Status quo bias favors the current state
In general, people have a strong preference for the current state of affairs over a potential alternative. Whether this is due to Ambiguity Aversion or loss aversion, this “status quo bias” tends to prevent changing direction, even when doing so would be beneficial.
Leaders are motivated to respond to threats or capitalize on opportunities when they perceive that the advantages of departing from the status quo outweigh the disadvantages. Unfortunately, humans are plagued by what psychologists call a status quo bias, meaning that we often have a strong preference for the current state of affairs over some alternative. In short, we’d rather stick with an existing plan or decision than make a new one. —Persuadable – Pittampalli (2016), ch. 2, § “Changing Course: AGILITY”
For lots of reasons, people have a general tendency to stick with their current situation. One reason is loss aversion; giving up what we have is painful. But the phenomenon has multiple causes. William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser have dubbed this behavior status quo bias, and it has been demonstrated in numerous situations. —Nudge – Thaler and Sunstein (2021) , ch. 1, § “Status Quo Bias”
Decision makers may be both bullish about the effect of new initiatives (overconfidence again) and too timid in diverting resources from existing units (a problem caused by status quo bias, which, as the name indicates, is our preference for leaving things as they are). —Thinking, Fast and Slow – Kahneman (2013), ch. 19, § “A Limitation of Debiasing”