When Small Signs of Change Add Up: The Psychology of Tipping Points

Abstract

Things change, but the exact point at which they do is often unknown. After how many loveless nights is a relationship “officially” in trouble? After how many happy days has one’s depression “officially” passed? When do recurring patterns in the climate or economy “officially” warrant a response? When is a person’s identity “officially” accepted? Everyday fluctuations in oneself and the social world create ambiguities about when people will diagnose lasting, qualitative change (and therefore act). Recent research documents these tipping points of change as a psychological process, shaped by individual and situational forces. People judge tipping points asymmetrically across valence and asymmetrically across time. Here, I review discoveries and outline future directions in tipping-points research.

The shift from disbelieving underperformance to recognising failure: A tipping point model

“…A key contribution of our work is examining how patterns of failure are recognised as credible signal rather than anomalous noise. The shift from disbelieving underperformance to recognising failure seems akin to a threshold being crossed and is reminiscent of the psychological process of a tipping point 42,43 . Research on tipping points focuses on how small changes from new social information compound into impression updating that shifts the corresponding person from one category into another 43 .…”

“…The shift from disbelieving underperformance to recognising failure seems akin to a threshold being crossed and is reminiscent of the psychological process of a tipping point 42,43 . Research on tipping points focuses on how small changes from new social information compound into impression updating that shifts the corresponding person from one category into another 43 . Tipping points can mark the shift from attributing someone's behaviour to situational factors to attributing it to their preferences, personality, morality and other characteristics of the person 44 .…”

When Ignoring Negative Feedback Is Functional: Presenting a Model of Motivated Feedback Disengagement

“…Negative affect is aversive. The degree of averseness determines whether individuals want to respond to it, with low negative affect being more tolerable than high negative affect (similar to the notion of tipping points; O’Brien, 2019). Increases in hedonic-goal salience may render improvement goals relatively less salient.…”

A mind stretched: The psychology of repeat consumption

“…Kardas, Schroeder, and O’Brien (2020) directly tested these ideas in the context of repeat consumption. Under controlled settings, pairs of strangers were situated in a private laboratory room for a specified period of time (e.g., 30 min) that was evenly divided by conversation “rounds,” such that each partner broke to a private computer to rate their experience after each round (e.g., breaking every 5 min for a total of 6 rounds).…”

“…Large literatures highlight people's sensitivity toward detecting self‐relevant changes such as changes in self‐concept —their online inferences about the kind of person they are based on the kinds of events that they are experiencing (for a review, see Swann, 1983). People care deeply about maintaining a positive reputation in the eyes of others (e.g., Grant & Dutton, 2012; Leary, 2012), and worry that just a small negative signal of possible decline in their positively held traits will be sufficient for undermining their desired reputational status (e.g., O’Brien, 2020; O’Brien & Klein, 2017). Moreover, these concerns are not necessarily mistaken.…”