Damon Centola
sociology · social-psychology · 1975- · United States
Damon Centola studies how behavior — not just information — actually spreads through networks. His central finding is that costly or contested behaviors travel by complex contagion: they need multiple reinforcing exposures from trusted others before a person will adopt them, which means the structure of a network, not just its reach, decides what moves through it.
What Vela reads them for
Centola is the spine of the network-mediated-adoption thesis that links Vela's behavioral-science lens to Mike's wider work on how change travels. His concept page is complex contagion, which refines Rogers's diffusion curve and complicates Granovetter's weak ties — the adoption set's center of gravity.
Concepts they originated
Concepts they developed
Books in Vela's library
Honest framing
Which behaviors are genuinely 'complex,' and how far the network experiments generalize to messy real settings, are still being worked out. Vela uses his distinction as a sharp tool, not a finished map of adoption.