Lecture 8

Question 1

Behaviors take off once?

Answer 1

They reach a tipping point (S-curve of adoption)

Question 2

3 things that can speed up the tipping point?

Answer 2

1. Characteristics of the early adopter
2. Characteristics of the product
3. Characteristics of the social network

Question 3

80/20 rule?

Answer 3

• 80% of products are used by 20% of consumers

Question 4

Characteristics of products that speed diffusion?

Answer 4

Relative advantage (superior to what came before)

Campatibility (fits with users values)

Complexity (easy to use)

Trialability (can it be trialed before making a decision to adopt)

Question 5

Network closure allows for?

Answer 5

Coordinate to apply pressure to change a person’s behavior

Question 6

How can we speed up diffusion?

Answer 6

1. Change the innovation – make it more convenient, less uncomfortable, more familiar, less expensive…
2. Intervene on the network.

Question 7

Who are opinion leaders?

Answer 7

• celebrities
• self-identified opinion leaders
• expert-identified (e.g. by ethnographers)
• sociometric (who receives most nominations; “influencers”)

Question 8

Those who are central to social networks are not always the most effect change agents - why?

Answer 8

1. vested interest in maintaining the status quo

2. Sattus quo may consist of problematic behavior (smoking, etc)

Question 9

Contagious outbreak - best way to detect outbreak?

Answer 9

Most efficient approach for outbreak detection is to randomly sample people and ask them to nominate their friends

Tracking friends leads to earlier detection of outbreak by almost two weeks.

Question 10

“friendship paradox”

Answer 10

your friends have more friends than you do

Question 11

Who is a Bridge?

paradoxical because?

Answer 11

A person who links two or more otherwise disconnected groups.

weakly connected to groups, yet their position gives them influence (potential brokers).

Question 12

Leaders vs bridges?

Answer 12

1) Leaders are important within groups, but bridges are critical to diffusion between groups
2) Bridges may be less burdened than leaders; more amenable to change.

Question 13

4 Network interventions?

Answer 13

1) Structural alteration (quarantine = delete node.)
2) Segmentation - Identify & target whole sub-groups (as opposed to individuals)
3) Induction - Activate peer-to-peer interaction to create behavioral cascades.

Question 14

Which is best?

1. Exercise on own
2. competition v all
3. Social support from team
4. team competition

Answer 14

Team Competition but in specific situation , social support is beneficial

Question 15

Clutered v small world network - which is better for spreading information? The other?

Answer 15

Small world

Clustered is better for complex contagions (behavior changes b/c people need multiple sources of social reinforcement)

Question 16

Simple v complex contagion?

Answer 16

one-and-one behaviors: once you become activated, you stay activated

v

requires multiple sources of activation & constant effort at behavioral maintenance