Diffusion of Innovations is innovators → early adopters → early majority → late majority → laggards. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0235, within the Markets family. The core principle: innovators → early adopters → early majority → late majority → laggards. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Innovators → early adopters → early majority → late majority → laggards.
Plain-English Definition
Innovators → early adopters → early majority → late majority → laggards.
Feynman Explanation
If you're selling to the late majority, the innovation is over.
Core Principle
Innovators → early adopters → early majority → late majority → laggards.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Innovators → early adopters → early majority → late majority → laggards.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Marketing, change management, and strategy phasing.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
If you're selling to the late majority, the innovation is over.
Examples
- AI adoption curves inside companies.
- Marketing, change management, and strategy phasing.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
When this element shows up in a diagnostic, the instinct is to train people out of it. Training rarely moves it. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: innovators → early adopters → early majority → late majority → laggards. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: if you're selling to the late majority, the innovation is over. Every element in the Cognition dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, marketing, change management, and strategy phasing. It is amplified whenever marketing, change management, and strategy phasing. Inside organizations that shows up as marketing, change management, and strategy phasing. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to know which adopter segment you're talking to today. The pitch changes. Design against it the way you would design against a known failure mode — assume it will appear, and price the exploit before someone finds it.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Know which adopter segment you're talking to today. The pitch changes.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Know which adopter segment you're talking to today. The pitch changes.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
The rate at which customers (or employees) leave over a period.
The gap between early adopters and the early majority kills most products.
Low-end or new-market entrants overtake established incumbents.
Prices driven far above intrinsic value by feedback loops of belief and behavior.
Asset prices fully reflect available information; you can't reliably beat the market.
Doing everything right by current customers can kill you.
Customers hire products to do a job in their life.
Aggregating many niche markets equals or exceeds the mainstream.
Beliefs about reality shape the reality.
Technologies grow slowly, then explode, then plateau.
Responsibility dilutes across a group until it disappears.
How will I feel about this in 10 minutes / 10 months / 10 years?
Where Diffusion of Innovations is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayGoodhart's Law in the Real World
How measurable proxies capture judgment.
- EssayThe Perverse Incentives Hiding in Your KPIs
Cognitive shortcuts turned into scorecards.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Diffusion of Innovations
- What is Diffusion of Innovations?
- Diffusion of Innovations is innovators → early adopters → early majority → late majority → laggards. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0235, within the Markets family. The core principle: innovators → early adopters → early majority → late majority → laggards. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Diffusion of Innovations?
- Marketing, change management, and strategy phasing. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0235).
- How is Diffusion of Innovations exploited?
- Marketing, change management, and strategy phasing.
- How do you design around Diffusion of Innovations?
- Know which adopter segment you're talking to today. The pitch changes.
- Which behavioral dimension does Diffusion of Innovations belong to?
- Diffusion of Innovations is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Markets", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0235 and its evidence grade is B.