Aversion To Change

Reply to HardWorker Depends on what you understand as change. What this saying refers to is when a tradition is disrupted or the change comes after a period of consistency. Especially if there is minimal consultation.

In relation to Christmas a change would be not getting a present for the first time, or indeed getting a present for the first time. We do also speak of welcome changes. Democracy after dictatorship may be another such example - although there are always counterrevolutionaries

Generally we are ambivalent or hostile to change when something new and unsettling is required from us after a period of stability.

Quoting HardWorker

as a general rule, humans have an aversion to change.

I would add to that "...that has questionable, or no, value to them." Your christmas present scenario is an example of change with potential value, therefore change is good. However, waking up and finding that you are now responsible for hand washing all the dishes would likely find a less enthusiastic response. The best example that I can think of to demonstrate how change value is assigned based on personal values would be the response to covid measures. Some people support the masking, others hate it. Same with vaccines; many said "Yay! it's about time." Others "Get that crap away from me". Exactly the same product, very different response to change. Based on perceived value.

Quoting HardWorker

Some people might say that as a general rule, humans have an aversion to change.

How very prudent! It's a physical fact that any change to a complex system is more likely to be detrimental than beneficial, which is the basic reason change should be systematic and incremental. Otherwise, people suffer!

Small, incremental changes are good. But If you change too many things at once, then people fall apart. Humans are habitual creatures, and our entire lives are built upon systems and expectations.

Reply to Kasperanza

You new? May I give you some hints on how to reply - using the little curly arrow, bottom left, next to where it says 3 hours ago. If you click on that curly arrow - it will notify me of your reply, and you won't have to wait three hours for me to notice!

Also, I'll get a notification if you highlight a passage in the text of the post you're responding to - and hit the 'quote' button that pops up, and it will transfer that passage to the dialogue box - like so:

Quoting Kasperanza

Small, incremental changes are good. But If you change too many things at once, then people fall apart. Humans are habitual creatures, and our entire lives are built upon systems and expectations.

Welcome. I look forward to reading your posts - especially if you continue to agree with everything I say!

Reply to counterpunch

Yes, I'm new. I'm not familiar with quoting on here yet.

I'll add that I'm all for tradition and progress. We should maintain traditions that serve us and throw them out when they become outdated. But we shouldn't throw them out too quickly. What doesn't kill makes you stronger. In other words, what's old and feeble should be replaced with something new, but not at the expense of your entire identity and sense of stability.

This reminds of the Ship of Theseus. If we can kill off parts of ourselves, we can transform into something greater, while still maintaining our identity.

So sometimes its not change but lack of change that we have an aversion to, to be specific, lack of desired change.

For example, lets say a high school student wants to get a football scholarship to this university they want to go to and they don't get the scholarship and as a result the student is very upset. Getting the football scholarship would've been a change for the student, but the student is upset not because they got the scholarship but because they didn't get the scholarship. So in this case its not change but its lack of change that makes the student upset.

Anybody familiar with the show Gilmore Girls, there is this scene where Paris Geller comes to school looking like a zombie and goes off on this speech about how she didn't get into Harvard. For Paris to get into Harvard that would've been a change for her. The reason she came to school looking like a zombie and had a meltdown was not because she got into Harvard but because she didn't get into Harvard, so it wasn't change that caused Paris all that grief it was lack of change.

So there you have it, it isn't always change but often lack of change that we have an aversion to.

Reply to HardWorker

everything changes

slowly

eternal evolution

Reply to HardWorker Ok, The 1990's movie "Wayne's World" has a scene where the media executive Benjamin is asking Garth how he would feel about a change and reminds him it's in his contract. Garth's reaction is "we fear change!" and starts smashing objects on his work bench with a hammer.

Quoting counterpunch

You new? May I give you some hints on how to reply - using the little curly arrow, bottom left, next to where it says 3 hours ago. If you click on that curly arrow - it will notify me of your reply, and you won't have to wait three hours for me to notice!

If you had really cared that much about the substance of the conversation rather than whether someone noticed you or not, then you wouldn’t have had to be given notice that someone replied to you.

This forum has devolved into a never ending treadmill of OPs whose value diminishes to the extent that they are like the head of the hydra: for every one cut off three more are generated.

Quoting HardWorker

Some people might say that as a general rule, humans have an aversion to change. I would have to disagree, if you ask me it would depend on the change.

As a child, ever experience the rush of opening a Christmas present? That's a change. This Christmas present that you had on your wish list, before you got the present you didn't have it. Now on Christmas morning when you open the present and its what you wanted, now you've got it. What you didn't have previously now you've got, so that's a change, and if you ask me its a really nice change, certainly not the kind of change I would have an aversion to.

That is just one example of a change that might be a desire as opposed to an aversion

Change occurs and either it's for the better or for the worse. One of the unspoken, unwritten rules of life is to find a niche for oneself (relationship, job, whathaveyou) and achieve some kind of equilibrium with it. This naturally results in a more or less stable (read: no or minor variations/change) state of well-being. Change then becomes a threat for it signals disequilibrium, your well-being is coming under fire so to speak. Thus, we're averse to change - it usually doesn't bode well for a person.

That said, change for the better is as real as real can get but I suspect such occur few and far between and when it happens we thank our lucky stars and that's precisely the point!

Reply to HardWorker On the micro-level, change is a constant. The same on the macro level but might be a bit too slow to notice. People do not have an aversion to change, they have at least some aversion to adversity. A little adversity is OK. I enjoy a big thunderstorm and wind. Most people are willing to tolerate quite a lot of adversity--especially when it is other people's adversity.

Quoting HardWorker

As a child, ever experience the rush of opening a Christmas present?

No. it was always a lump of coal. Me and my siblings developed an intense, revolutionary longing for change. Sadly, we didn't get that either.

Quoting HardWorker

So sometimes its not change but lack of change that we have an aversion to, to be specific, lack of desired change.

This demonstrates the way we anticipate any change as pleasant/unpleasant and requiring high/low effort.

Change is part of life, so it isn’t that we have an aversion to change, but that we often don’t feel prepared for it. When we’re prepared for a change that doesn’t happen, the result is as unpleasant as if we were unprepared for a change that we cannot avoid. This is because any pleasantly anticipated ‘change’ is easily integrated into our conceptual reality, and will take time, attention and effort to be extricated from future predictions, with no pay-off.

To everybody who replied, thank you for all your great replies. :-)

Anyway, here is a video of zombie Paris having her meltdown about not getting into Harvard, she's having a meltdown because she didn't get the change she wanted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJkcGkUyUa8&t=41s