Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention

TLDR

Theoretical models predict that minority groups can trigger social change by reaching a critical mass, and the required size varies with identifiable features of the social setting. The study investigates how human subjects in an artificial social convention system establish a new coordination equilibrium. The experiment involved human subjects interacting in a controlled setting to form a new coordination equilibrium. The experiment empirically demonstrates that when minority groups reach the critical mass, they consistently overturn established behavior, confirming the predicted tipping‑point dynamics of social convention change.

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.