Diffusion Processes and Fertility Transition Selected Perspectives (2001) / Chapter Skim
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3 Diffusion in Sociological Analysis
3 Diffusion in Sociological Analysis
Pages 66-114
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From page 66... ...
To identify the backbone of diffusion models and theories in sociology, and to show that recent formulations and applications require robust, well-specified theories about social systems and about the positions that individuals exposed to diffusion occupy within the social structure; (2) To illustrate recent applications of diffusion models and theories in two key areas of sociology, social movements and social organizations; (3)
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From page 67... ...
I conclude that it is unilluminating to confront diffusion theories with competing explanations that regard behaviors as responsive to "structural" factors, such as socioeconomic positions or social class membership, as if diffusion processes did not require or could proceed independently of structural factors that characterize the environment where individuals act and where behaviors take place. Similarly, it is misleading to cast diffusion models or theories against alternative ones on the grounds that the latter are usually erected on a foundation of assumptions about rational actors and well-defined decisionmaking processes, as if diffusion processes did not require making assumptions about preferences, costs, and a rational calculus.
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From page 68... ...
In diffusion models, the behavior "spreads" and is adopted by individuals irrespective of their socioeconomic positions, even among those whose social or economic positions are hypothetically associated with cost-benefit calculations that do not necessarily require the new behavior. Adopting the new behavior occurs as a result of reevaluation of one's own choices in light of other people's behavior, not as a strategic response or accommodation to a realignment of resources associated with one's social position in the social system.
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From page 69... ...
The resulting geographic and territorial clustering of fertility levels and patterns has been construed as evidence against a structural explanation of fertility decline, and as support for the hypothesis that fertility changes were strongly associated with ideational or cultural changes and diffusion mechanisms. The existence of strong clustering of fertility levels along cultural lines could be evidence of either diffusion of a new behavior (adoption of contraception and a low fertility norm)
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From page 70... ...
The classical problem in diffusion models is to understand who adopts the innovation, and how fast they do so. Thus, Rogers (1995)
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From page 71... ...
. The vast majority of applications of diffusion models in both demography and sociology neglect this very simple tenet of diffusion models: adopters and nonadopters are rational decision makers and adoption is the outcome of a rational decision-making process.
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To my knowledge, the traditional literature on diffusion processes in sociology or demography has not addressed the problem created by the unmeasured resistance to adoption, except insofar as the study of forerunners and the conditions that determine their appearance is indeed a way to identify factors influencing unmeasured resistance.2 In general, however, we neglect the issue altogether. This practice is explained by one of two factors: either the assump
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From page 73... ...
Despite the fact that often it is difficult to tell so from actual empirical research involving diffusion models, diffusion processes are affected by the social structure of systems within which they are occurring. Social structures determine the content and shape of the repertoire of feasible behaviors ("Is the behavior within the realm of conscious choice?
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From page 74... ...
Structure accounts for the slow progress of diffusion rather than diffusion undermining the constraints fabricated by social structures. Although emphasis on the importance of social structure for diffusion processes is hardly new, and even despite the fact that there are good examples demonstrating careful attention to social structure (Rogers and Kincaid, 1981; Coleman et al., 1966; Burt, 1987)
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From page 75... ...
Contraceptive discontinuation is an obvious illustration that has become a staple of empirical studies of contraception, but so is the possibility that certain groups may adopt contraception and then abandon altogether the very ideal of family limitation. If one succeeded in providing a convincing explanation of fertility decline in Western Europe entirely based on diffusion arguments, we should also explain why the decline turned out to be irreversible.
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From page 76... ...
By the same token, though, particular constellations of the elements may lead to excruciatingly slow adoption, to innovation processes that begin rapidly but then taper off without ever reaching near saturation, or to those that fail altogether and are then relegated to the pool of diffusion processes that we will never be able to study.5 An immediate corollary of this inherent variability is that it is not necessarily correct to infer the existence of a causal mechanism (diffusion mechanisms versus structural mechanisms) only from observation of the relative speed with which a behavioral change occurs.
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From page 77... ...
DEVELOPMENT OF DIFFUSION MODELS IN SOCIOLOGY In this section I discuss developments in the formulation and application of diffusion models in sociology. I start with early models that mimic those used for the study of the spread of diseases and focus on narrow aggregate outcomes.
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From page 78... ...
. When rO is O we have a simple case of pure social interaction effects, and when rat is O we have a case of pure external effects and no social influence to speak of.
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From page 79... ...
and the social conditions of interaction between actors who are adopters and potential adopters. New Models for Aggregate Outcomes: Examples from Collective Action An important step forward in the formulation of new diffusion models is the work on collective violence carried out by Pitcher et al.
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From page 80... ...
The idea of formulating jointly two diffusion processes, one that fosters the behaviors of interest and one that inhibits their realization, should be of interest to those studying social process where the innovation, such as fertility control, may generate resistance on the part of central authorities or among influential members of the community (such as community elders, the church, provincial authorities, or even the state)
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From page 81... ...
The disadvantage of the compartment model formulation is that it is somewhat difficult to estimate from data normally available to us and, as other aggregate models of the same type, does not identify sufficient evidence to determine whether a diffusion process or something else explains the behavior under study (see, for example, simulations carried out in RoseroBixby and Casterline, 1993~. Models of Social Influence in Collective Action and Organization Theory Somewhat paradoxically, an important part of the drift toward individually based models of diffusion occurs within areas traditionally reserved for the study of macrosocial processes, such as social movements and social organizations.
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From page 82... ...
It is incorrect to think that recent theories in this area reduce the complicated processes that lead to collective action and determine its success or ultimate disappearance to diffusion or social influence processes. It is equally incorrect, though, to overlook the fact that it is in actors' interactions and mutual social influence where one will find the essential features of collective action.
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From page 83... ...
Who the relevant others may be and the exact influence they may exert on an individual's behavior is possibly variable, and will depend on the actor's position within the collectivity, his channels of communications, and the type and frequency of relations to others. It is at this juncture where the investigation of contextual effects and its connections to social networks becomes strategic for understanding collective action.
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I will show later that researchers in demography have also turned to variants of (4) to test new diffusion models for understanding fertility decline.
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The technical difficulties in estimating its parameters is a theme discussed later. The last example of diffusion models in collective action is the spread of trade unions in Sweden (Hedstrom, 1994~.
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Or, translated in our jargon, the emergence of the Swedish trade union movements owes to both structural conditions as well as to diffusion processes. Organizations The formulation of diffusion or contagion-like processes and their application in organizational analysis is relatively new.
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From page 87... ...
organizational features and behaviors, much as individuals are assumed to do in models of social contagion applied to collective action. Organizational mimicry could be construed as a diffusion-like process where the actual actors are not individuals but organizations themselves or key units within an organization.
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From page 88... ...
As in individual processes of social influence, organizations are more likely to imitate those organizations in the field perceived to be legitimate or successful. Isomorphism attributable to mimetic process is more likely to occur under a variety of conditions characterizing the organizational field or the organizations themselves.
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From page 89... ...
NEW MODELS OF DIFFUSION: PROBLEMS AND UNRESOLVED ISSUES The discussion and review of recent sociological applications above provide elements for identifying essential characteristics of diffusion models and for testing propositions that seek to identify their relevance in empirical cases. Unlike conventional diffusion models, the new models applied in sociological analysis formulate explicitly the mechanisms
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From page 90... ...
There are a number of ways to define who the other individuals are, and there are alternative mechanisms through which their social influence may affect an individual's decision-making process. In what follows I briefly identify the most significant social relations and three mechanisms that drive diffusion processes.
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That is, these social contacts or social influences are effective mechanisms of diffusion in that they have an effect on (a) information about the feasibility of Bo, (b)
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From page 92... ...
For example, suppose that individuals in a given social position tend to choose a behavior Bo based on maximization of net benefits purely as a function of their position in the social system, and that there is no influence of others' behavior in their decision-making process. If, to avoid social friction, social rejection, or complete isolation, they decide to choose social networks (and relations within them)
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From page 93... ...
Furthermore, the influence of the feedback effect on an individual's adoption may be exerted by diffuse and distant social networks, not necessarily by any specific social network to which the individual belongs.7 Below I describe in more detail some of the problems we encounter in the definition and treatment of relevant social influences and individual resistance and thresholds. I then discuss considerations for model building.
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From page 94... ...
The mainstay of these models is attention to the sources of social influence and the attempt to model these as precisely as possible. Classical formal models of diffusion assume spatial and social homogeneity, that is, they rest on the assumption that members of the population do not differ in terms of the chances of affecting others or being affected by others.
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has promoted the use of spatial models of diffusion (see, for example, Hedstrom, 1994; BocquetAppel, 1997~. Resistance and Thresholds An important innovation introduced in recent formulations of diffusion models is the notion of individual thresholds.
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SEARCHING FOR DIFFUSION: THE IDENTIFICATION PROBLEM The Ideal Test The only way to conclusively prove whether a diffusion or a structuralist theory is correct is an unrealizable experiment, namely, the observation of patterns of behavior under conditions that hold constant the distribution of individuals by social positions and the distribution of resources associated with positions while allowing variations in conditions that trigger the spread of the behavior (e.g., participation in social networks)
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, external characteristics acting as constraints (or facilitators) , influence of external sources of ideas, or influence of individual social networks.
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A number of difficulties are associated with any possible extensions of model (6~. First, we have not justified well the nature of the term associated with social networks.
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From page 99... ...
If one considers this an important extension, then problems of identification will emerge. Whether or and ~ are scalar quantities or vector-valued functions, their magnitude and sign will only reflect two mechanisms of diffusion: one whereby social influences change the set of plausible choices for the individual, and the other whereby social influences modify the linkage between the new behavior and expected net benefits.
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From page 100... ...
This is consistent with the process of fertility decline in general, although it may not be with other diffusion processes or with some examples of local fertility decline. Also, to simplify even further, assume there is no relevant feedback mechanism.
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From page 101... ...
This imposes more information constraints and generates new estimation difficulties.~° DIFFUSION MODELS THAT ACCOUNT FOR FERTILITY CHANGES The history of applications of diffusion models to the study of fertility proceeds through a succession of intellectual stages, each characterized by a paradigm. These paradigms serve to conceptualize the nature of the process of diffusion, to identify the criteria for deciding empirically among competing explanations, and, finally, to define the opposition between two types of explanations for fertility decline, one relying on diffusion and the other on structural changes.
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From page 102... ...
This is that the main mechanism through which the process of adjustment is assumed to work involves improvements in child survival. If there is anything we learned from evidence gathered in Western Europe and in developing countries, it is that, in most regions of the world, mortality decline had little to do with fertility decline, and none of the three main mediating mechanisms linking mortality and fertility biological, replacement, and hoarding are powerful enough to amount to a full explanation (van de Walle, 1986; Preston, 1978; Cohen and Montgomery, 1998; Palloni and Rafalimanana, 1997~.
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From page 103... ...
Carlsson's formal representation and testing of a diffusion model is fraught with other problems as well. The most important among these, and a consequence of the simplistic notion of diffusion adopted, is that there is no model connecting individual fertility decision-making and social influences.
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From page 104... ...
The second line of research focuses on different measures of fertility, correctly arguing that the proper measures to test diffusion models ought to be measures of prevalence of the new behavior (contraception) that are only poorly correlated with the indirect measures of fertility normally used by demographers (Okun, 1994~.
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From page 105... ...
However persuasive their argumentation may be, the formulation put forward by Cleland and Wilson runs into two problems, one theoretical and the other methodological. First, there is a conceptual confusion that takes ideational changes as equivalent to diffusion processes.
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From page 106... ...
may occur in tandem, the latter being more likely in highly integrated communities where psychic costs of deviant behavior are minimized. An important limitation of Retherford's theory is that it does not contain much elaboration of mechanisms of social influence and only indirect reference to feedback mechanisms.
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From page 107... ...
. The limitation of this kind of work is that, in order to test diffusion models, one needs to estimate the effects of social influences (and feedbacks)
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From page 108... ...
Armed with this minimal definition, I undertake the task of reviewing broad areas of application of diffusion models in sociology and demography in general, and identify several stages in the history of sociological applications. I discuss recent applications in collective action and organizational theory as examples of what would be near-to-ideal conditions for model formulation and testing of diffusion processes.
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From page 109... ...
5. The selection issues arising from devoting overwhelming attention to diffusion processes that more or less succeed in taking hold, while neglecting those where diffusion never takes off or dies out shortly after its onset, are presumably quite important but, to my knowledge, have not been studied seriously.
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From page 110... ...
Montgomery, and R.L. Clark 1987 Diffusion Models of Fertility Control: Are There New Insights?
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Stokman, eds. 1997 Evolution of Social Networks.
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From page 112... ...
Chicago: Uni versity of Chicago Press. 1995 Initiator and spin-off movements: Diffusion processes in protest cycles.
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Myers, D.J. 1997 Diffusion Models for Riots and Other Collective Violence.
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From page 114... ...
Strang, D 1991 Adding social structure to diffusion models: An event history framework.
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