People prefer to stick with the current situation rather than change. William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser (1988) summarized many studies on the idea of status quo bias. Their conclusion is that when choosing from alternatives, people have a bias towards sticking with the status quo.
Based on the research Guthrie Weinschenk (2019) concludes that if you want people to change and choose something other than the status quo you should assume that it will be difficult, that people will need to be motivated to do so.
Takeaways
- Unless they have a strong motivation to change, most people most of the time will stick with what is.
- If you want people to change you are going to have to either push them or give them a strong reason why they should change.
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