The cliff notes of the study are provided in the article: In this study, “Experimental Evidence for Tipping Points in Social Convention,” coauthored by Joshua

The cliff notes of the study are provided in the article: In this study, “Experimental Evidence for Tipping Points in Social Convention,” coauthored by Joshua Becker, Ph.D., Devon Brackbill, Ph.D., and Andrea Baronchelli, Ph.D., 10 groups of 20 participants each were given a financial incentive to agree on a linguistic norm. Once a norm had been established, a group of confederates — a coalition of activists that varied in size — then pushed for a change to the norm. When a minority group pushing change was below 25% of the total group, its efforts failed. But when the committed minority reached 25%, there was an abrupt change in the group dynamic, and very quickly the majority of the population adopted the new norm. In one trial, a single person accounted for the difference between success and failure. Though I'm quite curious why they call this a study in "large scale social change" and not just peer pressure? I have no idea how to possibly design an experiment for "large scale social change" but if I was going to create an experiment for peer pressure this seems to be just about exactly what I would do. Though even there it might be a bit sketchy. Mercenaries don't tend to be particularly loyal to the country they're fighting for, and 'providing a financial incentive to agree on a linguistic norm' is creating linguistic mercenaries. Another issue that I hope they are being forthright about is "majority." If 25% of the population is made up of confederates are they describing a majority as 50% of the total (confederate + subjects) population? If that's the case then it undermines its own conclusion as it only means that 1/3rd of the subjects actually changed their view. This is something that should be obvious, but just the phrasing makes me wonder and the study itself is paywalled so I can't check.