attribute? No. In fact, if you had asked me ahead of time, I probably wouldn’t have even thought of it myself. But seeing it in person was enough to make me think twice about getting the new model.
I didn’t want a different phone; I wanted the same phone I already had, just updated slightly. Apple was supposed to release a smaller-footprint version eventually, so why not give it a few more months?
But as I waited, my old phone went into a slow and steady death spiral.
First, an ominous red dot appeared in the settings app. Apple had pushed a new operating system, but I was out of space.
Then the airline apps asked to be updated. But they required the new operating system. That meant no more mobile boarding passes and one more thing to think about every week when I traveled. Like a prop plane whose engines slowly fail one by one, different features of my phone gradually disengaged.
Through all of this, I waited. Through one indignity after another, I stuck by my old phone.
Finally, after almost missing a flight because I hadn’t printed a boarding pass, I caved. I broke down, called my phone company, and ordered a new phone.
* * *
One would think this was the end of the story. That the new phone would arrive, I’d tear open the package, and happily start using it.
But that wasn’t what happened.
Because even after the phone arrived, I still didn’t use it. I was so attached to my old phone that I didn’t open the new one for more than three months. Weeks went by as I held on to the old technology. All the while, my old phone was becoming more and more obsolete.
You might find this story funny. Ridiculous, even. But it’s more common than you might think.
New things are often better. Phones are faster and have more memory. Services are more comprehensive and deliver better results. Management strategies are more current and effective. People should switch.
But they don’t.
Even though the new thing is technically better, people still cling to the old. They follow the same processes and maintain the same courses of action.
And while it’s easy to attribute this to nostalgia, something subtler is at play.
Of Mugs and Men
Think about the last time your power went out. Using your phone as a flashlight but worrying it would run out of juice. Having to reset all the clocks once the outage ended. And, if the outage was particularly long, tossing all the spoiled food in the fridge. All in all, not a lot of fun.
No one likes power outages, but Pacific Gas and Electric Company—or PG&E, as its most commonly called—wanted to understand exactly how much consumers disliked them. PG&E works to balance reliability and cost. They could invest in more preventive measures, but that would make the service more expensive. Or they could cut rates, but reliability would likely suffer.
So which did customers prefer, greater reliability or lower cost?
To find out, researchers surveyed more than 1,300 consumers and asked them which of six power plans they preferred.1 Some plans were more expensive but promised fewer and shorter outages, while other plans were cheaper but involved more frequent, longer outages.
Not surprisingly, when most customers were asked, few picked the plan with lots of power outages. It meant a four-hour outage at least once a month: more time sitting in the dark or worrying about the food in the fridge going bad. Most customers currently experienced around three outages a year, so they said they’d need a monthly discount of at least $20 to move to a service that bad.
But one group of people liked the higher power outage plan a lot. Even though it meant worse service.
Why would they prefer less reliable service? Were they older or more price sensitive, which might lead them to prefer cheaper service, even if it was less reliable?
No, the only difference was the status quo. What they were getting already. A small group of people were already experiencing lots of power outages—as many as fifteen a year of four hours each—so they picked a plan that was similar to what they knew, even though to most people it seemed like a terrible option.2
* * *
The status quo bias is everywhere. People tend to eat the same foods they’ve always eaten, buy the same brands they’ve always bought, and donate to the same causes they’ve always supported.
Take someone who’s just had heart bypass surgery or had an angioplasty to widen obstructed arteries. Afterward