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GEORGE S. BRIDGES

SCOTT A. DESMOND

DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION

See Crime, Theories of; Deviance Theories.

DIFFUSION THEORIES

The concept of diffusion inherently focuses upon process. Diffusion refers to the dissemination of any physical element, idea, value, social practice, or attitude through and between populations. Diffusion is among the rare concepts used across the physical, natural, and social sciences, as well as in the arts. Diffusion is most closely associated with the social sciences, particularly rural sociology, anthropology, and communication. Diffusion thinking offers a logic through which to describe and perhaps explain myriad types of change that involve equally diverse foci, ranging from the adoption of internet technology (Adams 1997), to the spread of belief systems (Dean 1997).

Work connected to the concept of diffusion is arguably structured as theory. Certainly there is no

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single, unified, deductively structured collection of propositions, widely regarded by social scientists as identifying the principal mechanisms of diffusion that could be employed across all substantive areas. There are however, many distinct collections of propositions, a few well-tested over decades, that describe different diffusion phenomena in different content areas. Indeed, in the area of innovation diffusion, Everett Rogers (1983) produced a formal theory that is broadly recognized, often tested, and that has been adapted to other content areas including disaster research and technology transfer. Part of the problem in formalizing diffusion theories is that the concept does not inherently specify content (rather a framework or process to structure thinking). However, it cannot be examined empirically without tying it to some substance. That is, studies of diffusion focus on something (a technology, idea, practice, attitude, etc.) that is being diffused. Consequently, the research on diffusion that would drive theory building has remained scattered in the literatures of different sciences, and as such it is not readily pulled together. These conditions do not facilitate ready assembly of information that would encourage creation of a general theory of diffusion. Thus, one must look to the growth of formal theory in sub-areas, although Rogers (in press) has begun to cross content spheres.

There are at least three traditions or theory families that can be historically discerned in the study of diffusion. Rogers (1983, p. 39) has pointed out that for many years these traditions remained largely distinct, with little overlap and cross-fertilization. Since the late l970s the level of research and theoretical isolation has decreased, leading to an enhanced awareness among the perspectives and some integration of empirical findings into more general theoretical statements.

The three theory families are: (1) cultural diffusion; (2) diffusion of innovations; and (3) collective behavior.

CULTURAL DIFFUSION

The earliest social scientific use of the term diffusion is found in Edward Tylor’s (1865) treatment of culture change. Anthropologists have long attempted to explain similarities and differences among cultures, especially those that were geographically adjacent. Tylor’s work on culture change first

proposed the notion of diffusion as a means of explaining the appearance of similar culture elements in different groups and of understanding the progressive alteration of elements within the same group. As the twentieth century began, diffusion arose as an alternative to evolution as a basis for understanding cultural differences and change. Evolutionists argued that cultural similarities probably arose through independent invention. Those who embraced diffusion presented it as a more parsimonious explanation, emphasizing that traits and institutions could pass between groups by means of contact and interaction.

Historical Development. The English anthropologists W. J. Perry and Elliot Smith devised the most extreme position on cultural diffusion. These scholars held that human culture originated in

Egypt and progressively diffused from that center over the remainder of the earth. In Germany, Fritz Graebner (1911) argued that critical aspects of cultures—toolmaking, for example—originated in a small number of geographically isolated societies. This hypothesis formed the basis for culture circles (‘‘kulturkreise’’), collections of societies sharing similar cultures. Unlike British diffusionists who emphasized tracking the movement of single culture elements, Graebner and others in his tradition focused on the dissemination of collections of elements or cultural complexes.

American anthropologists are credited with developing a social scientifically workable concept of diffusion. Franz Boas (1896) conceived of diffusion as a viable mechanism for culture exchanges among geographically adjacent areas. His view figured prominently in the intellectual move away from the deterministic view of diffusion proposed by early British anthropologists. Alfred Kroeber (1923, p. 126) and Robert Lowie (1937, p. 58)— students of Boas—subsequently developed a position called moderate diffusionism, which is currently widely accepted in anthropology. This position allowed for the coexistence of a variety of mechanisms of change and transfer—independent invention, acculturation, etc.—in addition to diffusion in accounting for culture change and differentiation. Clark Wissler (1929), a Kroeber contemporary, established an empirical basis for culture diffusion by identifying ten culture areas (regions with similar cultural inventories) in North and South America and the Caribbean.

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Theory in Cultural Diffusion. In terms of theory development, cultural diffusion is the actual movement of a given social institution or physical implement, while stimulus diffusion is the exchange or movement of the principle upon which an institution or implement is based. In the cultural diffusion literature, scholars have enumerated assumptions, stated principles, and reviewed empirical work with the objective of identifying propositions tested repeatedly and not found to be false. Indeed, beginning with the work of early twentieth century anthropologists, one can identify at least five broadly accepted and empirically supported claims that form the core of what is called cultural diffusion theory. First, borrowed elements usually undergo some type of alteration or adaptation in the new host culture. Second, the act of borrowing depends on the extent to which the element can be integrated into the belief system of the new culture. Third, elements that are incompatible with the new culture’s prevailing normative structure or religious belief system are likely to be rejected. Fourth, acceptance of an element depends upon its utility for the borrower. Finally, cultures with a history of past borrowing are more likely to borrow in the future. These claims constitute the ‘‘core propositions’’ of culture diffusion theory; over the years, each has been qualified and elaborated upon, and corollaries have been created (Stahl 1994).

Currently, diffusion is seen as a mechanism for culture change that typically accounts for a large proportion of any particular culture inventory. The deterministic, linear view of diffusion has been discredited by the empirical record. The concept of culture diffusion as a means of understanding cultural inventories is entrenched in the field of cultural anthropology. As the twenty-first century dawns, a principal controversy among cultural anthropologists centers on the definition of culture, rather than upon the acceptability of culture diffusion. Diffusion theory remains prominent in the archaeology literature, particularly as a means of tracing culture inventories for groups over time (Posnansky and DeCorse 1986).

Sociologists were initially involved in the use of cultural diffusion theory as a means of looking at cultural change (largely in terms of nonmaterial culture) in the United States. Initially theory drawn from anthropology was used (Chapin 1928), but

over time the sociological focus became identifying social psychological motivations and mechanisms supporting the diffusion process (Park and

Burgess 1921, p. 20). Recently, sociological work directly on culture is bifurcated, with one group of scientists still emphasizing the social psychological issues in culture meaning (Wuthnow and Witten 1988), and another more concerned with structural (mathematical or statistical) models of culture processes themselves (Griswold 1987). Neither group has especially focused on diffusion theory as a mechanism to track or identify the contentoutcomes of culture change.

DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS

The diffusion of innovations has historically focused on the spread of an idea, procedure, or implement within a single social group or between multiple groups. For the most part, scholars of this tradition define diffusion as the process through which some innovation is communicated within a social system. Also important is the notion of a time dimension reflecting the rate of diffusion, and the importance of the individual adopter (or non-adopter) reflecting the role of social influence.

The study of innovation diffusion began rather narrowly, grew to dominate the field of rural sociology for a time, contracted in popularity for many years, and then spawned wide interest across several disciplines. Innovation diffusion study contains several groups: those who focus on content or the specific innovation being diffused; those who emphasize theoretical elaborations of generic principles of innovation diffusion; and those concerned with creating structural models to track diffusion. Particularly in the past decade, the literature has seen much cross-fertilization, although mathematical modelers tend to appear less often in the work of other diffusion scholars. Although the roots of innovation diffusion theory are seen to be largely in rural sociology, more recently the field has become distinctly interdisciplinary with major advancements made especially in the discipline of communication.

Historical Development. The definitive history of the diffusion of innovations as a paradigm was published by Thomas Valente and Everett Rogers (1995). The roots of innovation diffusion

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are usually traced to Gabriel Tarde (1890) who didn’t use the term diffusion, but was the first to address the notions of adopters and the role of social influence in adoption, as well as to identify the S-shaped curve associated with the rate of an innovation’s adoption. The formative empirical work on innovation diffusion can be traced to

Bryce Ryan’s Iowa State University-based study of hybrid corn seeds (published with Gross in 1943), and Raymond Bowers’s (1937) study of the acceptance and use of ham radio sets. For more than two decades following this pioneering work, the study of innovation diffusion and particularly theory development took place within the context of rural sociology. This circumstance was a function of a variety of forces, principal among which were the location of rural sociologists in land grant institutions charged with the dissemination of agricultural innovations to farmers (Hightower 1972) and the communication and stimulation accorded by the North Central Rural Sociology Committee’s (a regional professional society) formation of a special subcommittee to deal with the issue of diffusion of agricultural innovations (Valente and Rogers 1995, p. 254).

Most scholars agree that contemporary views of innovation diffusion grew from hybrid corn seeds; specifically the research on adoption done by Bryce Ryan and Neal Gross (1943). These studies ultimately defined most of the issues that occupied diffusion researchers and builders of innovation diffusion theory for decades to come: the role of social influence, the timing of adoptions, the adoption process itself, and interactions among adopter characteristics and perceived characteristics of the innovation. From the middle 1940s through the 1950s, rural sociologists vigorously developed a body of empirical information on the diffusion of innovations. Most of these studies remained tied to agriculture and farming, and focused on the diffusion of new crop management systems, hybridizations, weed sprays, insect management strategies, chemical fertilizers, and machinery. A common criticism of the studies of this era is that many of the studies seem to be almost replications of the Ryan and Gross work, the main difference among them being the specific innovation studied. While it is true that these studies tend to share a common methodology and linear conception of diffusion, it is also true that they provide a strong foundation of empirical case studies.

Indeed, the replications that these studies represent substantially facilitated the later sophisticated theoretical work initiated in the early 1960s (Rogers 1962), and continued in the 1980s (Rogers 1983, 1988).

The 1960s marked the beginning of the decline of the central role of rural sociologists in innovation diffusion research. In large part this was due to changes in the field of rural sociology, but it also reflected the increasing involvement of researchers from other disciplines, changing the sheer proportion of rural sociologists working on innovation diffusion. After more than two decades of extensive research on the diffusion of agricultural innovations, rural sociologists—like other social scientists of the time—began to devote more time to the study of social problems and the consequences of technology. Indeed, Crane (1972) argued that around 1960 rural sociologists began to believe that the critical questions about innovation diffusion had already been answered. Although the late 1960s saw rural sociologists launch a series of diffusion studies on agricultural change in the international arena (particularly Latin America, Asia and Africa), by 1965 research on diffusion of innovations was no longer dominated by members of that field. Of course, innovation diffusion research by rural sociologists has continued, including studies of the impacts of technological innovation diffusion, and diffusion of conservation practices and other ecologically-based innovations (Fliegel 1993).

The infusion of researchers from many disciplines studying a variety of specific innovations initiated the process of expanding the empirical testing of innovation diffusion tenets. This began with studies in education addressing the diffusion of kindergartens and driver education classes in the 1950s, as well as Richard Carlson’s (1965) study of the diffusion of modern math. Another major contribution came from the area of public health. Elihu Katz, Herbert Menzel, and James Coleman launched extensive studies of the diffusion of a new drug (the antibiotic tetracycline); first in a pilot study (Menzel and Katz 1955) and then in studies of four Illinois cities (Coleman,

Menzel, and Katz 1957; Coleman, Katz, and Menzel 1966). This research greatly expanded knowledge of interpersonal diffusion networks, and in particular its influence in adoption. Interestingly, as Elihu Katz, M. L. Levine, and Harry Hamilton

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(1963) indicated, the drug studies truly represented an independent replication of the principles of innovation diffusion developed by rural sociologists because the public health researchers were unaware of the agricultural diffusion research. Other studies in the public health arena focused on dissemination of new vaccines, family planning, and new medical technology.

Beginning in the late 1960s, there was a substantial increase in the amount of diffusion research in three disciplines: business marketing, communication, and transportation-technology transfer. Marketing research principally addressed the characteristics of adopters of new products and the role of opinion leaders in the adoption process (Howes 1996). This literature is based almost exclusively on commercial products, ranging from coffee brands and soap to touch-tone telephones, the personal computer, and internet services. The studies tend to be largely atheoretical, methodologically similar, and aimed simply at using knowledge of diffusion either to improve marketing and sales of the product or to describe product dissemination.

In sharp contrast, work done on innovation diffusion by scholars trained in communication has been considerably more theoretically oriented. Throughout the 1960s, universities in America began to establish separate departments of communication (Rogers 1994). Since diffusion of innovations was widely seen as one type of communication process, scholars in these new departments adopted this type of research as one staple of their work. Beginning with studies of the diffusion of news events (Deutschmann and Danielson 1960), this research tradition has branched out to study the dissemination of a wide variety of specific innovations (McQuail 1983, p. 194). Scholars working in this tradition have been principally responsible for the progressive refinements of formalized theory of innovation diffusion. Everett Rogers has consistently remained the leader in theory development in communication, revising and extending his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations with help from co-author Floyd Shoemaker to produce Communication of Innovations in 1971. Subsequently, Rogers (1983, in press) restored the original title Diffusion of Innovations, broadened the theoretical base and incorporated diffusion studies and thinking from other disciplines. Generally, Rogers and other communication scholars

have studied the diffusion of many target material elements, phenomena, and other intangibles, but they have continued to produce theoretical statements dealing with communication channels, diffusion networks, interpersonal influence and the innovation-decision process. Finally, the technology dissemination and transfer issues have involved work by geographers, engineers, and others beginning in the 1970s. The primary focus of such studies has been the spread or dissemination of technology (Sahal 1981) and the development of network models of innovation diffusion (Valente 1995).

Theory in Innovation Diffusion. The theoretical work of Everett Rogers initially resulted in the collection of knowledge gained from the rural sociology tradition, then facilitated the transition to communication perspectives, and now has served as the mainstay of what is developing as a more cross-disciplinary focus on innovation diffusion. His contribution is twofold. First, he created inventories of findings from many disciplines and from many types of innovation. These inventories provided impetus for the development of a definition of innovation diffusion that was not bound by discipline. Second, Rogers assembled and refined theoretical structures aimed at explaining the principal features of innovation diffusion. The theoretical work has cemented a core of knowledge and principles that are widely identified (and used empirically) as the bases of the diffusion of innovations. Rogers’s (1983) theory includes eighty-one generalizations (propositions) that have undergone empirical testing.

The theory of innovation diffusion may be understood as capturing the innovation-decision process, innovation characteristics, adopter characteristics, and opinion leadership. The innova- tion-decision process represents the framework on which diffusion research is built. It delineates the process through which a decision maker (representing any unit of analysis) chooses to adopt, reinvent (modify), or reject an innovation. This process consists of five stages. Knowledge is the initial stage when the decision maker detects the existence of the innovation and learns of its function. In the persuasion stage, the decision maker forms a positive or negative attitude toward the innovation. The third stage, decision, deals with the decision-maker’s choice to accept or reject the

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innovation. Implementation, the fourth stage, follows a decision to accept and involves putting the innovation into some use (in either its accepted form or some modified form). During the final stage of confirmation, decision makers assess an adopted innovation, gather information from significant others, and choose to continue to use the innovation as is, modify it (reinvention), or reject it. While some have criticized the stage model as too linear, Rogers (1983) has convincingly argued that existing formulations afford a degree of interpretative and predictive flexibility that averts historical problems with stage models in social science.

Different innovations have different probabilities of adoption and hence, different adoption rates. That is, they travel through the innovationdecision process at varying speeds. The literature demonstrates that five characteristics of innovations influence the adoption decision. Compatibility refers to the congruence between an innovation and the prevailing norms, values, and perceived needs of the potential adopter. Higher levels of compatibility are associated with greater likelihood of adoption. Innovation complexity, on the other hand, is negatively associated with adoption.

The extent to which use of an innovation is visible to the social group—called observability—is positively related to adoption. Relative advantage refers to the extent to which an innovation is perceived to be ‘‘better’’ than the idea, practice, or element that it replaces. Higher relative advantage increases the probability of adoption. Finally, trialability— the extent to which an innovation may be experimented with—also increases the probability of adoption.

The third component of diffusion of innovation theory addresses adopter characteristics.

Adopter categories are classifications of individuals by how readily they adopt an innovation. Rogers (1983, p. 260) identifies nine socioeconomic variables, twelve personality variables, and ten personal communication characteristics that have been demonstrated to bear upon adoption choices. In general, the literature holds that early adopters are more likely to be characterized by high socioeconomic status, high tolerance of uncertainty and change, low levels of fatalism and dogmatism, high integration into the social system, high exposure to mass media and interpersonal communication channels, and frequent engagement in information seeking.

Identifying the characteristics of people who adopt innovations raises the question of interpersonal influence. Three issues are addressed in the development of propositions about the role of interpersonal influence in the innovation decision process: information flow, opinion leadership, and diffusion networks. Over time, information flow has been seen as a ‘‘hypodermic needle’’ model, a two-step flow (to opinion leaders, then other adopters), and a multi-step flow. Currently, information flows are seen as multi-step in nature and are described in terms of homophily and heterophily— the degree to which pairs of interacting potential adopters are similar or dissimilar. Opinion leadership denotes the degree to which one member of a social system can influence the attitude and behavior of others. This concept is presently discussed relative to spheres of influence, wherein a given person may be a leader or follower depending upon the part of the diffusion network being referenced. The diffusion or communication network is the structural stage upon which social influence takes place. Considerable attention has been devoted to developing analysis strategies and tactics for such networks (Wigand 1988).

COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR

While diffusion is not a commonly used term in collective behavior, processes of diffusion are important in connection with understanding crowds, fashion, and some aspects of disaster behavior. In all cases, analytic concern centers on the dissemination of emotions, social practices, or physical elements through a collectivity. The study of human behavior in disasters is recent and multidisciplinary. In this field there has been a concern with diffusion in the classic sense of tracking ideas and practices through networks. The principle foci of research have been the adoption of protective measures and the dissemination of warning messages (Lindell and Perry 1992), with the aim of research being both the development of general theories of protective behaviors and more effective protection of endangered populations.

All three diffusion theory traditions converge in the study of crowd behavior. In proposing imitation as an explanatory mechanism for crowd actions, Gabriel Tarde (1890, p. 45) drew upon

Edward Tylor’s concept of cultural diffusion. Subsequently, Gustave LeBon (1895) and Gabriel Tarde

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(1901) approached crowd behavior in terms of social contagion: rapid dissemination of emotions among interacting people. Although Floyd Allport

(1924) and Herbert Blumer (1939) extended and formalized the concept of contagion, it has been largely displaced as a theory of crowd behavior by convergence theory (Turner and Killian 1987, p.19).

Changes in dress have been conceptualized as diffusion processes. Alfred Kroeber (1919) studied fashion cycles which he believed diffused systematically through civilizations. Katz and Lazarsfeld

(1955, p. 241) moved away from the initial concern with movement of fashion through networks to focus more on social influence. Herbert Blumer

(1969) firmly established social psychological motivations as the basis for fashion behavior. Current theoretical work on fashion continues to emphasize social psychological approaches wherein fashion diffusion issues are peripheral (Davis 1985; Nagasawa, Hutton, and Kaiser 1991).

REFERENCES

Adams, Tyronne 1997 ‘‘Using Diffusion of Innovations Theory to Enrich Virtual Organizations in Cyberspace.’’

Southern Communication Journal 62:133–141.

Allport, Floyd 1924 Social Psychology. Boston: Hough-

ton-Mifflin.

Blumer, Herbert 1939 ‘‘Collective Behavior.’’ In Robert Park, ed., Outline of the Principles of Sociology. New York: Barnes and Noble.

——— 1969 ‘‘Fashion.’’ Sociological Quarterly 10:275–291.

Boas, Franz 1896 The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology. New York: Alfred Knopf.

Bowers, Raymond 1937 ‘‘The Direction of Intra-Societal Diffusion.’’ American Sociological Review 2:826–836.

Carlson, Richard 1965 Adoption of Educational Innovations. Eugene: University of Oregon Center for the Advanced Study of Educational Administration.

Chapin, F. Stuart 1928 Cultural Change. New York:

Century.

Coleman, James, Herbert Menzel, and Elihu Katz 1957 ‘‘The Diffusion of an Innovation among Physicians.’’ Sociometry 20:253–270.

——— 1966 Medical Innovation: A Diffusion Study. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.

Crane, Diana 1972 Invisible Colleges. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press.

Davis, Fred 1985 ‘‘Clothing and Fashion as Communication.’’ Symbolic Interaction 5:111–126.

Dean, John 1997 ‘‘The Diffusion of American Culture in Western Europe since World War Two.’’ Journal of American Culture 20:11–32.

Deutschmann, P. J. , and W. A. Danielson 1960 ‘‘Diffusion of Knowledge of the Major News Story.’’ Journalism Quarterly 37:345–355.

Fliegel, Frederick 1993 Diffusion Research in Rural Sociology. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood.

Graebner, Fritz 1911 Methode der Ethnologie. Heidelberg, Germany: Carl Winter.

Griswold, William 1987 ‘‘A Methodological Framework for the Sociology of Culture.’’ Sociological Methodology 14:1–35.

Hightower, James 1972 Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times.

Cambridge, Mass.: Shenkman.

Howes, David 1996 Cross-Cultural Consumption. New

York: Routledge.

Katz, Elihu, and Paul Lazarsfeld 1955 Personal Influence. New York: Free Press.

Katz, Elihu, M. L. Levine, and H. Hamilton 1963 ‘‘Traditions of Research on Diffusion of Innovation.’’ American Sociological Review 28:237–253.

Kroeber, Alfred 1919 ‘‘On the Principle of Order in Civilization as Exemplified by Changes of Fashion.’’

American Anthropologist 21:235–263.

——— 1923 Anthropology. New York: Harcourt.

LeBon, Gustave 1895 Psychologie des foules. Paris: Alcan.

Lindell, Michael, and Ronald Perry 1992 Behavioral Foundations of Community Emergency Planning. Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere Publishers.

Lowie, Robert 1937 The History of Ethnological Theory. New York: Rinehart and Company.

McQuail, Denis 1983 Mass Communication Theory. Bever-

ly Hills, Calif.: Sage.

Menzel, Herbert, and Elihu Katz 1955 ‘‘Social Relations and Innovation in the Medical Profession.’’ Public Opinion Quarterly 19:337–352.

Nagasawa, Richard, Sandra Hutton, and Susan Kaiser 1991 ‘‘A Paradigm for the Study of the Social Meaning of Clothes.’’ Clothing and Textiles Research Journal

10:53–62.

Park, Robert, and Ernest Burgess 1921 Introduction to the Science of Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Posnansky, M., and C. R. DeCorse 1986 ‘‘Historical Archaeology in Sub-Saharan Africa.’’ Historical Archaeology 20:1–14.

Rogers, Everett 1962, 1995 Diffusion of Innovations. New

York: Free Press.

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———1988 ‘‘The Intellectual Foundation and History of the Agricultural Extension Model.’’ Knowledge 9:492–510.

———1994 A History of Communication Study. New York: Free Press.

———, and Floyd Shoemaker 1971 Communication of Innovations. New York: Free Press.

Ryan, Bryce, and Neal Gross 1943 ‘‘The Diffusion of Hybrid Seed Corn in Two Iowa Communities.’’ Rural Sociology 8:15–24.

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tion. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

Stahl, Ann 1994 ‘‘Innovation, Diffusion and Culture Contact.’’ Journal of World Prehistory 8:51–112.

Tarde, Gabriel 1890 Les Lois de l’imitation. Paris: Alcan.

——— 1901 L’opinion et la foule. Paris: Alcan.

Turner, Ralph, and Lewis Killian 1987 Collective Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Tylor, Edward 1865 Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilisation. London: John Murray.

Valente, Thomas 1995 Network Models of the Diffusion of Innovations. Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton.

———, and Everett Rogers 1995 ‘‘The Origins and Development of the Diffusion of Innovations Paradigm.’’ Science Communication 16:242–273.

Wigand, Rolf 1988 ‘‘Communication Network Analysis.’’ In G. Goldhaber and G. Barnett, eds., Handbook of Organizational Communication. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing.

Wissler, Clark 1929 An Introduction to Social Anthropology. New York: Henry Holt.

Wuthnow, Robert, and Marsha Witten 1988 ‘‘New Directions in the Study of Culture.’’ Annual Review of Sociology 14:49–67.

RONALD W. PERRY

DISASTER RESEARCH

SOCIOHISTORY OF THE FIELD

Descriptions of calamities exist as far back as the earliest human writings, but systematic empirical studies and theoretical treatises on social features of disasters appeared only in the twentieth century. The first major publications in both instances were produced by sociologists. Samuel Prince

(1920) wrote a doctoral dissertation in sociology at

Columbia University that examined the social

change consequences of a munitions ship explosion in the harbor of Halifax, Canada. Pitirim

Sorokin (1942) two decades later wrote Man and Society in Calamity that mostly speculated on how war, revolution, famine, and pestilence might affect the mental processes and behaviors, as well as the social organizations and the cultural aspects of impacted populations. However, there was no building on these pioneering efforts.

It was not until the early 1950s that disaster studies started to show any continuity and the accumulation of a knowledge base. Military interest in possible American civilian reactions to post-

World War II threats from nuclear and biological warfare led to support of academic research on peacetime disasters. The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) undertook the key project at the University of Chicago between 1950 and 1954. This work, intended to be multidisciplinary, became dominated by sociologists as were other concurrent studies at the University of Oklahoma, Michigan State, and the University of Texas (Quarantelli 1987, 1994). The NORC study not only promoted field research as the major way for gathering data, but also brought sociological ideas from the literature on collective behavior and notions of organizational structure and functions into the thinking of disaster researchers (Dynes 1988; Dynes and Tierney 1994).

While the military interest quickly waned, research in the area obtained a strategic point of salience and support when the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in the late 1950s created the Disaster Research Group (DRG). Operationally run by sociologists using the NORC work as a prototype, the DRG supported field research of others as well as conducted its own studies (Fritz 1961). When the DRG was phased out in 1963, the Disaster Research Center (DRC) was established at the Ohio State University. DRC helped the field of study to become institutionalized by its continuous existence to the present day (having moved to the University of Delaware in 1985). In its thirty-six years of existence DRC has trained dozens of graduate students, built the largest specialized library in the world on social aspects of disasters, produced over six hundred publications and about three dozen Ph. D. dissertations (see http:// www.udel.edu/DRC/homepage.htm), continually and consciously applied a sociological perspective to new disaster research topics, initiated an

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interactive computer net of researchers in the area, and intentionally helped to create international networks and critical masses of disaster researchers.

DRC was joined in time in the United States by two other major social science research centers

(both currently headed by sociologists). The Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado has as part of its prime mission the linking of disaster researchers and research-users in policy and operational areas. The Hazards Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A & M University has a strong multidisciplinary orientation. The organization of these groups and others studying disasters partly reflects the fact that the sociological work in the area was joined in the late 1960s by geographers with interest in natural hazards (Cutter 1994), in the 1980s by risk analysts (including sociologists such as Perrow 1984; Short 1984) especially concerned with technological threats, and later by political scientists who initially were interested in political crises (Rosenthal and Kouzmin 1993). More important, in the 1980s disaster research spread around the world, which led to the development of a critical mass of researchers. This culminated in 1986 in the establishment within the International Sociological Association of the Research Committee on Disasters (# 39) (http:// sociweb.tamu.edu/ircd/), with membership in over thirty countries; its own professional journal, The International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters (www.usc.edu/dept/sppd/ijmed); and a newsletter, Unscheduled Events. At the 1998 World Congress of Sociology, this committee organized fourteen separate sessions with more than seventyfive papers from several dozen countries. The range of papers reflected that the initial focus on emergency time behavior has broadened to include studies on mitigation and prevention, as well as recovery and reconstruction.

CONCEPTUALIZATION OF ‘‘DISASTER’’

Conceptualizations of ‘‘disaster’’ have slowly evolved from employing everyday usages of the term, through a focus on social aspects, to attempts to set forth more sociological characterizations. The earliest definitions equated disasters with features of physical agents and made distinctions between ‘‘acts of God’’ and ‘‘technological’’ agents. This

view was followed by notions of disasters as phenomena that resulted in significant disruptions of social life, which, however, might not involve a physical agent of any kind (e.g., a false rumor might evoke the same kind of evacuation behavior that an actual threat would). Later, disasters came to be seen as crises resulting either from certain social constructions of reality, or from the application of politically driven definitions, rather than necessarily from one initial and actual social disruption of a social system. Other researchers equated disasters with occasions where the demand for emergency actions by community organizations exceeds their capabilities for response. By the late 1980s, disasters were being seen as overt manifestations of latent societal vulnerabilities, basically of weaknesses in social structures or systems (Schorr 1987; Kreps 1989).

Given these variants about the concept, it is not surprising that currently no one formulation is totally accepted within the disaster research community (see Quarantelli 1998 where it is noted that postmodernistic ideas are now also being applied). However, there would be considerable agreement that the following is what is involved in using the term ‘‘disaster’’ as a sensitizing concept: Disasters are relatively sudden occasions when, because of perceived threats, the routines of collective social units are seriously disrupted and when unplanned courses of action have to be undertaken to cope with the crisis.

The notion of ‘‘relatively sudden occasions’’ indicates that disasters have unexpected life histories that can be designated in social space and time. Disasters involve the perceptions of dangers and risks to valued social objects, especially people and property. The idea of disruption of routines indicates that everyday adjustive social mechanisms cannot cope with the perceived new threats. Disasters necessitate the emergence of new behaviors not available in the standard repertoire of the endangered collectivity, a community, which is usually the lowest social-level entity accepted by researchers as able to have a disaster. In the process of the refinement of the concept, sociologists have almost totally abandoned the distinction between ‘‘natural’’ and ‘‘technological’’ disasters, derived from earlier notions of ‘‘acts of God’’ and ‘‘man-made’’ happenings. Any disaster is seen as inherently social in nature in origin, manifestation, or consequences. However, there is lack of

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consensus on whether social happenings involving intentional, deliberate human actions to produce social disruptions such as occur in riots, civil disturbances, terrorist attacks, product tampering or sabotage, or wars, should be conceptualized as disasters. The majority who oppose their inclusion argue that conflict situations are inherently different in their origins, careers, manifestations, and consequences. They note that in disaster occasions there are no conscious attempts to bring about negative effects as there are in conflict situations

(Quarantelli 1993). Nevertheless, there is general agreement that both conflictand consensus-type crises are part of a more general category of collective stress situations, as first suggested by

Allan Barton (1969).

MAJOR RESEARCH FINDINGS

While the research efforts have been uneven, much has been learned about the behavior of individuals and households, organizations, communities, and societies in the pre-, trans-, and postimpact time periods (Quarantelli and Dynes 1977; Kreps 1984;

Drabek 1986). A separation of the disaster-plan- ning cycle into mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery phases has won partial acceptance at some policy and operational levels in the United

States. However, international usage of the terms is far from total and there also is disagreement regarding what should be considered under mitigation. Therefore we will continue to discuss findings under the older ‘‘time’’ breakdown.

Preimpact behavior. Individuals and households.

Most residents show little concern about disasters before they happen, even in risk-prone areas and where threats are recognized. Citizens tend to see disaster planning as primarily a moral even more than a legal responsibility of the government. Very few households ever plan in any concrete way for possible disasters. Exceptions to these passive attitudes are where there are many recurrent experiences of disasters as occur in some localities, where disaster subcultures (institutionalized expectations) have developed, and where potential disaster settings (such as at chemical complexes or nuclear plants) are the focus of activist citizen groups.

Organizations. Except for some disaster-orient- ed groups such as police and fire departments,

there usually is little organizational planning for disasters. Even agencies that plan tend to think of disasters as extensions of everyday emergencies and fail, according to researchers, to recognize the qualitative as well as quantitative differences between routine crises and disaster occasions. In disasters the responding organizations have to quickly relate to more and different groups than normal, adjust to losing part of their autonomy to overall coordinating groups, apply different performance standards and criteria, operate within a closer-than-usual public and private interface, and cannot function well when their own facilities and operations may be directly impacted by the disaster agent.

Communities. Low priority usually is given to preparing localities for disasters, and when there is some effort it is usually independent of general community development and planning. This reflects the reactive rather than proactive orientation of most politicians and bureaucrats and the fact that the issue of planning very seldom becomes a matter of broad community interest as would be indicated by mass media focus, discussions in the political arena, or the existence of advocacy groups. Efforts to initiate overall disaster preparedness often are hindered by prior organizational and community conflicts, cleavages, and disputes. Starting in the 1990s, major systematic efforts from the top down have been made in a few countries to push for the implementation of local mitigation measures. For programs to be implemented, however, people must accept the realistic criticism that while a disaster may be a high-im- pact, it is a very low-probability event.

Societies. Generally, disaster planning does not rank very high on the agenda of most societies. However, increasingly there are exceptions in developing countries when major recurrent disasters have had major impact on the gross national product and developmental programs. Also, in developed societies certain even distant catastrophes such as a Bhopal or Chernobyl can become symbolic occasions that lend impetus to instituting preparedness measures for specific disaster agents. Increasingly too, attention to national-level disaster planning has increased as citizens have come to expect their governments to provide more security in general for the population. Also, mitigation or prevention of disasters is being given higher priority than in the past.

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