How Behavior Spreads: The Science of Complex Contagions

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Unpacking social networks' role in behavior spread.

If you're curious about the intricacies of how ideas and actions go viral—or why they sometimes flop—Damon Centola's 'How Behavior Spreads' is the insightful read you've been looking for. It turns our traditional understanding of social networks on its head, offering a fresh perspective backed by a decade of research. Especially if you're involved in public health, innovation, or social activism, this book could fundamentally change how you approach the challenge of influencing behavior change at scale.

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.

How Behavior Spreads: The Science of Complex Contagions

Regular price $27.90
Unit price
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ISBN: 9780691175317
Authors: Damon Centola
Date of Publication: 2018-06-12
Format: Hardcover
Related Collections: Philosophy, Sociology, Business, Science
Goodreads rating: 4.09
(rated by 159 readers)

Description

A counterintuitive theory for how social networks influence the spread of behavior. New 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
 

Unpacking social networks' role in behavior spread.

If you're curious about the intricacies of how ideas and actions go viral—or why they sometimes flop—Damon Centola's 'How Behavior Spreads' is the insightful read you've been looking for. It turns our traditional understanding of social networks on its head, offering a fresh perspective backed by a decade of research. Especially if you're involved in public health, innovation, or social activism, this book could fundamentally change how you approach the challenge of influencing behavior change at scale.

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.