People prefer to keep things the same due to loss aversion and take actions to inhibit or minimize change. This can be seen in work environments where there is stark resistance to a change in the product (product work is hard because it necessitates change), processes, or organization.
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People find it more painful to lose something than to gain something equivalent. One interpretation is that people overvalue what they have because it is theirs. This leads to status quo preserving behavior.
People Are Bad at Long-Term Thinking
People are generally bad at thinking and making decisions about long-term consequences. Gate’s Law observes that people overestimate the short term and underestimate the long term. People are motivated by loss aversion which leads to status quo preserving behavior and biases people towards keeping things the same.
We Reduce Anxiety With Activity
When things get challenging or stressful, we attempt to reduce our anxiety by doing things (sometimes anything). By doing things we feel like we are making progress. However, this doesn’t solve the problem at and can even make it worse.
There Are Suprisingly Few Product Engineers
Product engineers solve user problems, but there why are there so few of them?
Justificationism Secures Ideas Against Change
One way to answer “how do we know…?” is to justify one’s belief by reference to an authoritative source or cornerstone of knowledge. This is, in effect, saying “by what authority do we claim…?” which seeks endorsement in order to have certainty. Justificationism as a theory of knowledge therefore resists change (or at least delays in a form of path dependence).