Editing Status quo bias (section)

==Explanations==
Status quo bias has been attributed to a combination of [[loss aversion]] and the [[endowment effect]], two ideas relevant to [[prospect theory]]. An individual weighs the potential losses of switching from the status quo more heavily than the potential gains; this is due to the prospect theory value function being steeper in the loss domain.<ref name=Samuelson/>  As a result, the individual will prefer not to switch at all. In other words, we tend to oppose change unless the benefits outweigh the risks. However, the status quo bias is maintained even in the absence of gain/loss framing: for example, when subjects were asked to choose the colour of their new car, they tended towards one colour arbitrarily framed as the status quo.<ref name=Samuelson/> Loss aversion, therefore, cannot wholly explain the status quo bias,<ref name=Korobkin>{{cite journal | last1 = Korobkin | first1 = R.  | year = 1997 | title = The status quo bias and contract default rules | url =http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/research/cornell-law-review/upload/Korobkin-2.pdf | journal = Cornell Law Review | volume = 83 | pages = 608–687 |ssrn=52240}}</ref> with other potential causes including regret avoidance,<ref name=Korobkin/> [[transaction cost]]s<ref name=Tversky>{{cite journal | last1 = Tversky | first1 = A. | last2 = Kahneman | first2 = D. | year = 1991 | title = Loss aversion in riskless choice: a reference-dependent model | journal = The Quarterly Journal of Economics | volume = 106 | issue = 4| pages = 1039–1061 | doi=10.2307/2937956| jstor = 2937956 | citeseerx = 10.1.1.703.2614 }}</ref> and psychological commitment.<ref name=Samuelson/>

===Rational routes to status quo maintenance===

A status quo bias can also be a rational route if there are cognitive or informational limitations.

;Informational limitations
Decision outcomes are rarely certain, nor is the utility they may bring. Because some errors are more costly than others (Haselton & Nettle, 2006),<ref name="HaseltonNettle2006">{{cite journal|last1=Haselton|first1=Martie G.|last2=Nettle|first2=Daniel|title=The Paranoid Optimist: An Integrative Evolutionary Model of Cognitive Biases|journal=Personality and Social Psychology Review|volume=10|issue=1|year=2006|pages=47–66|doi=10.1207/s15327957pspr1001_3|url=http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/haselton/papers/downloads/PSPR2006.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141109184121/http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/haselton/papers/downloads/PSPR2006.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 9, 2014|pmid=16430328|citeseerx=10.1.1.322.3420|s2cid=5725102}}</ref> sticking with what worked in the past is a safe option, as long as previous decisions are "good enough".<ref name=simon>{{cite journal|last=Simon|first=H.A.|title=Rational Choice and the Structure of the Environment|journal=Psychological Review|date=March 1956|volume=63|issue=2|pages=129–138|doi=10.1037/h0042769|pmid=13310708|citeseerx=10.1.1.545.5116|s2cid=8503301 }}</ref>

;Cognitive limitations
Cognitive limitations of status quo bias involve the cognitive cost of choice, in which decisions are more susceptible to postponement as increased alternatives are added to the choice set. Moreover, mental effort needed to maintain status quo alternatives would often be lesser and easier, resulting in a superior choice's benefit being outweighed by decision-making cognitive costs. Consequently, maintenance of current or previous state of affairs would be regarded as the easier alternative.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Eidelman |first1=Scott |last2=Crandall |first2=Christian S. |date=2 March 2012 |title=Bias in Favor of the Status Quo: Bias and the Status Quo |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00427.x |journal=Social and Personality Psychology Compass |language=en |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=270–281 |doi=10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00427.x|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

===Irrational routes===
The irrational maintenance of the status quo bias links and confounds many cognitive biases.

;Existence bias
An assumption of longevity and goodness are part of the status quo bias.  People treat [[existence]] as a prima facie case for goodness, aesthetic and longevity increases this preference.<ref name="EidelmanCrandall2012">{{cite journal|last1=Eidelman|first1=Scott|last2=Crandall|first2=Christian S.|title=Bias in Favor of the Status Quo|journal=Social and Personality Psychology Compass|volume=6|issue=3|year=2012|pages=270–281|doi=10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00427.x}}</ref>
The status quo bias affects people's preferences; people report preferences for what they are likely rather than unlikely to receive. People simply assume, with little reason or deliberation, the goodness of existing states.<ref name="EidelmanCrandall2012" />

[[Longevity]] is a corollary of the existence bias: if existence is good, longer existence should be better. This thinking resembles quasi-evolutionary notions of "survival of the fittest", and also the augmentation principle in attribution theory.<ref name="Kelley1971">{{cite book|last=Kelley|first=Harold H.|title=Attribution in Social Interaction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s_0_AAAAMAAJ|year=1971|publisher=General Learning Press}}</ref>

Psychological [[inertia]] is another reason used to explain a bias towards the status quo. Another explanation is fear of regret in making a wrong decision, i.e.  If we choose a partner, when we think there could be someone better out there.<ref name=hindu>{{cite news|last=Venkatesh|first=B.|title=Benefitting from status quo bias}}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=Unclear attribution to news article|date=November 2014}}

===Mere exposure===
[[Mere exposure]] is an explanation for the status quo bias.  Existing states are encountered more frequently than non-existent states and because of this they will be perceived as more true and evaluated more preferably. One way to increase liking for something is repeated exposure over time.<ref name=exposure>{{cite journal|last=Bornstein|first=R.F.|title=Exposure and affect: Overview and meta- analysis of research|journal=Psychological Bulletin|year=1989|volume=106|issue=2|pages=265–289|doi=10.1037/0033-2909.106.2.265}}</ref>

;Loss aversion
'''[[Loss aversion]]''' also leads to greater regret for action than for inaction;<ref name="KahnemanSlovicTversky1982">{{cite book|last1=Kahneman|first1=Daniel|last2=Slovic|first2=Paul|last3=Tversky|first3=Amos|title=Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases|journal=Science|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_0H8gwj4a1MC|year=1982|volume=185|issue=4157|pages=1124–31|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1126/science.185.4157.1124|pmid=17835457|bibcode=1974Sci...185.1124T |isbn=978-0-521-28414-1|s2cid=143452957}}</ref> more regret is experienced when a decision changes the status quo than when it maintains it.<ref name=inman>{{cite journal|last=Inman|first=J.J.|author2=Zeelenberg |title=Regret repeat versus switch decisions: The attenuation role of decision justifiability|journal=Journal of Consumer Research|year=2002|volume=29|pages=116–128|doi=10.1086/339925|url=https://research.tilburguniversity.edu/en/publications/44060120-bd30-40e0-a97f-f5fedc5c08a2}}</ref> Together these forces provide an advantage for the status quo; people are motivated to do nothing or to maintain current or previous decisions.<ref name=Samuelson /> Change is avoided, and decision makers stick with what has been done in the past.

Changes from the status quo will typically involve both gains and losses, with the change having good overall consequences if the gains outweigh these losses. A tendency to overemphasize the avoidance of losses will thus favour retaining the status quo, resulting in a status quo bias. Even though choosing the status quo may entail forfeiting certain positive consequences, when these are represented as forfeited "gains" they are psychologically given less weight than the "losses" that would be incurred if the status quo were changed.<ref name="BostromOrd2006">{{cite journal|last1=Bostrom|first1=Nick|last2=Ord|first2=Toby|title=The Reversal Test: Eliminating Status Quo Bias in Applied Ethics|journal=Ethics|volume=116|issue=4|year=2006|pages=656–679|doi=10.1086/505233|pmid=17039628|s2cid=12861892|url=http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/691705|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

The loss aversion explanation for the status quo bias has been challenged by [[David Gal]] and Derek Rucker who argue that evidence for loss aversion (i.e., a tendency to avoid losses more than to pursue gains) is confounded with a tendency towards [[Psychological inertia|inertia]] (a tendency to avoid intervention more than to intervene in the course of affairs).<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Gal|first1=David|last2=Rucker|first2=Derek D.|date=2018-07-01|title=The Loss of Loss Aversion: Will It Loom Larger Than Its Gain?|journal=Journal of Consumer Psychology|language=en|volume=28|issue=3|pages=497–516|doi=10.1002/jcpy.1047|s2cid=148956334|issn=1532-7663|doi-access=free}}</ref> Inertia, in this sense, is related to omission bias, except it need not be a bias but might be perfectly rational behavior stemming from transaction costs or lack of incentive to intervene due to fuzzy preferences.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.sjdm.org/~baron/journal/jdm06002.pdf|title=A Psychological Law of Inertia and the Illusion of Loss Aversion|last=Gal|first=David|website=www.sjdm.org|access-date=2018-12-09}}</ref>

;Omission bias
[[Omission bias]] may account for some of the findings previously ascribed to status quo bias. Omission bias is diagnosed when a decision maker prefers a harmful outcome that results from an omission to a less harmful outcome that results from an action.<ref name=":4">Ilana Ritov and Jonathan Baron, "Status-Quo and Omission Biases," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 5 [1992]: 49–61)</ref>

Overall implications of a study conducted by Ilana Ritov and Jonathan Baron, regarding status quo and omission biases, reveal that omission bias may further be diagnosed when the decision maker is unwilling to take preference from any of the available options given to them, thus enabling reduction of the number of decisions where utility comparison and weight is unavoidable.<ref name=":4" />

===Detection===
{{Main|Reversal test}}
The '''[[reversal test]]''': when a proposal to change a certain parameter is thought to have bad overall consequences, consider a change to the same parameter in the opposite direction. If this is also thought to have bad overall consequences, then the onus is on those who reach these conclusions to explain why our position cannot be improved through changes to this parameter. If they are unable to do so, then we have reason to suspect that they suffer from status quo bias. The rationale of the reversal test is: if a continuous parameter admits of a wide range of possible values, only a tiny subset of which can be local optima, then it is prima facie implausible that the actual value of that parameter should just happen to be at one of these rare local optima.<ref name="BostromOrd2006" />

===Neural activity===
A study found that erroneous status quo rejections have a greater neural impact than erroneous status quo acceptances.  This asymmetry in the genesis of regret might drive the status quo bias on subsequent decisions.<ref name="NicolleFleming2011">{{cite journal|last1=Nicolle|first1=A.|last2=Fleming|first2=S. M.|last3=Bach|first3=D. R.|last4=Driver|first4=J.|last5=Dolan|first5=R. J.|title=A Regret-Induced Status Quo Bias|journal=Journal of Neuroscience|volume=31|issue=9|year=2011|pages=3320–3327|doi=10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5615-10.2011|pmid=21368043|pmc=3059787}}</ref>

A study was done using a visual detection task in which subjects tended to favour the default when making difficult, but not easy, decisions. This bias was suboptimal in that more errors were made when the default was accepted. A selective increase in [[Subthalamic nucleus|sub-thalamic nucleus]] (STN) activity was found when the status quo was rejected in the face of heightened decision difficulty. Analysis of effective connectivity showed that inferior [[frontal cortex]], a region more active for difficult decisions, exerted an enhanced modulatory influence on the STN during switches away from the status quo.<ref name=Neural />

Research by [[University College London]] scientists that examines the neural pathways involved in 'status quo bias' in the human brain and found that the more difficult the decision we face, the more likely we are not to act.
The study, published in ''[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]]'' (PNAS), looked at the decision-making of participants taking part in a tennis 'line judgement' game while their brains were scanned using [[functional MRI]] (fMRI).
The 16 study participants were asked to look at a cross between two tramlines on a screen while holding down a 'default' key. They then saw a ball land in the court and had to make a decision as to whether it was in or out. On each trial, the computer signalled which was the current default option – 'in' or 'out'. The participants continued to hold down the key to accept the default and had to release it and change to another key to reject the default. The results showed a consistent bias towards the default, which led to errors. As the task became more difficult, the bias became even more pronounced. The fMRI scans showed that a region of the brain known as the sub-thalamic nucleus (STN) was more active in the cases when the default was rejected. Also, greater flow of information was seen from a separate region sensitive to difficulty (the [[prefrontal cortex]]) to the STN. This indicates that the STN plays a key role in overcoming status quo bias when the decision is difficult.<ref name=Neural>{{cite journal|last=Fleming, Stephen|author2=C. Thomas |author3=R. Dolan |title=Overcoming Status Quo Bias in the Human Brain|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|date=February 2010|volume=107|issue=13|pages=6005–6009|doi=10.1073/pnas.0910380107|pmid=20231462|pmc=2851882|bibcode=2010PNAS..107.6005F |doi-access=free }}</ref>

===Behavioral economics and the default position===
Against this background, two [[Behavioral economics|behavioral economists]] devised an opt-out plan to help employees of a particular company build their retirement savings. In an opt-out plan, the employees are automatically enrolled unless they explicitly ask to be excluded. They found evidence for status quo bias and other associated effects.<ref name="save more">{{cite journal|last=Thaler|first=Richard H.|author2=Shlomo Benartzi |title=Save More Tomorrow: Using Behavioural Economics to Increase Employee Saving|journal=Journal of Political Economy|year=2004|volume=112|pages=164–187|doi=10.1086/380085|citeseerx=10.1.1.495.8552|s2cid=2379566}}</ref> The impact of defaults on decision making due to status quo bias is not purely due to subconscious bias, as it has been found that even when disclosing the intent of the default to consumers, the effect of the default is not reduced.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Reisch|first1=Lucia A.|last2=Zhao|first2=Min|date=November 2017|title=Behavioural economics, consumer behaviour and consumer policy: state of the art|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2398063X1700001X/type/journal_article|journal=Behavioural Public Policy|language=en|volume=1|issue=2|pages=190–206|doi=10.1017/bpp.2017.1|issn=2398-063X|hdl=10398/01e85b29-3d75-4be3-95dc-d256ad5dd947|s2cid=158160660|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

An experiment conducted by Sen Geng, regarding status quo bias and decision time allocation, reveal that individuals allocate more attention to default options in comparison to alternatives. This is due to individuals who are mainly risk-averse who seek to attain greater expected utility and decreased subjective uncertainty in making their decision. Furthermore, by optimally allocating more time and asymmetric attention to default options or positions, the individual's estimate of the default's value is consequently more precise than estimates of alternatives. This behaviour thus reflects the individual's asymmetric choice error, and is therefore an indication of status quo bias.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Geng |first=Sen |title=Decision Time, Consideration Time, and Status Quo Bias |date=8 July 2015 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecin.12239 |journal=Economic Inquiry |language=en |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=433–449 |doi=10.1111/ecin.12239 |s2cid=153199766 |via=Wiley Online Library|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

===Conflict===
Status-quo educational bias can be both a barrier to political progress and a threat to the state's legitimacy and argue that the values of stability, compliance, and patriotism underpin important reasons for status quo bias that appeal not to the substantive merits of existing institutions but merely to the fact that those institutions are the status quo.<ref name="civic edu">{{cite journal|last=MacMullen|title=On Status-Quo Bias in Civic Education|journal=Journal of Politics|year= 2011|volume=73|issue=3|pages=872–886|doi=10.1017/s0022381611000521|s2cid=143374422}}</ref>