Gabriel Tarde - Definition and Overview

Gabriel Tarde (1843 - 1904) French sociologist and social psychologist who conceived sociology as based on small psychological interactions among individuals (much as if it were chemistry), the fundamental forces being imitation and innovation.

Among the concepts that Tarde initiated were the "group mind" (taken up and developed by Gustav Le Bon, and sometimes advanced to explain so-called herd behaviour), and economic psychology, where he anticipated a number of modern developments.

Everett Rogers furthered Tarde's "laws of imitation" in the 1962 book Diffusion of innovations.

Works

• La criminalité comparée (1890)
• La philosophie pénale (1890)
• Les lois de l'imitation (1890)
• Les transformations du droit. Étude sociologique (1891)
• Monadologie et sociologie (1893)
• La logique sociale (1895)
• Fragment d'histoire future (1896)
• L’opposition universelle. Essai d’une théorie des contraires. (1897)
• Écrits de psychologie sociale (1898)
• Les lois sociales. Esquisse d’une sociologie (1898)
• L'opinion et la foule (1901)

See also

• technology adoption
• Diffusion of innovations
• innovation
• diffusion