The status quo bias is a cognitive bias for the status quo; in other words, people tend not to change an established behavior unless the incentive to change is compelling.

The finding has been observed in many fields, including political science and economics.

Kahneman, Thaler and Knetsch created experiments that could produce this effect reliably. They attribute it to a combination of loss aversion and the endowment effect, two ideas relevant to prospect theory.

See also

• Conservatism
• List of cognitive biases
• System justification
• Situationism (psychology)

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References

• Samuelson, W. & R. J. Zeckhauser. (1988). Status quo bias in decision making. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1, pp. 7-59.
• Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J. L. & Thaler, R. H. (1991). Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5, 1, pp. 193-206
• Johnson, E. J., Hershey, J., Meszaros, J., & Kunreuther, H. (1993). Framing, Probability Distortions, and Insurance Decisions. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 7, pp. 35-51.

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