Reinforcement and the Origin, Rate and Extent of Cultural Diffusion
Reinforcement and the Origin, Rate and Extent of Cultural Diffusion
复制标题
强化与文化传播的起源、速率和程度
DOI:
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发表时间:
1976
期刊:
影响因子:
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通讯作者:
Jerry L. L. Miller
中科院分区:
文献类型:
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作者:
R. L. Hamblin;Jerry L. L. Miller
Cultural diffusion occurs as a logistic process and the dependent variables in this investigation are origin, rate and asymptotes from logistic equations which were fitted by Zvi Griliches to through-time data on the adoption of hybrid corn in each of 132 crop-reporting districts. In multiplicative power functions measures, actual reinforcement to farmers explained 57 percent of the variance in the rate of adoption, expected reinforcement to farmers explained 59 percent of the variance in the asymptotes of the logistic processes and expected reinforcement to developers explained 91 percent of the variance in the origins. This is evidence for the possible importance of reinforcement in explaining variations in macro social change processes. One of the most significant theoretical problems in sociology is what influences the beginnings, the rate, and the extent of macro social change processes. The purpose of this article is to investigate how reinforcement influences the origin, rate and extent of one large-scale social change process, cultural diffusion. The investigation uses Zvi Griliches' data on the adoption of hybrid corn by farmers in the midwestern and southern states and builds upon Griliches' logistic analyses of those data.1