---
title: Contagious (Jonah Berger) — the book | RGM® Glossary
url: https://realgrowthmatters.com/glossary/contagious-book/
updated: 2026-06-10
source_html: https://realgrowthmatters.com/glossary/contagious-book/
---

# Contagious: Why Things Catch On

/kənˈteɪdʒəs: waɪ θɪŋz kætʃ ɔn/proper noun

Why do some things catch on? Not luck, not budget — six design choices, measured.

Author
:   Jonah Berger

Published
:   2013, Simon & Schuster

Framework
:   STEPPS

Base
:   His Wharton research program

## Forms & parts of speech

STEPPS · acronym (from the book)

Its six sharing drivers.

"Score the campaign against **STEPPS** before you greenlight it."

## What the book says

*Contagious* argues word of mouth is engineerable because sharing has stable causes. STEPPS names them: Social currency (we share what makes us look good), Triggers (top of mind, tip of tongue), Emotion (high-arousal feelings move the share button), Public (visible behavior copies itself), Practical value (useful news travels), and Stories (facts ride inside narratives). The evidence runs from his New York Times most-emailed studies to Blendtec's blenders and the $100 Philly cheesesteak.

## The ideas people quote

The most-emailed analysis — awe and anger share, sadness doesn't (arousal is the axis); the trigger logic of 'Friday' by Rebecca Black and Kit Kat's coffee pairing; Hotmail's signature line and the Movember mustache as Public made visible; and the book's quiet anti-budget thesis — Blendtec spent fifty dollars on its first viral videos.

## How to read it now

Read it as the design checklist between 'we made something good' and 'people talk about it.' It pairs naturally with Cialdini (why people comply) and Kahneman (how they decide) as the why-they-share leg of the stool. The trap it warns against has only grown — chasing virality as a goal instead of designing shareability into something worth sharing.

**Worked example.** A B2B data company publishes solid research nobody shares. The STEPPS rebuild: the report leads with one jaw-dropping stat (emotion, social currency for the sharer), gets a name tied to a weekly ritual ('the Monday Benchmark'), ships with a one-page chart built for screenshots (public, practical value), and opens with the customer story the numbers came from. Same research, redesigned for transmission — share rate quintuples.

**Failure modes to watch.** Chasing virality with nothing worth sharing underneath; optimizing for low-arousal pleasantness; and forgetting triggers — the campaign everyone loved and nobody remembered to mention.

## Synonyms & antonyms

### Synonyms

Contagious (book)

## Origin & history

Grew from Berger's Wharton research program — including the Journal of Marketing Research papers analyzing the New York Times most-emailed list — and a decade of word-of-mouth experiments. Simon & Schuster published it March 2013; it won the AMA's Berry Prize for best marketing book.

Etymology: [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Berger).

## Usage trends

Search interest for this term over the last five years:

[View interest-over-time on Google Trends →](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=contagious%20jonah%20berger&date=today%205-y)

## Common questions

Who wrote Contagious?
:   Jonah Berger, Wharton marketing professor, published 2013 — based on his research into why content and products spread.

What is STEPPS?
:   Social currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical value, Stories — the book's six drivers of word of mouth.

What did the research find about emotion?
:   High-arousal emotions (awe, anger, excitement) drive sharing. Low-arousal ones (sadness, contentment) suppress it.

## Related tools & calculators

- tool[Experiment planner](/tools/experiment-planner/)
- tool[Funnel drop-off analyzer](/tools/funnel-drop-off-analyzer/)

## Resources & people to follow

- book*Contagious* — Jonah Berger (the subject)
- book*Made to Stick* — Heath & Heath (its older sibling)
- referenceJonahBerger.com — the research papers

Curated, non-competitor resources verified per term.

## Related training

- module[Content marketing](/training/content-marketing/)

## Disciplines

Areas of marketing where contagious: why things catch on is a core concern:

[Content strategy](/training/content-marketing/)[Brand strategy](/training/growth-marketing-foundations/)

## Read next

## Related terms

[Jonah Berger](/glossary/jonah-berger/)[Content marketing](/glossary/content-marketing/)[Robert Cialdini](/glossary/robert-cialdini/)[Growth marketing](/glossary/growth-marketing/)[Thought leadership](/glossary/thought-leadership/)

## Sources

1. trends[Google Trends — "contagious jonah berger"](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=contagious%20jonah%20berger&date=today%205-y)