I propose a flexible threshold theory of change perception in self and social judgment. Traditionally, change perception is viewed as a basic cognitive process entailing the act of discriminating informational differences. This article takes a more dynamic view of change perception, highlighting people's motivations in interpreting those differences. Specifically, I propose people's change perceptions depend not only on the salience and quality of the evidence for change but they also depend on the adaptation implications of the change, as people are sensitive to whether their prompted response would be worth it. Variables that exacerbate perceived adaptation implications should thus lead people to contract their change perception thresholds (people should become less open to concluding things have changed and so less likely to act), while variables that alleviate perceived adaptation implications should thus lead people to expand their change perception thresholds (people should become more open to concluding things have changed and so more likely to act), all else equal in the evidence. Moreover, these effects should emerge for perceiving declines and improvements alike so long as change bears on adaptation implications. I review support for these proposals and use the theory to generate novel predictions, contributions, and applications. The theory can explain anew why people respond (or fail to respond) to changing climates and economies, worsening personal health, growing social progress, and many other self and social phenomena. Change perception is more than an act of discriminating differences-it also entails people's threshold judgments of whether and how these differences matter. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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一种关于自我、他人和世界变化感知的灵活阈值理论。


我提出了一个灵活的阈值理论，即自我和社会判断中的变化感知。传统上，变化感知被视为一种基本的认知过程，需要区分信息差异的行为。本文对变化感知采取了更动态的观点，强调了人们解释这些差异的动机。具体来说，我建议人们的变革感知不仅取决于变革证据的显著性和质量，还取决于变革的适应影响，因为人们对他们及时的反应是否值得很敏感。因此，加剧感知适应影响的变量应该导致人们收缩他们的变化感知阈值（人们应该不那么愿意得出事情已经改变的结论，因此不太可能采取行动），而减轻感知适应影响的变量应该因此导致人们扩大他们的变化感知阈值（人们应该更开放地得出事情已经改变的结论，因此更有可能采取行动）， 证据中的其他条件相同。此外，只要变化与适应影响有关，这些影响就应该出现在感知下降和改善方面。我回顾了对这些提案的支持，并使用该理论来产生新的预测、贡献和应用。该理论可以重新解释为什么人们会对不断变化的气候和经济做出反应（或没有做出反应）、个人健康状况恶化、社会进步加剧以及许多其他自我和社会现象。变化感知不仅仅是一种区分差异的行为——它还需要人们对这些差异是否重要以及如何重要进行阈值判断。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 （c） 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。