7.6.3. In Real Life
There’s a way to hack this habit bias, and it’s well-known to advertisers. If people generally stick with what they know, the most important thing you can do is get them to start off with your product in the first place (hence the value of kids as a target market). But you can make use of the bias: people choose based on what they did before, so it is more effective to advertise to influence what they choose rather than how they feel about that choice. Even if there’s no good reason for someone using your product in the first place, the fact that they did once has established a strong bias for them doing so again. A computer user may prefer one browser, but if another one comes bundled with her new operating system, we can bet that’s what she’ll end up relying on. You may have no rational reason for choosing Brand A over Brand B when you buy jam, but if the manufacturers of Brand B can get you to try it (maybe by giving you a free sample or a special offer), they’ve overcome the major barrier that would have stopped you from buying it next time.
Status quo bias works for beliefs as well as behaviors. In many situations we are drawn to confirm what we already know, rather than test it in a way that might expose it to be false [Hack #72] .
It’s an experience I’ve had a lot when debugging code. I do lots of things that prove to me that it must be the bug I first think it is, but when I fix that bug, my code still doesn’t work.
It’s not just me, right?
T.S.
Taken from : Mind Hacks
