Researchers from the University of London and the University of Pennsylvania, recently sought to investigate how many people you might need to convince or support a cause, in order to try and impact social change and push a certain belief forward into the mainstream.

The answer? About 25 percent.

Scientists behind the study, suggest that at 25 percent this is the tipping point of when real change can be implemented.

How did they arrive at this number? Well, they came up with an experiment that placed study participants into a variety of online groups. Those groups had been tasked with choosing a name for an object that was displayed in a photo.

Following each round of entering their suggested names, the participants had to be paired with new partners and they all had the same goal, that they were seeking to agree on a certain name for the object that they saw displayed in the photo.

Eventually, the researchers then introduced confederate participants into the groups, and those were participants who had been tasked with a certain goal they had to achieve.

The goal that they had been tasked with, was that they had to try to change the name of the object to something else. They soon found that they saw repeated success when that confederate minority had comprised of only 25 percent of the group population.

That means that once the group had at least 25 percent of the people who had that same objective to try and change the name, they succeeded in changing it every time.

Although it might seem like this is some sort of sweet spot for influencing social change, researchers admit that of course there are a myriad of other variables in the real world that can impact the success of the group looking for change.

It might not be as simple as gaining 25 percent public support and then being able to effectively implement change. For example, more than 25 percent of Americans support legalization of cannabis or decriminalization to some extent, and yet there is still a federal ban in place. There are many policies that Americans don't agree with, such as the drug wars, foreign policy, the fed, and more, but those things never seem to change.

When trying to impact things on a political level, some studies have suggested that the average citizen in America has little-to-no impact on U.S. policy. Though, there are others who have criticized that narrative and argued that this isn't the case. Regardless, we know that there are economic elites and organized groups funded by big business, spending billions, who do play a substantial role in influencing various policy changes in the country.

Researchers also noted that there is always the possibility for the government to introduce its own confederate agents into the group. They say that if they do end up reaching that 25 percent support threshold that it then might play a meaningful role in effectively swaying public opinion.

Pics:
Pixabay
giphy

Sources:
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
https://www.globalresearch.ca/its-official-scientific-study-shows-that-the-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-not-a-democracy/5377987
https://futurism.com/social-change-tipping-point/
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/