Researchers have studied how new ideas and innovations—whether the latest fashion, electronic gadget or slang word—are introduced and spread within a group. Individuals who innovate tend to be somewhat isolated from the rest of the group, researchers say. Being too much a part of a group may constrain one's ability to think outside of convention, says Christian Crandall, a professor of social psychology at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, who studies social norms. "There's a freedom to innovate" that comes with isolation, Dr. Crandall says.
Though innovators may be isolated, the group often adopts their innovations because these new ideas or objects are an accessible way for members of the group to bond or signal solidarity. It could be a baseball cap worn backwards, or a pocket square. Each conveys a different identity.
But before others will take up the new idea, someone central to the group, with more connections than the innovator, has to recognize it.
The more public an object or behavior is, the more likely it is to spread, Dr. Berger says. The bright-colored bracelets worn to show support for cancer survivors are seen by others, making a private value visible. "Your thoughts are not public, but your behaviors are," Dr. Berger says.
Rarely does any one individual set an entirely new norm for the group. Group leaders, however, help perpetuate or shift the norm. Unlike innovators, leaders tend to be high-status "superconformists," embodying the group's most-typical characteristics or aspirations, says Deborah Prentice, a social psychologist at Princeton University. People inside and outside the group tend to infer the group's norms by examining these leaders' behaviors.
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