Conservatism Bias and Why You Keep Doing the Things You’ve Always Done

You trust old information more than new information. You believe the way you’ve always done things is better than trying something different. And that belief, comfortable as it is, is probably keeping you stuck.

Welcome to Conservatism Bias, one of the most common cognitive biases you have. It’s the mental shortcut that makes you hang onto the old and avoid the new. It’s what makes you dismiss fresh evidence in favour of outdated beliefs. It’s why you keep doing things the same way even when they’re clearly not working.

And it gets stronger as you get older.

The Comfortable Cage

Your brain is built for efficiency. It doesn’t want to relearn things constantly. Once it figures something out, it creates a mental shortcut, a pattern, a default response. That’s good for survival. It means you don’t have to consciously think about every single action you take.

But once those patterns are set, your brain resists changing them. It treats your existing beliefs and methods as truth, even when presented with contradicting evidence. New information gets filtered through old assumptions. Different approaches get compared to familiar ones and found wanting, not because they’re inferior, but because they’re unfamiliar. Ward Edwards first documented this back in 1968, showing that people consistently underweight new evidence when updating their beliefs. You might think you’re being rational. You’re actually being lazy, in the most neurological sense of the word.

When your default solution to any problem is “the way we’ve always done it,” regardless of whether it actually worked, you’re being controlled by Conservatism Bias. When you dismiss new methods because they’re different rather than because they’re wrong, that’s Conservatism Bias. When you cling to old information simply because it’s familiar, that’s Conservatism Bias.

And it’s costing you.

Why New Feels So Hard

Here’s why Conservatism Bias is so powerful. New is hard. New requires effort. New doesn’t happen automatically. New means more cognitive load, more energy, more mistakes while you’re learning. Old, on the other hand, is easy. Old habits require no thought. Old patterns run on autopilot. Old ways feel natural because they are natural. They’re literally embedded in your neural pathways through repetition.

Charles Duhigg explains this brilliantly in his research on habit loops. Once a behaviour becomes automatic, it shifts from your prefrontal cortex (the thinking part) to your basal ganglia (the autopilot part). Your brain is essentially trying to conserve energy, and learning something new burns through it like a bonfire while doing something old barely flickers a candle. So when you’re tired, stressed, or overwhelmed, your brain defaults to Conservatism Bias. It reaches for what’s familiar. What’s comfortable. What requires the least effort. Even if what’s familiar isn’t working.

I see this constantly in my practice. People using the same coping mechanisms that failed them twenty years ago. Approaching problems the same way they always have. Making the same mistakes on repeat because trying something different feels too effortful when they’re already exhausted.

Martin’s Story

Let me be clear about something. Old ways are not automatically bad. Some old methods work brilliantly. Some traditional approaches have stood the test of time for good reason. But old isn’t automatically better either. And that’s where Conservatism Bias trips you up. It makes you assume that because something is familiar, it’s superior. Because you’ve always done it that way, that must be the right way.

That’s not logic. That’s bias.

Martin ran a small business that had been losing customers steadily for three years. His pricing model, his opening hours, the way he took bookings, all of it was set up exactly as it had been when he took over the business from his father twenty years earlier.

“Has it always worked?” I asked.

“No,” he admitted. “But it’s how I’ve always done it.”

That’s Conservatism Bias in one sentence.

The established way of doing things becomes so deeply embedded that even obvious improvements get resisted, not because they’re bad ideas, but because they’re different ideas.

The old ways aren’t always better. Sometimes they’re just old.

The Entrenchment Effect

Here’s what makes Conservatism Bias so insidious. It compounds over time. The older you get, or the more entrenched you become in old ways of thinking, the stronger this bias becomes. Why? Because the longer you’ve been doing something one way, the more invested you are in that way being right. Changing would mean admitting you’ve potentially been wrong for years or decades. And your ego really doesn’t want to admit that. So you double down. You find reasons why the old way is actually better. You dismiss new evidence. You cherry-pick data that supports your existing beliefs and ignore data that challenges them.

Psychologists call this belief perseverance, and it pairs beautifully with Conservatism Bias to keep you locked in patterns that stopped serving you years ago. A comprehensive review of confirmation bias shows just how aggressively we seek out information that confirms what we already think, while actively avoiding anything that might prove us wrong. It’s not that you can’t see the new evidence. It’s that your brain is filtering it out before it even reaches your conscious awareness.

Businesses collapse because leadership refuses to adapt. I see people’s lives crumble because they won’t try different solutions. Careers stagnate because people won’t learn new skills or adopt new technologies. All because old feels safe and new feels threatening.

The Cost of Not Adapting

The world changes whether you change with it or not. Technology evolves. Markets shift. Relationships require fresh approaches. Your body ages and needs different care. What worked at twenty doesn’t work at forty or fifty. What succeeded a generation ago fails today.

Remember Blockbuster? They had the opportunity to buy Netflix for $50 million in 2000. They turned it down. Because their business model had always been physical rental stores. That’s how they’d always done things. That’s what worked. Except it didn’t work anymore. They just didn’t want to see it.

Conservatism Bias killed Blockbuster. And it’s killing your progress too, just more slowly and in ways you can rationalise away.

You’re not preserving what worked. You’re preserving what used to work while pretending it still does.

Breaking Free

So how do you beat Conservatism Bias when your brain is literally wired to prefer old information and familiar methods?

First, recognise it. When you catch yourself saying “this is how we’ve always done it,” pause. Ask yourself whether this is actually the best way, or just the familiar way. Is there evidence this works, or just a history of doing it? Be honest. Strip away the comfort of familiarity and look at results.

Second, actively seek disconfirming evidence. Your brain naturally looks for information that supports what you already believe. Research on growth mindset shows that people who actively seek challenges to their existing thinking learn faster, adapt better, and achieve more than those who protect their current beliefs. Force yourself to ask the uncomfortable question. What if I’m wrong?

Third, experiment with new approaches in low-stakes situations. You don’t have to revolutionise your entire life overnight. Pick one area where you’re stuck in old patterns and try something different. Just as a test. Small, deliberate experiments like this, kept short and low-stakes, are enough to break the automatic pattern without demanding a total overhaul.

Give it a month. A proper month, not three half-hearted attempts. Let yourself be uncomfortable. Let it feel strange. Let it require thought and energy. Then assess. Is the new way actually better? Not more comfortable. Better. More effective. Better results.

Old Isn’t Always Wrong

You don’t need to overhaul everything. You don’t need to abandon all tradition and old methods. You just need to stop assuming old equals best.

Old ways of thinking got you to where you are. But if where you are isn’t where you want to be, old ways aren’t going to get you anywhere new. Sometimes you need to try something different. Sometimes the unfamiliar approach is the right approach. Sometimes the method that requires effort and learning and temporary discomfort is exactly what you need.

Conservatism Bias will tell you to stick with what you know. To trust the old information. To do it the way you’ve always done it.

But the way you’ve always done it brought you here. And if here isn’t good enough, something has to change.

That something is you.

Further reading

• Edwards, W. (1968). Conservatism in human information processing. In B. Kleinmuntz (Ed.), Formal Representation of Human Judgment. Wiley.
• Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124-1131.
• Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford University Press.
• Langer, E. J. (1989). Mindfulness. Addison-Wesley.
• Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset. Random House.
• Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits. Avery.
• Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations (5th ed.). Free Press.
• Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175-220.
• Duhigg, C. (2012). The Power of Habit. Random House.