Do you own a smartphone? Chances are that you’re reading this on a smartphone or a tablet.
One of the most interesting thing about these smartphones is that they allows you to customize everything – data usage, app synchronisation, phone encryption, even how loud you want the camera shutter to sound.
How many of these customization settings have you used? In my case – almost none!
Although I’m not technically challenged, but do suffer from, just like most of the other human beings, a cognitive bias.
Earlier in the latticework series, I wrote about Do Something Bias. It’s a cognitive bias where people get an urge to take action or make unnecessary decisions when ‘not doing anything’ is required.
Now let’s turn the table, and talk about a bias which is exactly opposite of Do Something Bias. It’s called Status Quo Bias. The tendency of people where they don’t do anything and continue to maintain the current state of affairs.
If we could boil down this cognitive bias to a more fundamental body of knowledge, it would be Physics. I am sure you must have heard of Newton’s laws of motion. The first law of motion states –
An object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force.
This characteristic, called inertia, is exhibited by all physical bodies. And when it comes to human behaviour, this tendency manifests in the form of Status Quo Bias.
[Read more…] about Latticework of Mental Models: Status Quo Bias