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get people to adopt new practices by altering their preferences and beliefs
about likely outcomes, mainly by enlisting vicarious incentives. Advocates
of new technologies and ideologies create expectations that they offer better
solutions than established ways do. Modeled benefits increase adoptive
decisions. Modeling influences can, of course, impede as well as promote
the diffusion process (Midgley, 1976). Modeling negative reactions to a par-
ticular innovation, as a result of having had disappointing experiences with
it, dissuades others from trying it. Even modeled indifference to an innova-
tion, in the absence of any personal experience with it, will dampen the
interests of others.
Many innovations serve as a means of gaining social recognition and
status. Indeed, status incentives are often the main motivators for adopt-
ing new styles and tastes. In many instances, the variant styles do not pro-
vide different natural benefits or, if anything, the most innovative styles
are the most costly. Status is thus gained at a price. People who strive to
distinguish themselves from the common and the ordinary adopt new
styles in clothing, grooming, recreational activities, and conduct, thereby
achieving distinctive social standing. As the popularity of the new behav-
ior grows, it loses its status-conferring value until eventually it, too,
becomes commonplace. It is then discarded for a new form.
Adoptive behavior is also partly governed by self-evaluative reactions
to one’s own behavior. People adopt what they value, but resist innova-
tions that violate their social and moral standards or that conflict with
their self-conception. The more compatible an innovation is with prevail-
ing social norms and value systems, the greater its adoptability (Rogers &
Shoemaker, 1971). However, we saw earlier that self-evaluative sanctions
do not operate in isolation from the pressures of social influence. People
are often led to behave in otherwise personally devalued ways by strate-
gies that circumvent negative self-reactions. This is done by changing
appearances and meanings of new practices to make them look compati-
ble with people’s values.
The amenability of an innovation to brief trial is another relevant char-
acteristic that can affect the ease of adoption. Innovations that can be tried
on a limited basis are more readily adoptable than those that have to be
tried on a large scale with substantial effort and costs. The more weight
given to potential risks and the costs of getting rid of new practices
should they fail to live up to expectations, the weaker is the incentive to
innovate. And finally, people will not adopt innovations even though they
are favorably disposed toward them if they lack the money, the skills, or
the accessory resources that may be needed. The more resources innova-
tions require, the lower is their adoptability.
Analysis of the determinants and mechanisms of social diffusion
should not becloud the fact that not all innovations are useful, nor is resis-