Status Quo Bias
Most people resist change. Understand why — and design around it.
Overview
Status Quo Bias means most people resist change and prefer to keep things the same. It's a cognitive bias that explains our preference for the way things are.
Think about that: people resist change. The reason is that they're loss averse — they fear change means things will be worse than what they have. In a paper by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, the authors show that people view losses as twice as psychologically harmful as equivalent gains are beneficial.
If you're trying to get someone to buy something, adopt a new process or tool, or change their behavior, understanding the power of Status Quo Bias is incredibly important.
This is first in the pack because it's something to consider from the beginning and revisit throughout the work.
Understanding Muscle Memory
If you move someone's trash can from the left side of their desk to the right, it takes the average person about 21 days to stop throwing to the left. That's moving a simple trash can.
The trash can example refers to muscle memory, or procedural memory. When we learn to do something, we go into auto-pilot for some tasks — so even if you get someone to agree to change, there's still work to do to get them to change their developed habits.