Resistance to Change

Unwillingness to adopt different actions due to culture, customs, traditions, religion, “but we’ve always done it this way”, expectations based on previous experience or previous generations.

Inhibits change; may inhibit selecting best actions (death penalty, euthanasia).

cf. emotion qv, familiarity-bias qv, unconfidence (it's safest/easiest to do nothing) qv.

Components.

Related Engine Processes.

Further reading.

• If I changed my mind about something now, that would mean that I was wrong previously. Since I don't want to think that I was ever wrong (because of my pride), I'll just keep believing the same things. That way, I can still feel good about myself, which is more important than improving or being correct.
• Past practices (eg, pursuit of wealth/profit) have worked well for us so far, so we're unwilling to change (conflict of interest; cf. no-good-options qv, priorities qv). It's okay to reject a hypothesis because it seems flawed, but it isn't okay to reject a hypothesis because it clashes with our priorities qv.
• Superstition: willingness to believe in a causal relationship (unclear-causality) even when the link isn't justified. cf unclear-causality.