What Is the Default Bias

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.

It's present when we tend to overestimate the length or intensity of happiness that major events will create. The Impact Bias is one example of affective forecasting, which is a social psychology phenomenon that refers to our generally terrible ability as humans to predict our future emoti...

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, mone...