CULTURAL COMPATIBILITY IN THE ADOPTION OF TELEVISION.

One of the primary functions of sociological research is to provide understanding of the process of culture change. In the past, sociologists have been interested in several aspects of the problem, e.g., the invention process, the effects of innovation, and the description of change over extended periods of history. The factor of compatibility was examined as it operated in the acceptance and rejection of several innovations by families in New Haven, Connecticut. The innovations considered were those which survived a culling of several score of possibilities according to criteria imposed by methodological considerations. The innovations meeting these requirements included two types of medical insurance plans, supermarkets, canasta, and television. This paper reports on the investigation of television. An analysis of television revealed that the cultural equipment required for its use included an average education, a minimum income, and a penchant for passive recreation of the spectator kind. Very briefly, the comparison of the accepting and rejecting groups showed that the culture patterns of the accepters coincided with that behavior required for use of television, while the patterns of rejecters diverged.