Growing Beyond the Usual Suspects: How change spreads with Damon Centola

Why do some ideas and behaviours spread while others stall? Why do movements sometimes struggle to grow beyond their existing circle of supporters? And what helps participation become broad, trusted and durable?

Internationally renowned network scientist Damon Centola will share ground breaking insights into how change actually travels through social networks. His research challenges the idea that influence simply spreads through highly connected individuals. Instead, lasting behavioural and social change often depends on reinforcement through trusted relationships, and on building “wide bridges” between different networks and communities.

For Community Electorate Groups (like Voices), this offers a practical way to think about growth: how to reach beyond familiar supporters, build stronger connections across difference, engage new communities and create the social conditions in which participation and collective action can endure. 

About Damon Centola

Damon Centola is the Elihu Katz Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Network Dynamics Group. One of the world's leading experts on social networks, collective intelligence, and behaviour change, his research has transformed how organizations, governments, and communities understand the spread of ideas, behaviours, and social change. He is the author of the forthcoming "Goodthink: The New Science of Collective Intelligence" as well as the best-selling "Change: How To Make Big Things Happen" and the award-winning "How Behaviour Spreads".

Through pioneering large-scale experiments and network science, Centola has shown why many conventional approaches to mobilizing people fail, and how the right social structures can help communities generate broad participation, build trust, and achieve lasting change. For grassroots and civic organizations, his work offers practical, evidence-based strategies for growing movements beyond an initial circle of supporters, engaging diverse communities, and creating the social reinforcement needed for participation and collective action to endure. His research has informed leaders across business, government, public health, and civil society seeking to harness the power of social networks to solve complex problems and strengthen democratic participation. Read more here.