ABSTRACT
In order to influence people, Professor Rogers reminds that, it is essential to understand their current attitudes, values, and motives. At the outset, before more specific and more up-to-date information is empirically obtained, a knowledge of their culture provides preliminary clues to those predispositions. For this reason he seeks, through a laudable process of abstraction, to isolate "the central elements in our subculture of peasantry." The principal question which the author's discussion would raise concerns the validity of the ten elements outlined by Rogers. This discussion would simultaneously throw a few chunks into the geographical holes in Rogers' presentation while testing his theories and pointing out various problems arising in connection with both validation and measurement. The chapter discusses the Mutual Distrust in Interpersonal Relations", Lack of Innovativeness, and Lack of Deferred Gratification.
