Damon Centola’s newest book, Change: How to Make Big Things Happen, addresses how to create change by drawing on his research rooted in the fields of sociology and communication.
Centola’s book argues that lasting change in what we think or the way we live is not transmitted from person to person in the simple way that a virus is. The real story of social change is more complex. When we are exposed to a new idea, our social networks guide our responses in striking and surprising ways.
“Behavior change, we now understand, is not like a virus, spreading through casual contact,” Centola writes. “It does follow rules, but learning these rules takes us beyond the spread of diseases to reveal a process that is deeper, more mysterious — and much more interesting.”
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Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication, the School of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
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