Research Parcel Series – 2
Can a group with a minority viewpoint overturn social convention? If yes How?
Hitting a 25% threshold, a group of committed minority could potentially swaying public opinion in their favor. Initially started from experimental research, interesting to see broader application on hyper-connected transformation solution in IS and GRC area.
Abstract : Theoretical models of critical mass have shown how minority groups can initiate social change dynamics in the emergence of new social conventions. Here, we study an artificial system of social conventions in which human subjects interact to establish a new coordination equilibrium. The findings provide direct empirical demonstration of the existence of a tipping point in the dynamics of changing social conventions. When minority groups reached the critical mass—that is, the critical group size for initiating social change—they were consistently able to overturn the established behavior. The size of the required critical mass is expected to vary based on theoretically identifiable features of a social setting. Our results show that the theoretically predicted dynamics of critical mass do in fact emerge as expected within an empirical system of social coordination.
Minority Overturn
source: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6393/1116
It is fascinating that they predict the size of the critical mass using two parameters: individual memory length (in number of interactions between participants) and population size. When participants have shorter memories less than five interactions, the size of the critical mass is smaller. For less than 100 people interacting, the critical mass prediction changes between 20% to 30% of the Committed Minority. But over longer time periods showing more than 1000 interactions, the transition dynamics become more precise at 25%.
Damon Centola et al. Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention. Science 360,1116-1119(2018).DOI:10.1126/science.aas8827