Status quo bias

Thaler, R., Kahneman, D., and Knetsch, J. (1992), "The endowment effect, loss aversion, and status quo bias," in R. Thaler, The Winner s Curse, New York The Free Press, pp. 63-78. 

Roca M, Hogarth RM, Maule AJ (2002) Ambiguity seeking as a result of the status quo bias. J Risk Uncertain 32 175-194... 

Status quo bias is the tendency to filter information so as to favor the current situation. Administrators, physicians, nurses, and other employees may be subject to this bias when considering whether to support organization and culture change. This preconception is another bias that often underlies the objection, "We don t have a patient safety problem here."... 

Ask yourself what forms the basis of your assessment. Do you have valid and applicable data, or are you acting on recency, selective perception, or status quo bias Are you confusing facts and values ... 

Each bias by itself can distort decisions. Even more dangerously, more than one bias may be involved in a single decision and serve to intensify the distortion—e.g., a hastily made decision in response to emergency room overflow that then becomes accepted and difficult to change because of the status quo bias. Or perhaps a head nurse makes a poor decision about nurse overtime in response to the emotional demands of a specific situation, but then continues to implement and defend the decision because of the sunk cost bias—even though the scheduling decision has become manifestly inappropriate. 

Bias can help explain why capable leaders make and accept poor decisions—why a skilled clinician will filter out hazards (overconfidence bias), why a senior leader will not terminate a poor performer he has coached, despite the team member s consistently poor performance (sunk cost bias), and why the treatment team will live with a safety system that delivers weak safety performance (status quo bias). 

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