How Beliefs & Information Spread

As researchers, understanding human behavior is always intriguing, particularly when it comes to the spread of beliefs and ideas. It's not uncommon to see a strange belief persist in society, and wonder "how did this start?" For example, AT&T's wireless service is almost universally hated for its dropped calls and poor connections, but is it really that bad compared to other service providers? The iPhone is considered the top of the line cell phone available, but it is really that much better than an Android phone? The answers may be yes, or they may be no, but regardless, these are beliefs that most people hold dear, and these beliefs represent a significant portion of society.

We can probably see these types of beliefs in almost every facet of daily life. Many people still believe the Toyota Prius is less cost efficient than the Hummer (it's not, this was based on a very poorly designed study), or that pit bulls are violent dogs (they're not, they just get trained to be violent). There are widely held incorrect beliefs all the time, and researchers often wonder how those beliefs spread.

What researchers found was that if 10% of a population holds an unwavering belief, the idea spreads quickly through a population . From the article: "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." We see this in so many different areas in life.

It happens in politics as well, and while it may not spread to 75% of the population (it's a fairly dichotomous society) but there is no denying that within the political groups, erroneous beliefs held by 10% of that population tend to spread quickly. Whether companies can take advantage of this remains to be seen. It does appear that often this information spreads by accident.

But it's possible that a company could essentially become their own "10% opinion holder" and try to create a buzz that way, using communication tools to spread the idea around. Either way, this type of behavior should be interesting and relevant to researchers and marketers, who often wonder how to spread a message across society.