Change: Why do we fear it?

“Fear of change is a natural impulse; the desire to pull up the drawbridge follows. But as we have repeatedly reported, that response is irrational and self-defeating” (New Scientist, 18 June 2016, volume 230(3078), 5).

Why do human beings fear and resist change? Every day in our lives, more things change than stay the same. Change is the most stable and enduring condition of life on planet Earth.

Yet, collectively, humans do all they can to fight the very notion of change. We find it frightening to the point where we are paralyzed by fear, anxiety, and stress–and ripe for manipulation by actors who use that fear to gain power (political, economic, social, etc.) at our expense and cost.

Why do humans fear change? How do humans react to the prospect of change? What are the consequences of those reactions?

What does the research say?

**updated April 2025**

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Sources:

*Barbalet, J. M. (1995). Climates of fear and socio-political change. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 25(1), 15-33.

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*Craig, M. A., Rucker, J. M., & Richeson, J. A. (2018). The Pitfalls and Promise of Increasing Racial Diversity: Threat, Contact, and Race Relations in the 21st Century. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(3), 188-193.

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*Dowbiggin, I. R. (2009). High anxieties: The social construction of anxiety disorders. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry / La Revue Canadienne De Psychiatrie, 54(7), 429-436.

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*Jackson, D. D. (2010). The Fear of Change (1967). Journal of Systemic Therapies, 29(2), 69-73.

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*Kelly, A. C., & Dupasquier, J. (2016). Social safeness mediates the relationship between recalled parental warmth and the capacity for self-compassion and receiving compassion. Personality and Individual Differences, 89, 157-161.

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*Proch, J., Elad‐Strenger, J., & Kessler, T. (2019). Liberalism and conservatism, for a change! Rethinking the association between political orientation and relation to societal change. Political Psychology, 40(4), 877-903.

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Questions? Please let me know —

engelk@grinnell.edu