Available evidence suggestions Generalization 8-1: Interpersonal diffusion networks are mostly homophilous. For instance, individuals of highest status in a system seldom interact directly with those of lowest status. Likewise, innovators seldom converse with laggards. Although this homophily pattern in interpersonal networks acts to slow the diffusion of innovations within a system, it also has certain benefits. For example, a high-status opinion leader might be an inappropriate role model for someone of lower status, so interaction between them might not be beneficial to the latter. An illustration of this point comes from an investigation by Van den Ban (1963) in a Netherlands agricultural community. He found that only 3 percent of the opinion leaders had farms smaller than fifty acres in size, but 38 percent of all farms in the community were smaller than fifty acres. The wisest farm management decision for the large farmers was to purchase mechanized farm equipment, such as tractors and milking machines, as a substitute for hired labor, which was expensive. The best economic choice for the smaller farmers, however, was to ignore the expensive equipment and concentrate on intensive horticultural farming that required a great deal of labor per acre. As might be expected, however, the small farmers followed the example was inappropriate for the small farmers’ economic situation.