Status Quo Or Change? the Influence of Creativity and Openness to Experience on the Status
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Running head: PERSONALITY, INFORMATION SAMPLING, STATUS QUO BIAS 1 Status Quo or Change? The Influence of Creativity and Openness to Experience on the Status Quo Bias and Information Sampling Kyara Smit (551088) Tilburg University Supervised by A.K. Spälti. Department of social psychology, Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences Date PERSONALITY, INFORMATION SAMPLING, STATUS QUO BIAS 2 Abstract Limited research has been done on the influence of openness to experience and/or creativity in relation to information sampling and the status quo bias. Literature shows that the traits openness to experience and/or creativity might promote status quo rejecting behavior (Jost, Nosek, & Gosling, 2008; McCrae, 1987). Therefore, it was hypothesized that highly open and/or creative people would prefer the alternative policy over the status quo policy and show information sampling behavior focused on the alternative policy. The research consisted of 60 participants who were presented with a survey containing a decision board, a choice between an alternative and status quo, questions concerning the levels of openness and creativity of the participant, and questions testing the decision-making of the participant. The results show that individuals scoring high on creativity read information of the alternative policy longer compared to those scoring low on creativity. The opposite effect was discovered for openness to experience. Furthermore, no effect was identified concerning openness to experience and/or creativity and the participant's interestedness in alternative policy. Lastly, both creativity and openness to experience individually fail to have an effect on policy preference. However, the participants with a high score on both openness to experience and creativity would likely prefer the alternative, while those with low creativity would likely prefer the status quo. In conclusion, the research shows that openness to experience and creativity may influence sampling behavior and decision-making behavior regardless of the status quo bias. Keywords: status quo bias, information sampling, openness to experience, creativity, decision-making. PERSONALITY, INFORMATION SAMPLING, STATUS QUO BIAS 3 Status Quo or Change? The Influence of Creativity and Openness to Experience on the Status Quo Bias and Information Sampling On January 1st 2002 the Dutch Guilder was replaced by a new currency, namely the Euro. The Guilder had been the currency of The Netherlands since medieval times. The decision to change the currency of The Netherlands did not happen overnight, and it took multiple years before the Dutch started paying with the Euro (“de invoering van de Euro” n.d.). In this example, the people made the decision to abandon the old for something new. However, humans have the tendency to stick to the old, instead of choosing for the alternative. This tendency is referred to as the ‘status quo bias’. Especially, decisions made in real life are influenced by the status quo bias (Samuelson & Zeckhauser, 1988). Take for example the decision of the majority of people to work from nine to five from Monday to Friday. Although working on other times and days might be more efficient and convenient, because of a decrease in traffic jams etc., the majority of the population remains working from nine till five from Monday to Friday. One possible explanation for this example might be the fact that this is how society has always functioned. The status quo bias is also called the ‘existence bias’, which refers to “the tendency to assume that existing states of the world are good and right, to treat the ways things are as the way things ought to be” (Eidelman & Crandall, 2014, p 55). This shows that decisions are not made in a purely rational way as Savage’s (1972) rational choice model suggests. Savage (1972) states that a person who has to make a decision under uncertain circumstances, does this by comparing assigned probabilities of possible outcomes to their expected values. One important assumption in the model is that the format in which the information is given should not influence the person’s decision. However, as much research has shown, a product or policy being labelled as ‘status quo’ will have an influence on a person’s decision (Gilliland, PERSONALITY, INFORMATION SAMPLING, STATUS QUO BIAS 4 Wood, & Schmitt, 1994; Moshnsky & Bar-Hillel, 2009). Generally, the status quo is preferred over the alternative. The decision to stick to the status quo rather than choosing the alternative, for example, is likely influenced and based on a process called information sampling (Fiedler, 2008). For example, information sampling occurred in the process the Dutch went through when deciding whether to change the Guilder to the Euro. They weighed the pros and cons, considered different perspectives as well as their own, and observed other countries, and thought about their own opinions. In other words, the decision to change from the Guilder to Euro was based on the gathering of information from different sources (Koopmans, 2015). In this information gathering process not all existing information can be accessed, simply because of human and physical limitations. Each person samples only information that appears most relevant to them. Furthermore, because of this they most likely also sample information that is biased to a certain degree. Also, Kahneman et al. (1982; as cited in Fielder and Jusins, 2006) explain that people can only sample information in a bounded rational way. This means that the information sampling process takes place through mental shortcuts and biases. According to the authors, this is because of the constraints of the minds’ information processing power. Furthermore, Newell and Simon (1972; as cited in Fielder and Jusins, 2006) explain that people have to rely on cognitive heuristics, while sampling information. An example of a heuristic is the ‘availability heuristic’. This refers to a person estimating the probability of an event happening based on the ease to which it comes to mind (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973). The availability heuristic could also be seen to enforce and enhance the existence of the status quo bias, considering how the status quo is what people are exposed to the most. Therefore, the status quo could occur to the person easier than the alternative, leading to them overestimating the probability of the status quo happening relative to the alternative. Also, PERSONALITY, INFORMATION SAMPLING, STATUS QUO BIAS 5 the status quo bias could be considered a heuristic because of the simplification it gives to the decision-making process. Furthermore, Willems (1998) shows that people rely on simplification mechanisms and shortcuts when sampling information under time pressure or when the information is complex. By using a decision board1 he showed that people sample information differently when the information is presented in a complex way. Also, the author found that subjects did not look at additional information presented on the decision board when under time pressure. In his research it was shown that subjects started using compensating strategies when they were presented with time pressure and/or when the information presented was complex. As described earlier, research has shown that different situational and cognitive factors can influence information sampling process and decision-making. Research has also shown that information sampling is not a completely rational process. However, not much research has been done to examine the possible effect of personal characteristics on the status quo bias and information sampling. Therefore, this research looks at the personality trait ‘openness to experience’ and/or a person’s level of ‘creativity’ in relation to the process of information sampling and the status quo bias. First, the definitions of openness to experience and creativity will be presented to highlight their relation to information sampling and the status quo bias: Openness to experience is defined by McCrae (1993) as the following: “openness is seen in the breadth, depth, permeability of consciousness, and in the recurrent need to enlarge and examine experiences”. Freely interpreted, people with an open mind are more in need of examining already existing experiences and to enlarge their current set of experiences. This need to 1 A decision board is a tool to analyse sampling behaviour. In general, a decision board looks a bit like a memory board. Participants can via opening different boxes look at information. However, a decision board can also take different forms depending on what kind of sampling behaviour is desired to be analysed. PERSONALITY, INFORMATION SAMPLING, STATUS QUO BIAS 6 enlarge experiences could indicate that open people are more interested in examining the alternative instead of the status quo. Furthermore, ‘creativity’ is defined as “the ability to produce work that is novel” (El-Murad & West, 2004). Creating something novel can only happen when you let go of the existing, which could indicate that creative individuals are more able to consider the alternative over the status quo. Moreover, George and Zhou (2001) also found a relation between creativity and openness to experience. They explain that openness to experience may serve to encourage creative behavior. This would further lead to more explorative behavior of the alternative, because both traits appear to enhance the interest of the new, as the definitions also point out. In addition, research in political psychology has shown that