When I run anything from the taskbar, the icon of the program I’m running appears, but it’s a bit smaller and the animation seems to be jumping around. Can this be turned off?
Open KDE’s system settings. Under Appearance select Cursors. There, in the lower edge of the window you’ll find a button that opens the settings for the notification launcher.
I looked for a long time in the options to turn it off. I haven’t looked here before 
Thank you.