. People in this borderland felt
they had an innate duty to protect their territories, reputations, and families; and that it was
honorable to run off or kill anyone who threatened any of them. In this way, we can see that our
cultural legacies can influence behavior for generations.

Part 3.  In the
early 1990s, two psychologists (Cohen and Nisbett) at the University of Michigan conducted an
experiment where young men had to complete a questionnaire. And as they left the testing area,
they ran into someone difficult who was in the way and who called them a casual but offensive
name. Some of the men let the insult just slide away. Others were immediately quick to anger and
were ready for a bigger confrontation. The researchers found that what made the difference in
their reactions was where each man was from. The men from the northern part of the United States
laughed off the encounter. The men from the south were itching for a fight.

Part 4. The Michigan study addresses the power of the cultural legacy. The southern men
in the study were not from the mountain region, and they were hundreds of miles from home. They
were college students and had no reason to feel challenged over properties or families. And
yet none of that mattered. They still acted like they were living in
nineteenth-century Harlan, Kentucky. Gladwell wonders if such information about the
importance of our cultural legacies can be useful in determining whether or not a person will be
successful in life. He explores this theme in the chapters that follow.