Who Persuades Who? An Analysis of Persuasion Choices Related to Antibiotic-Free Food

Personal communication, in which one person persuades another to engage in a particular behavior, is one means through which behaviors spread. To better understand how personal communication spreads behavior, we investigated adults’ (N = 228) likelihood of persuading others in a fictitious social network to buy antibiotic-free food, and who they attempted to persuade, based on behavioral determinants, homophily, and superdiffuser traits. For potential consumers, the findings showed that behavioral determinants, behavioral intentions, and mavenism predicted intentions to persuade others. Homophily, mavenism, and connectivity predicted patterns of interpersonal persuasion. For vegetarians (without homophily in action), behavioral determinants and mavenism predicted persuasion intentions. Persuasiveness was associated with targeting more network members; mavenism was associated with selecting structurally central members.