Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
Everett Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations theory describes how new ideas, technologies, and practices spread through a social system over time.
Rogers classified members of a social system into five distinct adopter categories based on their relative time of adoption.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
According to Rogers, the adoption curve follows a normal bell-shaped distribution when plotted over time.
This distribution is divided into five adopter categories:
Innovators (\(5\%\)): The first group to adopt an innovation.
They are venturesome, willing to take risks, and have high financial liquidity and close contact with scientific sources.
Early Adopters (\(5\%\)): The second group to adopt.
They are respected local opinion leaders who evaluate innovations carefully before adopting, serving as role models for the community.
Early Majority (\(30\%\)): The third category of adopters.
They adopt new ideas just before the average member of the social system.
They make decisions deliberately, requiring evidence of usefulness, but they rarely serve as opinion leaders.
Late Majority (\(30\%\)): The fourth group to adopt.
They are skeptical and cautious, adopting innovations only after the majority of their peers have done so, often due to economic necessity or peer pressure.
Laggards (\(0\%\)): The final group to adopt.
They are traditional, suspicious of change, and focus heavily on the past, with limited resources.
Thus, the third category in the chronological sequence of adoption is the Early Majority.
Step 3: Final Answer:
The third category of adopters is the Early Majority.