How Status Quo Bias Affects Your Decisions

Status quo bias is when we prefer that our environment and situation should remain unchanged.

The bias has the most impact in the area of decision-making, as we tend to prefer the more familiar choice over the less familiar, but often better, option.

These explanations are all irrational for preferring the status quo:

• Loss Aversion: When we make decisions, we weigh the potential for loss more heavily than the potential for gain.
• Sunk Costs: We continue to invest resources like time, money, or effort into a specific endeavor just because we are already invested, not because it is the best choice.
• Cognitive Dissonance: In decision-making, we an option as more valuable once we have chosen it. Considering an alternative can cause cognitive dissonance.
• Mere Exposure Effect: It states that people prefer something they've been exposed to before.
• Rationality vs. Irrationality: We may choose to keep our current situation because of the potential transition cost of switching to an alternative. It becomes irrational when we ignore choices that can improve a situation because we want to maintain the status quo.