“When
the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is
no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take
the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this
size group to reach the majority. Once that number grows above 10
percent, the idea spreads like flame.”
– The
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Researchers have used
mathematical modeling to demonstrate that there is a tipping point
for when opinions held by a committed minority spread through the
rest of a population.
The tipping point is 10%.
That is not a typo – “The tipping point is 10%.”
Scientists at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute have found if 90% of us are uncommitted, and
10% are committed, it’s only a matter of time before we match our
opinions with the much smaller group.
The scientists, who are
members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center
(SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to
discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the
majority opinion. The finding has implications for the study and
influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of
innovations to the movement of political ideals.
(“Minority
Rules: Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas.”
Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center. July 26, 2011)
The Rensselaer scientists
set up this dynamic in each of their models: in general, people do
not like to have an unpopular opinion and are always seeking to try
locally to come to consensus. To accomplish this, each of the
individuals in the models “talked” to each other about their
opinion. If the listener held the same opinions as the speaker, it
reinforced the listener’s belief. If the opinion was different, the
listener considered it and moved on to talk to another person. If
that person also held this new belief, the listener then adopted that
belief.
SCNARC
Research Associate and corresponding paper author Sameet Sreenivasan
said …
“As agents of change
start to convince more and more people, the situation begins to
change. People begin to question their own views at first and then
completely adopt the new view to spread it even further. If the true
believers just influenced their neighbors, that wouldn’t change
anything within the larger system, as we saw with percentages less
than 10.”
(“Minority
Rules: Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas.”
Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center. July 26, 2011)
The research has broad
implications for understanding how opinion spreads. An important
aspect of the finding is that the percent of committed opinion
holders required to shift majority opinion does not change
significantly regardless of the type of network in which the opinion
holders are working. In other words, the percentage of committed
opinion holders required to influence a society remains at
approximately 10 percent, regardless of how or where that opinion
starts and spreads in the society.
(J. Xie, S.
Sreenivasan, G. Korniss, W. Zhang, C. Lim, B. Szymanski. “Social
consensus through the influence of committed minorities.” Physical
Review E, 2011; 84.)
In
2000, author Malcolm Gladwell published The
Tipping Point,
a book that explains how ideas and messages spread like viruses. With
catchy phrases of its own, like “the law of the few”–which
attributes the success of any social epidemic to 20 percent of the
population–The
Tipping Point
led
to an explosion in the pop science genre.
(Bryan Farrell. “You
only need 10 percent: The science behind tipping points and their
impact on climate activism.” wagingnonviolence.org. January
2, 2012.)
In his book Developmental
Evaluation, Michael Quinn Patton says
“Complexity theory
shows that great changes can emerge from small actions. Change
involves a belief in the possible, even the 'impossible.' Moreover,
social innovators don’t follow a linear pathway of change; there
are ups and downs, roller-coaster rides along cascades of dynamic
interactions, unexpected and unanticipated divergences, tipping
points and critical mass momentum shifts. Indeed, things often get
worse before they get better as systems change creates resistance to
and pushback against the new.”
(Michael Quinn Patton.
Developmental Evaluation. 2010.)
The latest research cuts
Gladwell's “tipping point” of 20% in half. The research supports
a truly remarkable revelation. There is no reason that intensity,
activism, protest, and agitation need to be seen as alternatives to
an incremental process pushed by moderate insiders. They are not
mutually exclusive.
This critical mass of 10%
can help us to understand the world around us by letting us spot
changes before they occur, make sense of tumultuous times, and even
gain insight into our own behaviors. Is this theory what explains
the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and other such global
phenomenons?
But, as I digest this
information about the tipping point, I must focus on the semantics of
the findings: 10% of
“opinion holders” is the point AN OPINION
held by a committed minority SPREADS
through the rest of a population. “Spreads” is not the same as
changes. It does “influence a society,” but that distribution
does NOT necessarily produce an effect. “If that proportion of the
population (10%) emphatically embraces an idea, then it will spread
rapidly to the majority of the population,”
say the scientists.
So, it seems to me that a
relatively low percentage is required to spread a minority opinion
and to accelerate the call for a change; however, the change itself
relies on more than acknowledgment and tacit approval. A change must
motivate others, be workable, be flexible in overcoming hurdles, and
be modifiable. Changes depend upon a committed effort by those who
wish to enact them. Still, the 10% finding is a wonderful revelation
for progressive reform.
“Not
everything that is faced can be changed,
but
nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
– James
Baldwin
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