Creeping normality (also calledgradualism, orlandscape amnesia^[1]) is a process by which a major change can be accepted as normal and acceptable if it happens gradually through small, often unnoticeable, increments of change. The change could otherwise be regarded as remarkable and objectionable if it took hold suddenly or in a short time span.

American scientistJared Diamond used creeping normality in his 2005 bookCollapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Prior to releasing his book, Diamond explored this theory while attempting to explain why, in the course of long-termenvironmental degradation,Easter Island natives would, seemingly irrationally, chop down the last tree:^[2]

I suspect, though, that the disaster happenednot with a bang but with a whimper. After all, there are those hundreds of abandoned statues to consider. The forest the islanders depended on for rollers and rope didn't simply disappear one day—it vanished slowly, over decades.

There are a number of metaphors related to and historical examples of creeping normality, including:

• Perception
• Business terms
• Technological change
• Social change

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