status-quo-bias

A cognitive bias in which people systematically prefer the current state of affairs. When considering change, the status quo is disproportionately favored — any departure from the current state is perceived as a loss rather than a potential gain, creating inertia in decision-making even when change would be beneficial. The bias operates through loss aversion (losses loom larger than equivalent gains) and creates resistance to change in personal, organizational, and policy contexts. Persistence: modeled and taught in behavioral economics, decision theory, and policy analysis; documented in Kahneman, Tversky, and Samuelson prospect theory and subsequent experimental work. [formal: status quo bias | substrate: behavior | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]