People Avoid Trying New Things

People Avoid Trying New Things (that require learning)

Why is it that people are afraid of trying new things? The reason is, as humans, it is normal to have a fear of the unknown.

Habits are powerful and trying new things always includes the possibility of immediate costs if we don’t like the result. We risk not liking the new thing, we risk failure, we fear feeling incompetent or silly or we fear the judgement of others if we aren’t immediately good at something.

Having a routine, or fixed habits, is reassuring for people and gives them a sense of security and peace. Trying new things disturbs the peace.

New Learning in College

Aside from the ritual of earning a college degree to get a better job, people in general avoid situations where they must learn new things. And in many cases, people actually hate the idea if studying. Learning anxiety comes from being afraid to try something new for fear that it will be too difficult, that we will look stupid in the attempt, or that we will have to part from old habits that have worked for us in the past. Learning something new can label us as the deviant in the groups we belong to. Or it can threaten our self-esteem and, in extreme cases, even our identity.

Sophophobia is most easily defined as “a fear of learning.”

All learning is fundamentally coercive because you either have no choice, as is the case for children, or it is painful to replace something that is already there with some new learning. Let’s not forget that kids’ learning is entirely based on having to negotiate an environment that is almost totally controlled by others. Indeed, the family is probably the best example of indoctrination there is; we totally manage the milieu of kids so we can imbue them with the value system we want.

The Paradox in Trying New Things

Anxiety inhibits learning, but anxiety is also necessary if learning is going to happen at all. But to understand this, we’re going to have to speak about something managers don’t like to discuss—the anxiety involved in motivating people to “unlearn” what they know and learn something new.

You can’t talk people out of their learning anxieties; they’re the basis for resistance to change. And given the intensity of those fears, none of us would ever agree to trying new things unless we experienced the second form of anxiety, survival anxiety—the horrible realization that in order to make it, you’re going to have to change.

The most important lesson here (no pun intended) is that learning only happens when survival anxiety is greater than learning anxiety. That means you can increase survival anxiety by threatening people with loss, punishment or reward, or you can decrease learning anxiety by creating a safer environment for unlearning and new learning.

The problem is that the creation of psychological safety is usually very difficult. Psychological safety is also in short supply when a company is downsizing or undergoing a major structural change.

Most companies prefer to increase survival anxiety because that’s the easier way to go. Common managerial practices emphasize the stick over the carrot, which means companies are accidentally building in strong resistance to learning.

It is important to distinguish between forcing people to learn something they can see the need to accept—such as new computer skills—and asking them to learn something that seems questionable to them. There will always be learning anxiety, but if the employee accepts the need to learn, then the process can be facilitated.

The sad conclusion I reach when writing this article is if a person is “intellectually curiosity” it is probably just the product of earlier anxieties.

People Avoid Trying New Things