“Because that’s the way we’ve always done things”
We have a tendency to uphold the status quo, even if there’s really no reason to do so. There is often an underlying assumption that somebody somewhere in the company/group/society has determined that the current way of doing things is the “best” way, even if that’s not at all true. People tend to continue to uphold the “status quo”.
Group of Monkeys Story
I’ve heard a story several times about a group of monkeys that illustrates the Status Quo Bias and how it’s not good to blindly accept it. Basically a group of monkeys in a cage were hit with cold water from a hose whenever any of them climbed up a ladder above which was a banana. Eventually the monkeys started policing each other and didn’t let anyone go near the ladder, despite the banana. Slowly the monkeys were replaced. Each time a new monkey was introduced, it would try to climb the ladder to get the banana but would be beaten by the other monkeys. Eventually it would learn “we don’t climb that ladder”. It would then start beating the next monkey that got introduced, and not really know why. Eventually all the monkeys got replaced. They turned off the hose trap, but none of the monkeys ever climbed for the banana even though they had no idea about the hose, but just because “that’s not what we do around here”.
The Status Quo Bias applied to hopes & plans for the future is related to the Sunk Cost Bias.