The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America

I don’t really feel like this book is that groundbreaking. It was a little controversial at the time because is evaluated and analyzed ethnic groups, which is never popular.

The authors (a married couple, both law professors at Yale), say that the “success” of a community or group depends on three things:

1. A sense of superiority (“we are destined for great things”)

2. A sense of insecurity (“others are out to get us”)

3. The ability to control impulses in service of greater things (“work comes now, fun comes later”)

They call this “the Triple Package” (an awkward name, which they just hammer on, over and over…).

#1 and #2 are interesting, while #3 is pretty obvious.

The authors relate this to several successful ethnic and religious groups. Jews are an obvious one, but there are also Mormons, East Asians, and – something that surprised me – Nigerian immigrants.

Regarding the latter, the authors made an interesting point: the mindset of African-Americans (Black people born and raised in the U.S.) is very different than that of new African immigrants. Nigerians moving to the U.S. are disproportionately successful, in part because they aren’t weighed down by the history of race relations in this country. They come from a land where they are (literally) kings, and they missed slavery, Jim Crow, and all the rest.

(A immigrant friend from Africa – from Cameroon, I think? – told me once that she doesn’t relate to African-Americans at all. When considering her dating prospects, everyone assumed she would date a Black man, but she said that Black men born and raised the U.S. are actually further away from her culturally than white men. I thought that was fascinating.)

The authors explain that the culture of the U.S. – particularly around child-rearing – is anathema to the Triple Package. In the the U.S. we’re very concerned about self-esteem, and is that compatible with success?

Or… “success.” How do you even define that?

And this cuts to the core of the book: how you define success very much dictates whether someone is “successful,” and this directly proves or disproves if the Triple Package is a good thing or not.

One of the authors is Amy Chua, who wrote Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which detailed how she raised her daughters. She pushed them extremely hard, to the point where some people called on her to be arrested for child abuse. So, clearly, she believes that …happiness (?) is secondary to “success” (as she defines it, I guess?).

Is being successful according to the Triple Package worth it? Do we want to be conventionally happy, or “successful”? Can we be both?

(Some more trivia: Amy Chua was Vice-President JD Vance’s law professor at Yale. She encouraged him to publish Hillbilly Elegy. I believe she was present at the 2025 inauguration.)

Book Info