From the Rennsselaer Polytechnic Institute
Minority Rules: Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas
Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. 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.
“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,” said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer. “Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.”
As an example, the ongoing events in Tunisia and Egypt appear to exhibit a similar process, according to Szymanski. “In those countries, dictators who were in power for decades were suddenly overthrown in just a few weeks.”
The findings were published in the July 22, 2011, early online edition of the journal Physical Review E in an article titled “Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities.”
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.
To reach their conclusion, the scientists developed computer models of various types of social networks. One of the networks had each person connect to every other person in the network. The second model included certain individuals who were connected to a large number of people, making them opinion hubs or leaders. The final model gave every person in the model roughly the same number of connections. The initial state of each of the models was a sea of traditional-view holders. Each of these individuals held a view, but were also, importantly, open minded to other views.
Once the networks were built, the scientists then “sprinkled” in some true believers throughout each of the networks. These people were completely set in their views and unflappable in modifying those beliefs. As those true believers began to converse with those who held the traditional belief system, the tides gradually and then very abruptly began to shift.
“In general, people do not like to have an unpopular opinion and are always seeking to try locally to come to consensus. We set up this dynamic in each of our models,” said SCNARC Research Associate and corresponding paper author Sameet Sreenivasan. 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.
“As agents of change start to convince more and more people, the situation begins to change,” Sreenivasan said. “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.”
The research has broad implications for understanding how opinion spreads. “There are clearly situations in which it helps to know how to efficiently spread some opinion or how to suppress a developing opinion,” said Associate Professor of Physics and co-author of the paper Gyorgy Korniss. “Some examples might be the need to quickly convince a town to move before a hurricane or spread new information on the prevention of disease in a rural village.”
The researchers are now looking for partners within the social sciences and other fields to compare their computational models to historical examples. They are also looking to study how the percentage might change when input into a model where the society is polarized. Instead of simply holding one traditional view, the society would instead hold two opposing viewpoints. An example of this polarization would be Democrat versus Republican.
The research was funded by the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) through SCNARC, part of the Network Science Collaborative Technology Alliance (NS-CTA), the Army Research Office (ARO), and the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
The research is part of a much larger body of work taking place under SCNARC at Rensselaer. The center joins researchers from a broad spectrum of fields – including sociology, physics, computer science, and engineering – in exploring social cognitive networks. The center studies the fundamentals of network structures and how those structures are altered by technology. The goal of the center is to develop a deeper understanding of networks and a firm scientific basis for the newly arising field of network science. More information on the launch of SCNARC can be found at http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2721&setappvar=page(1)
Szymanski, Sreenivasan, and Korniss were joined in the research by Professor of Mathematics Chjan Lim, and graduate students Jierui Xie (first author) and Weituo Zhang.
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So what happens with two groups of 10% with mutuall exclusive ideas exist?
That is the normal scenario.
Seems to me that ten percent leaves room for other equally committed, and opposed, minorities of ten percent or more. Hmm?
If true, in the case of political and/or ideological idea, this is very worrying.
There is something odd here, or perhaps I miss the point. If an opinion below ten percent popularity has no chance of growing to a majority how does it ever get to the ten percent (tipping point) level where it inevitably become a majority opinion?
To suggest that every opinion that reached ten percent will inevitably become a majority opinion is counterintuitive. There are many political parties in European parliaments that seem to be stuck in the ten to twenty percent range. Like Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame, will each of these splinter parties have their 15 minutes of majority?
Population growth computer models have been around for decades. Maybe it is just too early in the morning, but I just don’t see what this model adds.
“There are clearly situations in which it helps to know how to efficiently spread some opinion or how to suppress a developing opinion,”
Um… we’ve noticed…
Now; is there really an UNDO?
It is pretty bold, even for a press release, to say, “… when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will _always_ be adopted by the majority of the society.”
Well, at least they are interested in comparing their shiny new computer model with some nasty old historical data.
And they have a pronounceable acronym: Snark.
I’d say this part is absolutely correct. Related phenomena include peer pressure and appeal to authority.
In a nutshell it is exactly why the AGW cult is always, without fail, approaching the subject from the starting point of a ‘consensus’. Whether by accident or by design, they are trying to exploit this human foible to its advantage.
Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, this ‘argument advantage’ was also prominent in several very famous totalitarian regimes. It was the cornerstone of their ability to maintain order and control the masses. This is the first thing about AGW politics that caught my intention.
Ok, similar interactions probably lead to the direction a flock of birds or sheep go in. So the real mechanism arises from the fact most people don’t do their own thinking. In the agw situation when the name of the hypothesis kept changing as predictions failed and the inner workings of the movement was revealed in the climategate affair, the momentum began to swing the other way. Yeah, it works, global warming fell off the radar of more than 50% of the pop. No chance of tipping back now.
Now we know why Social Networking is so important. And, who controls that?
Apprently the “tipping” point was 350ppm/v…and atmospheric concentrations of CO2 when the org with the same name was setup, was about 380ppm/v…so…so…we’re doomed, right? I dunno, doom, was a great game, cheat codes and all, in the ’90’s.
This is presumably how the CAGW meme spread in the first place and how the sceptic meme is spreading now. Little ice age aside, are we doomed to swing from one view to the other for evermore?
I’m reminded by this article that Hitler came to power in this exact way, with his party starting as a fringe organization and only marginally successful for 15 years until…. So, while the example given was how dictators could fall, so too dictators may rise.
A thought provoking article …
Probably because the minority are so violent in putting over their beliefs the majority let them get on with it for a quiet life.
Hmmmmmm.
“when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.”
An interesting study on a trigger point for influence, indeed, but the quoted text seems a bit strong. Still, keep up the good work, WUWT, and maintain the polarisation. If the researchers are right, it is only blogs like yours that have prevented the adoption of CAGW as a world-wide religion!
When I was young, and firms had lunch breaks, I used to amuse myself by trying to ‘steer’ my group of colleagues during the usual stroll around after eating. I found that being on the outside of a group of 6-8 people had no effect when I peeled off towards, say, the canal. But if I had just one person outside me, then the whole group would follow once I edged the outsider left or right. It was not necessary to be in the middle of the group, let alone to try and shove them all.
But another aspect is that if in a debating situation it is likely that that there will be a call for compromise then it pays to set out one’s own view as extremely as possible: then the compromise should favour you.
Sounds like a quantification of the Asch Effect.
“It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority”
Wow, they sound confident, it must be true 🙂
Models. Yawn.
If they want to make such absolute statements, they need to show a pile of actual facts with no exceptions to the supposed rule.
A more likely rule: A 0.1% opinion will become the sole permitted opinion if the 0.1% controls the media. If the group doesn’t control the media, it can include 99.9% of the population without ever being mentioned, let alone adopted.
I see a problem with the premise of this study. If, as stated, “When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas”, how can the population ever get the 10 percent or greater required to spread the new ideas to the majority?
Modeling human and social behavior is somewhat less reliable than modeling physical processes like the climate.
But this research is based on the influence of what it calls-
“committed agents who consistently proselytize the opposing opinion and are immune to influence.”
These results emerge from a population who are capable of changing their viewpoint being influenced by 10% who are incapable of responding to any outside influence.
In the field of climate science there are over 90% of scientists who are extremely unlikely to change their viewpoint without direct physical evidence that the AGW effect is being negated by something else.
The small number of scientists who proselytize the opposing opinion and are immune to the influence of the physical evidence that has convinced the >90% fail to reach the 10% tipping point.
It is unlikely that the climate contrarian viewpoint is going to capture the zeitgeist anytime soon.
“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,” said SCNARC Director.
Is it me or is this nonsensical? If there is no visible spread in a time comparable to the age of the universe, how does it get to above 10% and then “take off like wildfire”?
Have these researchers come to the amazing conclusion that the more people who hold a view, the more the view is likely to spread? And they get paid for that?
Okay, so what happens when more than 10% of True Believers know the climate is still marching to its own tune and more than 10% of True Believers know that CO2 is evil and will cook us all?
I suspect subgroups will form that comprise less than 10% of one group and each will hold their banner high and throw sheep dung at the other.
Maybe we should offer the climate blogosubsphere as a convenient study object.
“……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…..”
GIGO, as they say. How about something more like:
…If that person also held this new belief, the listener then thinks “Good grief, I’m surrounded by idiots, but they have the power of job/no job over me, so I’d better keep a low profile, or maybe pretend to go along with it if they put me on the spot”…
Climate models are oversimplifed to the point of uselessness, as, I fear, is this bit of network modelling as well.
About that moon landing…
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-07-17/tech/moon.landing.hoax_1_moon-landing-apollo-astronauts-bill-kaysing?_s=PM:TECH
From that link…
“I do know the moon landings were faked,” said crusading filmmaker Bart Sibrel, whose aggressive interview tactics once provoked Aldrin to punch him in the face. “I’d bet my life on it.”
Sibrel may seem crazy, but he has company. A 1999 Gallup poll found that a scant 6 percent of Americans doubted the Apollo 11 moon landing happened, and there is anecdotal evidence that the ranks of such conspiracy theorists, fueled by innuendo-filled documentaries and the Internet, are growing.
Twenty-five percent of respondents to a survey in the British magazine Engineering & Technology said they do not believe humans landed on the moon. A handful of Web sites and blogs circulate suspicions about NASA’s “hoax.”
And a Google search this week for “Apollo moon landing hoax” yielded more than 1.5 billion results.
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So when will “moon landing is a fake” become the majority opinion? Personally I don’t think it will, but according to the models… (/SCNARC)
and since about 15% of the US population now openly admit to being atheists that means, according to the theory…..