Happiness and the Status Quo Bias

The status quo bias is the preference of maintaining one’s current decision over changing it (Samuelson & Zeckhauser, 1988). Many individuals are influenced by the status quo bias and therefore feel a natural resistance towards change and innovation. The happiness of the employee and innovation are both important drivers for business performance. It is, therefore, interesting to study if the happiness of an individual influences its reluctance to change. A survey with 101 respondents is used to answer the research question: ‘Are less happy people more influenced by the status quo bias?’. The survey included three scenario questions to find the presence of the status quo bias, and four questions of the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999) to determine the respondent’s happiness. The main finding of this research is that there is no significant relationship between happiness and the status quo bias. An interesting finding is that the regressions suggest an insignificant, but negative relationship between the level of happiness and the susceptibility towards the status quo bias. Although the gained insights shed more light onto the phenomenon, the findings also emphasize the urge for extended research on the relationship between happiness and the status quo bias.