The 1950s marked a turning point in rural sociological circles, toward the ocial psychological. Buttel et al. (1990: 44) describe this period as the"social psychological-behaviorist era of rural sociology," which"would remain un challenged in rural sociological studies of agriculture until the early to mid-1970s(Buttel et al. 1990: 46).This era is defined largely by the level of rural sociological scholarship devoted to the adoption-diffusion research tradition. One of the earliest adoption and diffusion studies came out of Iowa State University in the 1940s. Sociologists Bryce Ryan and Neal C. Gross(1943) examined the adoption of hybrid corn among Iowa farmers. From this they were able to highlight social and psychological variables they believed hastened the adoption of new technologies(which hybrid corn was the time) throughout a social network