-Contagious diffusion occurs when a cultural trait spreads continuously outward from its hearth through contact among people.For example, the hearth for blues music in the southern United States.

-Hierarchical diffusion is the spread of culture outward from the most interconnected places of from centers of wealth and importance.Cell phones technology demonstrates how hierarchical diffusion works.

-Stimulus Diffusion occurs when people in a culture adopt an underlying idea or process from another culture, but modify it because the reject one trait of it. For example, Hindus in India adopted the practice of eating fast foods, but they rejected eating beef because doing so would violate their Hindu burgers.