Re-evaluating a habitual strategy is costly, so individuals stick with it

Evidence

The set effect has been noted in many other psychological studies, and simply reflects the fact that computation is not cost-free, and that often individuals will deploy well-tried strategies even though they may not be the most appropriate way to approach a novel problem. To discover whether a strategy is appropriate or not requires expenditure of precisely the type that an individual may be trying to avoid. In some respects, therefore, the set effect reflects the same kind of “cognitive inertia’ as the confirmation bias. In failing to re-evaluate a procedure when its failure ’? — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 655

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Luhmann/Hardin framework: set effect is a cognitive mechanism that sustains existing social theories without re-evaluation, parallel to how familiarity resists monitoring.