Tensions in Practice: Wider contact and repeated support¶
A small invented diffusion motif
Two initial adopters can each contact one person about a new practice. They can both reach C, giving C two distinct sources, or reach C and D separately. If one source is enough, spreading the contacts reaches more new adopters. If two distinct sources are required, concentrating them activates one person while splitting activates neither. The result depends on the adoption rule, not on a universally better network.
Reach more people
Give more recipients at least one contact with the practice.
Supply reinforcement
Give a recipient enough distinct supporting contacts to meet a higher threshold.
Why these aims pull against each other
A fixed two-contact budget cannot simultaneously give two recipients two distinct sources. Reach and reinforcement use the same contacts differently.
Choose an arrangement to see what changes and what remains difficult.
Arrows show the stated work, authority, or access paths. Position, length, and color do not measure time, risk, cost, or performance.
What this choice protects
What it costs
When it fits
Compare the arrangements
Concentrate contacts
Both seed adopters contact C; neither contacts D.
- What it protects
- C receives two distinct sources, sufficient under either illustrated threshold.
- What it costs
- Only one new person is reached; D has no contact in this step.
- When it fits
- Fits a selected diffusion process needing reinforcement from two distinct sources, rather than mere first exposure.
Illustration note: This is an invented bounded arrangement. Arrows state the selected rights, flows or dependencies; they do not predict behavior or quantify outcomes.
Spread contacts
Seed A contacts C and seed B contacts D.
- What it protects
- Two new people are reached, giving two adopters under the one-source rule.
- What it costs
- Neither recipient gets two sources, so neither adopts under the two-source rule in this step.
- When it fits
- Fits a selected diffusion process for which one exposure is sufficient; reaching someone is not assumed sufficient in general.
Illustration note: This is an invented bounded arrangement. Arrows state the selected rights, flows or dependencies; they do not predict behavior or quantify outcomes.
What this illustration does—and does not—establish
The canonical tension supplies the mechanism. The named setting, arrangements, conditions and costs are editorial constructions, not observed outcomes or universal prescriptions.
- The thresholds, two-contact budget and deterministic one-step adoption counts are illustrative, not measured human behavior. Adoption rules are held fixed when comparing the arrangements; both rules are shown to expose conditionality.
- This is a small reinforcement motif, not a full clustered or random network, and it does not establish long-run diffusion speed.
- Repeated contact from the same source does not count as two distinct sources in this declared toy. Quality, trust and refusal are omitted.
Source entries
Cultural Diffusion
Cultural Diffusion: Network clustering and diffusion speed (contagion-type dependent) supplies this local tension. The concrete setting and selected alternatives are explicitly editorial applications.
Network clustering and diffusion speed (contagion-type dependent)
Organizations face tension in network design: strong internal bonding enables complex behavior spread but weak external ties enable simple information spread. Optimal networks depend on what needs to diffuse.