Scottish Independence: Psychologists point to status quo

Jack Houghton
19 January 2014

A spinning wheel might not be the best backdrop for Alex Salmon as he asks Scotland to break from what they know and vote for massive change

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Rather than detailing the economic and political benefits of an independent Scotland, Alex Salmon and those in the Yes Scotland campaign may need to figure out a way to change fundamental human psychology, writes Jack Houghton.

"Understanding why Scotland is unlikely to vote for independence might have less to do with the political and economic reasons bandied about by those leading the competing campaigns, and more to do with human psychology, which seems predisposed to fearing change."

The Betfair market suggests that, when Scots go to the polls in September to answer the question, "Should Scotland be an independent country?", the overwhelming majority will say "No".

At the time of writing, punters think there is an 82 per cent chance (1.232/9) that Scotland will remain within the United Kingdom, and although those odds have slowly drifted since the market opened in December 2013 - from around 1.162/13 - it seems unlikely that they will drift much further.

Understanding why Scotland is unlikely to vote for independence, though, might have less to do with the political and economic reasons bandied about by those leading the competing campaigns, and more to do with human psychology, which seems predisposed to fearing change.

In what is now an overwhelming body of evidence, psychologists have demonstrated that decisions human beings make about change - in any number of areas - are dominated by status quo bias, where we perceive any deviation from the current state of affairs as a loss.

For example, in a 1991 study by Hartman et al, when faced with hypothetical decisions about choosing electricity providers, subjects consistently eschewed the rational choice in favour of the company that was designated as their status quo.

And this predilection towards what we know is demonstrable in all kinds of areas: buying chocolate; selecting an insurance provider; judging artworks; investing in the stock market; even choosing an approach to complementary medicine.

Accepting that human beings, on the whole, are not especially rational in the decisions they make, but overwhelmingly prefer things the way they are, demonstrates the enormity of the problem faced by Alex Salmon and those in the Yes Scotland campaign.

Of particular concern should be the evidence showing that people are even less likely to deviate from the status quo when the decision they face is more complex, and when the status quo has been in existence for longer.

With this firmly a part of our psyches, then, are Scots - faced with an incomprehensibly nuanced set of arguments on both sides of the debate - likely to vote for a change from a status quo that has existed for over 300 years?

Psychologists would say it is unlikely, but then those favouring Scottish independence may take some comfort from other independence referenda, the majority of which have seen new nations emerge, many of them with the overwhelming majority of residents in support of the change.

On the whole, though, the contexts of those successful referenda meant voters faced a very different type of decision than the one Scotland will face in September. For example, when South Sudan emerged as a new nation state in 2011, the 99 per cent of voters who had supported the change were opting to remove themselves from decades of economic ruin and civil war. They had not been part of a unified and stable country, so the decision was hardly a diversion from the status quo at all.

And going back through all of those successful referenda, it's hard to find one where the decision faced by voters was similar to the situation Scotland currently finds itself in: 300 years of stable government and relative economic prosperity.

It might not be the bravest tip I'll ever make, but psychologists tell us that punting the 1.232/9 on "No" might be the safest bet we'll make this year.

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