Just a little warning. The start of this blog is going to be a rough ride on an emotional roller-coaster. Buckle-up!

You take a sip of your fresh, hot coffee as you get into the office. You glance at the clock, it’s 7:50am. You’re only in this early due to some office manager (who is obviously one of those annoying ‘morning people’) has arranged a meeting at 8:00am. You take another sip of your coffee and enter the meeting room.

PLOT TWIST

As you push the door aside you notice something odd. One of your colleagues is sat in your chair (well, not your chair, the chair that you usually sit in). Unbeknownst to you goosebumps start forming all over your arms. Your hair stands on edge. If this was a cartoon your veins would be pulsating on your forehead!

Then, as your face tells the world of the shock and horror that has unfairly befallen on you, you suddenly realise that you have to sit somewhere else!

"It’s our status quo toilet roll"

You begrudgingly take your new seat and start shuffling around to try and adjust to this new, unknown situation. You start panicking in your head - Will I be able to hear well from this seat? This seat is way too close to the window! There is not enough leg room! What if I’m in someone else's seat!

You miss your old chair . . .

Don’t worry though, you can now wipe your tears away. You are not alone in being apprehensive to change, no matter how small the change is.

This behavioural anomaly, that we experience on a day to day basis, hides itself under many disguises. However, us muggles have labelled it the Status Quo bias.

The Status Quo bias is our tendency to choose our current or preferred situation over a different one. It is the behavioural bias that makes us experience the little pulses of fear every time we are about to experience change.

But Why? Why do we have a Status Quo bias?

One of the justifications that explains the occurrence of the Status Quo bias is the a method that we use to make decisions on a daily basis.

When making a decision between two, four or five options we usually perform a quick mental cost and benefit assessment i.e. the pros and cons of our potential choices. Let’s use an example of buying toilet roll (yes, I chose toilet roll to use as my example in explaining a cognitive process). We have two options of toilet roll available for us to purchase. Option 1 is the toilet roll that we have purchased previously. Option 2 is a new toilet roll that has recently appeared on the shelves. We already know the benefits of option 1, due to us having experienced it before. It is soft, eco-friendly, long-lasting and easy to flush! When we try to apply this technique to option 2 we come up with significantly less potential benefits. Just from our observations we can only tell a few benefits from choosing the product. For example, the packaging looks attractive and that it has a cute little animal on the front. Moreover, option 2 brings with it an element of uncertainty and potential risk. We don’t have any experience using option 2. It’s costs could be higher than the benefits. This thinking process then leads us to select the option 1, the toilet roll that we have chosen previously. We know that option; we know it’s costs and benefits and are happy with it. It’s our status quo toilet roll.

"we would rather do nothing"

Suri et al (2013)  presented the effects of the Status Quo bias in a less toilet roll fashion. Suri et al’s study involved emitting a small (and harmless!) electric shock to participants after a certain time period. The researchers let the participant know that the electric shock was going to happen and they even told the participants how long they had to wait. Then participants were presented with two buttons. Pressing button 1 would significantly decrease the likelihood of the electric shock occurring. However, pressing button 2 wouldn’t affect the likelihood of the electric shock at all. The participants were also split up into two groups. One group was forced to choose a button to press. The other group had the ability to abstain from choosing. 

So, you should always press button 1. It's a no brainer!

Suri et al. found that 85.3% of participants pressed button 1 (the "please don’t electrocute me button") when they were forced to make a decision. However, only 52.1% of participants chose button 1 when given the freedom to abstain! That is 47.9% of people chose to accept the electric shock and let it happen when given the choice.

What this research shows is that even when there is a clearly large benefit in making a decision, most of the time, we would rather do nothing. This is the Status Quo bias in full effect.

Hopefully, with this blog, you can start to observe the obvious consequences that we face using the Status Quo bias. The main primary limitations being the lack of action in our decisions and the preventing the discovery of potential beneficial situations in our daily life (whether these profitable situations be health incentives or simply realising that you are missing out on a super new toilet roll product).

To try and ensure your own Status Quo bias doesn’t trip you up here are a few tricks:

Try to fairly weigh up the pros and cons of options and don’t just solely rely on your past experiences, or even your gut feeling! If you are struggling then ask for advice; getting a professional opinion on the decision can shed much needed insight as they will likely have different experiences and knowledge then you.

Lastly, try living each day with the motto “Let’s give it a try”. Engaging in something for the first time can increase the likelihood of you engaging in that activity more often. For example, strapping on you latest fitness tracker and going for a run. By going for your first run you will start to see the hidden benefits that you previously didn’t know were there; hopefully proceeding to then continue running in the future.

Thanks for reading.

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