Change: How to Make Big Things Happen w/ Author Damon Centola

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Most of what we know about how ideas spread comes from bestselling authors who give us a compelling picture of a world, in which "influencers" are king, "sticky" ideas "go viral," and good behavior is "nudged" forward. The problem is that the world they describe is a world where information spreads, but beliefs and behaviors stay the same. When it comes to lasting change in what we think or the way we live, the dynamics are different: beliefs and behaviors are 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. Drawing on deep-yet-accessible research and fascinating examples from the spread of coronavirus to the success of the Black Lives Matter movement, the failure of Google+, and the rise of political polarization, Change presents groundbreaking and paradigm-shifting new science for understanding what drives change, and how we can change the world around us.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Damon Centola is Professor Communication, Sociology and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is Director of the Network Dynamics Group. Before coming to Penn, he was a Professor at MIT and a Robert Wood Johnson Fellow at Harvard University. Damon's research has appeared in the world's leading scientific journals, and his work has received the top awards for theoretical and methodological innovation. He is the author of How Behavior Spreads (2018), and Change (2021). Damon’s speaking and consulting clients include Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Cigna, the Smithsonian Institution, the American Heart Association, the National Academies, the U.S. Army and the NBA. Popular accounts of Damon’s work have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, TIME, and CNN. His research has been funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the James S. McDonnell Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation. He is a series editor for Princeton University Press.