Status Quo Bias

When we try to stop drinking, we're doing much more than trying to abstain from a bad habit. Status quo bias refers to exactly what it sounds like, our tendency to stick to what we've got, and importantly, to value it, whatever it is, more than what we don't have, simply because we don't have that stuff.  A cup costs five dollars.  I buy the cup.  You come around, offer me five dollars for the cup.  I'm unwilling to sell it for under seven, let's say.  Why?  (Sans transactions costs)-- Status quo bias.  Which is almost a tautology of sorts, which is likewise okay.

The take home point: we might be unwilling to trade something for something of higher value than we already have because the calculation of what we have is skewed.  So, paradoxically, because we value what we have more than objectively identical stuff, we might not always trade up to better stuff because of our inherent bias.