Trapped in the Familiar: Longitudinal Influence of Status-Quo Bias on Emotional Well-being during War

This longitudinal study examines the relationship between prewar status-quo bias (SQB) and emotional measurements taken during the Isarel-Hamas War. A sample of 1,053 Israeli participants (ages 25–66; 50% females) was surveyed before and during the war, using the war’s onset as a natural experiment to explore the association of SQB with various measures of subjective well-being and anxiety. The findings indicate that despite stable levels of global life evaluation and meaning in life, the war triggered significant shifts in the affective component of subjective well-being, namely, positive and negative emotions. The results show that prewar SQB levels were concurrently positively associated with negative emotions and negatively associated with positive emotions (in addition to global life evaluation and meaning in life). However, a longitudinal effect was found only for negative emotions during the war, even after controlling for prewar negative emotions and other demographic and war-related variables. Similar results were obtained for anxiety: prewar SQB longitudinally predicted higher levels of anxiety during war, after adjusting for a proxy measure of prewar anxiety and other covariates. This indicates that prewar SQB levels are strongly associated with concurrent variation in negative emotions during national trauma, beyond prior levels. The results have substantial economic implications, suggesting that interventions aimed at reducing SQB (e.g., education that empowers individuals to transcend their familiar boundaries and adapt to adverse changes) may enhance emotional resilience in crisis situations, offering valuable insights for policymakers to improve societal well-being in times of upheaval.