Why does one resist/reject change?

[waechter418]

Is it because ones mind is not used to focus more than a few seconds, and therefore clings to any tidbit of an idea that promises to have a long - preferably eternal - lifespan and is thus unchangeable/unquestionable right/true?

 

[Seteleechete]

Because change is often unpleasant and people are usually not so masochistic as to willingly accept/strive for unpleasant things.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Everything does that. It's not a particularly human feature.

What sets our species apart is rather the opposite - curiosity and appetite for novelty. Yet we are overwhelmingly animal, life, matter, most of what we do is instinctive or habitual and most people don't transcend the noise.

 

[waechter418]

Because change is often unpleasant and people are usually not so masochistic as to willingly accept/strive for unpleasant things.

You will not know if change is unpleasant until you have experienced it

 

[waechter418]

Everything does that.

Butterflies don´t....

 

[Seteleechete]

You will not know if change is unpleasant until you have experienced it

What? of course you can. "Hey we will take you from your house and drop you off alone in the middle of the Sahara, without food or water, but relax it's just a small change of scenery." Sure there is the outlier chance that some native will find, you fall in love and live happily ever after but in 99.9% of all cases it will be a negative/unpleasant change of circumstances. Using logic and thinking about choices the results of a change can be predicted to a degree.

And that's not even taking into account the primal responses to change which at least in the short term can be unpleasant and negative even if it's a good thing long term. And by simply observing taking in information from outside sources you can incur if a change will be unpleasant. And if your mentality towards change in negative it can be unpleasant even if the physical results are positive.

 

[waechter418]

What? of course you can. "Hey we will take you from your house and drop you off alone in the middle of the Sahara, without food or water, but relax it's just a small change of scenery." Sure there is the outlier chance that some native will find, you fall in love and live happily ever after but in 99.9% of all cases it will be a negative/unpleasant change of circumstances. Using logic and thinking about choices the results of a change can be predicted to a degree.

And that's not even taking into account the primal responses to change which at least in the short term can be unpleasant and negative even if it's a good thing long term. And by simply observing taking in information from outside sources you can incur if a change will be unpleasant. And if your mentality towards change in negative it can be unpleasant even if the physical results are positive.

I agree, change can be subjected to pessimistic and optimistic outlooks

 

[E404]

Change is unknown. That's why people fear the dark and the ocean. It's unknown.

 

[Pressure's Spring]

You could say that absolute thinking or inflexibility of thought is a response to change or uncertainty [experienced as anxiety]... Similarly, detachment from thought, which can be viewed as, a submitting to change, is a psychological response to anxiety.

When one does not have the power to embrace change, that is contrary to invested energies, in the case of, for example, conflicting thought patterns, it may be good to exercise the mechanisms [such as those listed above] depending on one's own personal resources, needs, and limitations which ought to be respected.

Being too open to change on the other hand is simply an indication of a lack of prior concentration [for example, what is known as "open-mindedness"].

Resisting change implies a prior focusing.

Change is not always beneficial. A resistance is an intermediary response, which could lead to rejection or assimilation, either of which, depending on the situation, can be an either good or bad outcome [relative to a goal].

 

[waechter418]

As every aspect/manifestation of existence appears to be subject to change, latter seems unavoidable and resistance futile.

 

[Pressure's Spring]

Change does seem to underlie existence, yes, but, if we were to take change and resistance as opposing forces, then, I would understand that resistance as a temporary concentration of force, perceived as form, that can be undone by change.

If it (resistance) were absolute, there would be no change, and everything would be static. Equally if change were absolute, we could expect nothing to form.

Since both of these possibilities do not appear to be the case, and, will probably never be the case, there is no good reason to say, something like, change is what will always be there, but not resistance.

That is denying an aspect of reality, it is to be, a chaos, or death, worshipper.

In reality both are present.

It is important to note that resistance is occurring on many different levels, there is no reason to limit it to one form, that is, conscious resistance (which is anything but futile, it is a sophistication).

The idea that resistance is futile, seems to be, a sort of, exaggerated focus, perhaps, arising out of stress, of having a direct perception of one's own inevitable failure of resistance in the future, or the failure to resist in the past...

 

[Hadoblado]

Fear of change comes from having a state of play you wish to protect.

If you roll a 6, you're doing really well. Why roll the dice a second time actively facilitating a regression to the mean?

That's why the right want things to stay the same. They already have what they need. That's why the left want (even the illusion of) change. Because if things change maybe this time they (or the people they know) will roll above a 3.

 

[WeirdMachine]

We're evolved to. Fear is what was made to make us avoid the dangerous, like a tiger heading straight for you. Problem is our bodies aren't updated to modern times. Some people fear things too much and that actually makes it harder to deal with it often. We all had a taste of that time where we feared things and we suddenly found it harder to think through the situation well. We're made to run or fight when afraid more, not to think as hard. Though, I remember that some stress, not too much, actually improves thinking abilities.

I remember reading some of the science of people fearing change. It mentioned this scenario of being late to work in traffic. The situation where they're already late was less scary than not being late yet. It was because from brain scans, it showed that people fear the unknown more than something negative that they're aware of. People who fear change tend to focus all about the negatives and what could go wrong and irrationally ignore the possibilities of it could go right.

I mean, what would you remember more? A time where you get to have a break and relax after a day's hard work or a bunch of bees chasing you. People remember the negative often. It might be some evolutionary response that people shouldn't take risks back then, because we could die. But these days, we don't find ourselves at the edge of death as much but our bodies don't know that.

 

[waechter418]

Wonderfully argued Pressures Spring !!!

 

[EditorOne]

I had to study this to bring change to newsrooms.

There is a relationship between what's at stake and willingness to try something new. Areas that have traditionally had reluctance to change include the military, hospitals, and newspapers: IN each case, following existing procedures minimizes negative consequences, like death, or, in the case of newspapers, missing deadline altogether, which is an economic catastrophe, or making a libelous error, which is destructive of integrity and reputation and also has the potential for an economic catastrophe. "If we do what we've always done, it will be OK. If we start trying new stuff, things could go wrong." Apply that to personalities however you want. From the point of view of risk, reluctance to change can be quite logical.

Meanwhile, there are ways to sell innovation. "Tactics of Innovation" by Joel Barker. In a nutshell, ten points around which innovation can be structured and discussed:
Upside, Yes
Downside, No
Seemingly Simple
Small Steps
Compatible Fit
Credible Messenger
Reliable Performance
Easy In
Easy Out

The ten points address objections usually made to change. I could go on for hours about how each of those ten points was relevant to moving a newsroom from print on a 24-hour, one publication paradigm to both print and "real-time around-the-clock publication on a news website," but, you will be glad to hear, I won't. I suggest anyone wondering how to overcome resistance to change jump into some of the "Tactics for Innovation" presentations online. It's not chicanery or manipulation, simply a marshalling of information and discussion in support of a new paradigm.

 

[JansenDowel]

Is it because ones mind is not used to focus more than a few seconds, and therefore clings to any tidbit of an idea that promises to have a long - preferably eternal - lifespan and is thus unchangeable/unquestionable right/true?

No. Its because change implies learning, and learning is difficult. Since humans generally prefer life to be easy (since we are constrained by limited cognitive resources), it follows that we would feel naturally repelled by learning/change.

 

[nonnaci]

Because encoding information is a low-entropy process and that change runs the risk undoing previously invested states. Or, that breaking assumptions also breaks mental models which have previously been reliable methods of prediction; propagating a new assumption to all such mental models require time/effort to resolve cognitive dissonance.