Speed Shifting Cultural Gears
July 18, 2018
Social scientists have often speculated what percentage of a population must object to a behavior before that behavior is seen as abnormal (sexual harassment in the workplace, for example). Due to the complexity of the issue, it has been a difficult statistic to pin down; conclusions have ranged from 10% to 40% of the population. Classically, conventional wisdom has called for an even higher tipping point of 51%. According to a blog post from the U. of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, “Research Finds Tipping Point for Large-Scale Social Change,” we now have a more accurate answer. We learn:
“In this study, ‘Experimental Evidence for Tipping Points in Social Convention,’ coauthored by Joshua Becker, Ph.D., Devon Brackbill, Ph.D., and Andrea Baronchelli, Ph.D., 10 groups of 20 participants each were given a financial incentive to agree on a linguistic norm. Once a norm had been established, a group of confederates — a coalition of activists that varied in size — then pushed for a change to the norm.,,, When a minority group pushing change was below 25% of the total group, its efforts failed. But when the committed minority reached 25%, there was an abrupt change in the group dynamic, and very quickly the majority of the population adopted the new norm. In one trial, a single person accounted for the difference between success and failure. The researchers also tested the strength of their results by increasing the payments people got for adhering to the prevailing norm. Despite doubling and tripling the amount of money for sticking with the established behavior, Centola and his colleagues found that a minority group could still overturn the group norm.”
The real world being what it is, the researchers allow for the need to adjust that 25% target according to circumstances. The study’s lead author Damon Centola says his team’s research can inform political activism online, or can empower organizations to engineer their environments to “push people in pro-social directions” through purposely shifting their underlying beliefs. Interesting observations; see the article for more details.
Cynthia Murrell, July 18, 2018
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