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Status Quo Bias

The status quo bias is a cognitive bias for the status quo; in other words, people tend to be biased towards doing nothing or maintaining their current or previous decision.

‘The example also illustrates what Samuelson and Zeckhauser (1988) call a status quo bias, a preference for the current state that biases the economist against both buying and selling his wine.’
Thaler (1992) p. 63

‘One implication of loss aversion is that individuals have a strong tendency to remain at the status quo, because the disadvantages of leaving it loom larger than the advantages. Samuelson and Zeckhauser (1988) have demonstrated this effect, which they term the status quo bias.’
Thaler (1992) p. 68

‘"The status quo bias" - individuals' tendency to prefer to remain at the status-quo - is similarly attributed to loss aversion: It is assumed that the loss of the status-quo option looms larger than the gain of an alternative option (e.g., Kahneman et al., 1991).’
Gal (2006)

‘Both the status quo bias and the endowment effect are part of a more general issue known as loss aversion.’
(Montier 2007, p. 32)

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