The following brief excerpt is from Political Mind Games: How the 1% Manipulate Our Understanding of What’s Happening, What’s Right, and What’s Possible by Roy Eidelson. A free PDF version of the book is available here.
With the Change-Is-Dangerous vulnerability mind game, today’s plutocrats defend their agenda in a different way: by insisting that their opponents’ proposals for change will endanger us all. Regardless of the benefits these alternatives could bring, the 1% argue that initiatives inconsistent with their own policy recommendations will have potentially catastrophic consequences for the country. This is true whether we’re talking about tax increases for the wealthy (new investments stifled!), minimum wage hikes (forced layoffs!), curtailment of spying operations (terrorists everywhere!), new regulations to address climate change (U.S. businesses unable to compete!), reductions in mass incarceration (crime waves!), gun control (defenseless citizens!), or lower-cost imported medications from Canada (tainted drugs!).
Such appeals from self-interested one-percenters benefit from what psychologists call “status quo bias.” We generally prefer to keep things the way they are rather than face the uncertainty of less familiar options. In part, this is because we usually experience losses more intensely than rewards. That’s why winning $100 doesn’t feel as good as losing $100 feels bad. In much the same way, we tend to focus on how a proposed change could make things worse rather than better. Familiar expressions like “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know” and “When in doubt, do nothing” capture the phenomenon well. This helps explain why patients are reluctant to change a medication they’ve been taking for years, even if their doctor tells them a newer one works better and has fewer side effects. Likewise, when it comes to elections, incumbents have an advantage over their challengers—even when they’ve disappointed their constituents. Preferences like these may be irrational, but that doesn’t make them any less stubborn or potent.
Unfortunately, our status quo bias serves the interests of plutocrats and their Change Is Dangerous mind game. As a result of our psychological discomfort with change, we often view reformers more negatively than those who defend current arrangements. Research suggests multiple reasons for this. People tend to see reformers as extremists, while status quo supporters are seen as more moderate and reasonable in their stances. Also, those who are seeking change tend to be viewed as more selfish in their motivations than defenders of the status quo, especially when the former are of lower status than the latter. Psychological tendencies like these can pose significant obstacles to the public’s embrace of much-needed reforms.
Our natural skepticism about change also makes people more susceptible to faulty arguments from those who want current policies left alone. Status quo bias may lead us to be less discerning when a politician exaggerates the risks associated with new policy options, or when they offer flawed comparisons to historical cases where alarming predictions about change came true. Regardless of their intrinsic merit, arguments like these succeed when they create feelings of vulnerability and dread. But at such times, it’s useful to remember that influential, entrenched interests also made dire forecasts when they opposed the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century, resisted voting rights for women in the early 1900s, and condemned the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
NOTE: A free PDF version of Political Mind Games is available here.