Change

Kitchener’s campaign promised that people who enlisted together would also fight together. This strategy targeted residential neighborhoods and professional communities that had previously enforced the strong social norms against professional men enlisting. Kitchener transformed these strong ties into the opposite: the sources of social proof that

people are sensitive to issues of legitimacy, coordination, or social proof—are often the ones people are most committed to once they finally adopt them.

Each of these barriers to adoption can be overcome by social reinforcement.

Rapid economic growth and increased social mobility expanded the audience for Broadway shows. At the same time, the loss of many of Broadway’s talented artists during the Second World War created a vacuum, bringing an influx of new blood into the New York City creative scene.

The polar opposite is a fishing net. Instead of being centralized, this network is egalitarian.

There is very little social redundancy in weak ties.

For social change to succeed, a revolutionary movement must ferry people across these uncertain waters to a new set of expectations and a new sense of competence.

the most consequential forms of bias are not in people’s heads, but rather in their social networks.

the concepts I’ve described in earlier chapters—including bridge width, relevance, reinforcement, and social clustering—