← all facts
decision making
You prefer things to stay exactly as they are.
Status quo bias describes a preference for the current state of affairs, even when changing it would provide a clear advantage.
Change involves risk and uncertainty, which your brain naturally wants to avoid. You perceive the status quo as the safest path simply because you have already survived it.
You are often settling for mediocrity because it feels safer than the unknown.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Samuelson and Zeckhauser, 1988, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty
- What the check found
- The definition accurately reflects the phenomenon described in the seminal 1988 paper by William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.