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Abstract

Katz and Lazarsfeld's Personal Influence presents a “theory of action” that privileges interpersonal influence. In contrast, classic theories of action from Hobbes, Kant, Freud, and Parsons ignored the impact of personal influence in their theories of human action. Once scholars recognized the importance of adding interpersonal influence to the action scheme, they saw that influences naturally radiated from the immediate inter personal environment to the larger social network. Both the interpersonal environment and further social network connections have been loosely termed “social capital.” Long before the term “social capital” entered the social science lexicon, Personal Influence explored the consequences of a network of advice-giving others. Ahead of its time, the book lacked some currently available technical and conceptual resources to fully meet its ambitious goal of locating the relative impact of personal influence on individual decision making. Nonetheless, current students of social capital and decision making have more to learn from this book than they may realize.

Keywords

theory of action social networks social capital Personal Influence

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Personal Influence : A Radical Theory of Action

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