People prefer things to stay the same; change requires extra motivation.
Samuelson and Zeckhauser's 1988 studies. It is why default enrolment works, and why an option framed as the current arrangement is chosen over an identical option framed as a change.
In practice
- A customer on a tariff that has quietly become the worst available stays on it four years, and would not choose it today.
- A proposal presented as "continuing the existing approach with adjustments" passes where the same content presented as new does not.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- A century and a half of measuring the mind