Why Some People Resist Change at Work – Psychology Explains What May Be Behind the Reaction

Every workplace has someone who seems uncomfortable whenever a new system, manager, supplier or seating arrangement is introduced.

The reaction may not look dramatic. There may be no argument or open refusal. Instead, the person becomes quiet and starts asking detailed questions. What happens to the handover? Who will approve the work? Will responsibilities change? What happens if the new process does not work?

It is easy to describe this person as stubborn or resistant to change. But that explanation may be too simple.

Psychology suggests that people’s responses to uncertainty can be shaped by previous experiences, expectations and learned patterns of attention. For some people, an unpredictable environment early in life may have made uncertainty particularly important to monitor.

That does not mean every person who dislikes change had a difficult childhood. Resistance to change is common, and many factors can contribute to it. But understanding the possible reasons behind the reaction can lead to a more useful response than simply labelling someone as difficult.

Stubbornness

Imagine two employees receiving the same news: their department will be reorganised in six weeks.

One accepts the announcement and waits for more information. Another immediately asks several questions about reporting lines, responsibilities, deadlines and the transition process.

The second employee may appear negative, particularly if others are ready to move on.

But asking questions is not necessarily opposition. It can be an attempt to reduce uncertainty.

People differ in how comfortable they are with incomplete information. For someone who strongly prefers predictability, an announcement without details may create more mental discomfort than it does for a colleague who is comfortable waiting.

The behaviour can therefore look like resistance when the underlying motivation is a desire to understand what happens next.

Childhood

Research into early development provides one possible explanation for why uncertainty affects people differently.

Researchers including Tallie Baram and Elysia Davis have studied unpredictability in early caregiving environments. Rather than focusing only on whether caregiving is positive or negative, this work examines how consistent or unpredictable sensory experiences can be.

Research has linked greater unpredictability in some early caregiving experiences with differences in children’s development of effortful control and with later fear and anxiety symptoms.

However, these findings need to be interpreted carefully. Such studies are generally correlational and do not establish that an unpredictable childhood directly causes a person to resist change as an adult.

They also do not suggest that every household with inconsistent routines is harmful.

The more useful takeaway is that early experiences can influence what people learn to monitor. If circumstances repeatedly change without clear warning, uncertainty itself may become something a person pays close attention to.

Attention

A person’s environment can shape what their brain learns to notice.

Research by psychologist Seth Pollak and colleagues offers an example from studies of children who experienced maltreatment. In one experiment, children who had experienced physical abuse identified anger from facial expressions using less visual information than other children.

Their recognition of happiness and sadness did not show the same pattern.

The researchers interpreted this as evidence that experience can influence perceptual attention. When recognising signs of anger has particular importance in a child’s environment, the child may become especially sensitive to those signals.

The findings should not be extended too broadly. The research involved children who had experienced maltreatment, which is a specific and severe context. It does not mean that ordinary discomfort with workplace change is evidence of childhood trauma.

The broader principle is more modest: repeated experiences can influence which environmental cues people become especially sensitive to.

Uncertainty

Why can uncertainty feel so uncomfortable?

Research on anxiety suggests that unpredictability can itself contribute to distress. Dan Grupe and Jack Nitschke, in a review of the neuroscience of anxiety, discussed how uncertainty about potential threats can increase anticipation and vigilance.

When people cannot predict what will happen, they have fewer opportunities to prepare for a specific outcome.

That can encourage repeated mental simulations: What if this happens? What if that changes? What happens after that?

In a workplace, an employee who repeatedly asks for details may therefore be trying to turn an uncertain situation into a more predictable one.

The questions may not mean they believe the change will fail. They may simply need more information before they feel ready to act.

Status Quo

There is also a broader psychological tendency that affects people regardless of their childhood experiences: the status quo bias.

In their influential 1988 research, William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser found that people often show a preference for maintaining existing arrangements, even when alternatives may offer advantages.

Several factors can contribute to this preference, including loss aversion, uncertainty, switching costs and the desire to avoid regret.

This helps explain why workplace change can generate resistance even among people who generally have no strong fear of uncertainty.

The familiar system has known problems, but the new system has unknown ones. People often know exactly what they are giving up and cannot yet see what they will receive.

Early experiences may influence how strongly uncertainty is felt, but the preference for familiar arrangements is widespread.

Management

For managers, the distinction matters.

Telling someone, “There is nothing to worry about,” may provide reassurance but not much useful information. A person concerned about uncertainty may benefit more from specific details.

Explain what will change, when it will happen and who will be responsible.

It can also help to explain what will remain unchanged. Employees often focus on what they might lose, so identifying stable parts of their role can provide useful context.

Where practical, establish a review date. A change can feel less permanent when there is a defined opportunity to evaluate whether the new arrangement is working.

The aim is not to eliminate every concern. Some resistance can reveal genuine problems in a proposed change.

Planning

Individuals who find uncertainty difficult can also use practical strategies.

One approach is to turn vague concerns into specific predictions.

Instead of thinking, “This new system will be a disaster,” write down a testable concern such as, “This process may add two hours to my weekly workload.”

Then review the prediction later.

This separates the emotional reaction from the factual outcome and can make it easier to evaluate whether the concern was accurate.

Implementation intentions can also help. Psychologists Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran have studied the use of if-then plans, in which a person decides in advance how they will respond to a particular situation. Their meta-analysis found that these plans can improve goal achievement.

For example: “If the new schedule creates a problem, I will document the issue and raise it with my manager that week.”

A concrete response gives uncertainty somewhere to go.

Perspective

If you are the person who struggles with change, it can help to separate two questions: “Is this change actually harmful?” and “Does this change feel uncomfortable?”

The answers can be different.

A new process may be reasonable while still producing a strong emotional reaction. Recognising that distinction does not require ignoring concerns. It simply creates space to examine them more carefully.

Likewise, if you manage someone who resists change, it can be useful to distinguish genuine criticism from discomfort with uncertainty.

Someone who notices potential problems early can be valuable to a team. Their caution may reveal weaknesses that enthusiastic colleagues overlook.

The goal is not to eliminate that sensitivity. It is to make sure the radar does not automatically become a veto.

Resistance to change is therefore not always a simple personality trait. Sometimes it reflects ordinary status quo bias. Sometimes it reflects a preference for predictability. And in some cases, a person’s earlier experiences may have influenced how strongly they respond to uncertainty.

Knowing the difference can make workplace conversations more productive. Instead of asking why someone is being difficult, it may be more useful to ask what information, predictability or evidence they need to move forward.

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