How behavior spreads : the science of complex contagions / Damon Centola.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Centola, Damon, author.

Series:

Princeton analytical sociology series.

Princeton analytical sociology series ; 3

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human behavior.

Social networks.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 296 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

A new, counterintuitive theory for how social networks influence the spread of behaviorNew social movements, technologies, and public-health initiatives often struggle to take off, yet many diseases disperse rapidly without issue. Can the lessons learned from the viral diffusion of diseases be used to improve the spread of beneficial behaviors and innovations? In How Behavior Spreads, Damon Centola presents over a decade of original research examining how changes in societal behavior--in voting, health, technology, and finance-occur and the ways social networks can be used to influence how they propagate. Centola's startling findings show that the same conditions accelerating the viral expansion of an epidemic unexpectedly inhibit the spread of behaviors. While it is commonly believed that "weak ties"-long-distance connections linking acquaintances-lead to the quicker spread of behaviors, in fact the exact opposite holds true. Centola demonstrates how the most well-known, intuitive ideas about social networks have caused past diffusion efforts to fail, and how such efforts might succeed in the future. Pioneering the use of Web-based methods to understand how changes in people's social networks alter their behaviors, Centola illustrates the ways in which these insights can be applied to solve countless problems of organizational change, cultural evolution, and social innovation. His findings offer important lessons for public health workers, entrepreneurs, and activists looking to harness networks for social change.Practical and informative, How Behavior Spreads is a must-read for anyone interested in how the theory of social networks can transform our world.

Contents:

Preface

Chapter 1. Introduction

Part I. Theory

Chapter 2. Understanding Diffusion

Chapter 3. The Theory of Complex Contagions

Chapter 4. A Social Experiment on the Internet

Part II. Applications

Introduction to Part II

Chapter 5. Complex Contagions in Other Contexts

Chapter 6. Diffusing Innovations That Face Opposition

Chapter 7. Diffusing Change in Organizations

Part III. Social Design

Introduction to Part III

Chapter 8. Designing Social Networks for Diffusion

Chapter 9. Creating Social Contexts for Behavior Change

Part IV. Conclusions

Chapter 10. Conclusion

Epilogue. Experimental Sociology

Appendix A. The Ethics of Social Design

Appendix B. Methods of Computational Social Science

Appendix C. Technical Appendix for Models.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-289) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's website, viewed May 23, 2019)

ISBN:

9781400890095 (electronic book)

1-4008-9009-8

OCLC:

1032303162