Status Quo Bias: Why We Still Change the Clocks

Daylight saving time ends Sunday, November 1, 2026, and the clock change survives because of status quo bias: seven in ten Americans want the switching to stop, but they split on what replaces it, so the default wins. Every year the same complaint comes back, and every year the clocks change anyway. It isn't the farmers (they fought daylight saving time from the start and helped repeal it in 1919), and it isn't energy (when all of Indiana started switching in 2006, home electricity use went up about 1%). The real reason is a split majority. In a 2019 AP-NORC poll, about 3 in 10 Americans wanted to keep switching, 4 in 10 wanted standard time all year, and 3 in 10 wanted daylight time all year. Keeping the current clock needs nobody to agree; changing it needs a majority for one replacement, and that majority has never existed. We test the rule on four real attempts to quit: America's year-round daylight time of 1974 (79% approval before it started, 42% by February, repealed in October), Russia's permanent summer time of 2011 (reversed to permanent winter time in 2014), the European Union's 2019 vote to end clock changes (410 to 192, stalled ever since because member states can't agree on summer or winter time), and the US Senate's 2022 Sunshine Protection Act, passed by unanimous consent on March 15 and never voted on by the House. Then Arizona, the state that did quit, and how to use the same rule the next time a group you're in wants change. Subscribe to Small Rules: a new hidden rule behind everyday life, every day. Method note: the 100-seat hall shows the AP-NORC 2019 poll shares; maps of Arizona, the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Reservation are simplified outlines. Every number shown comes from the sources below. Research referenced AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research (2019): 7 in 10 Americans prefer not to switch clocks; 4 in 10 want standard time all year, about 3 in 10 daylight time all year, about 3 in 10 keep switching. Kotchen & Grant, "Does Daylight Saving Time Save Energy? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Indiana" (NBER, 2008): DST raised home electricity demand about 1%, roughly $9 million a year. Samuelson & Zeckhauser, "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making" (Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1988): people keep the current option far more often than they would choose it fresh. Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act (1973-74): year-round daylight time from January 6, 1974; approval fell from about 79% to 42%; ended in October 1974. European Parliament vote (March 2019, 410-192) and the European Commission's 2018 consultation (84% for ending the change). Sunshine Protection Act (S. 623): passed the Senate by unanimous consent on March 15, 2022; reintroduced in 2023 and 2025. American Academy of Sleep Medicine position statement (2020): favours permanent standard time. Uniform Time Act (1966); Route 2 between Moundsville, WV, and Steubenville, OH, had seven time changes in 35 miles before it. #DaylightSavingTime #FallBack #psychology