Final answer:
It is true that people naturally resist change and defend the status quo due to the comfort and identity it provides. Fear of the unknown and the psychological effort required to reevaluate beliefs contribute to this resistance. This natural defense can make societal and political changes challenging to implement.
Step-by-step explanation:
It is true that when the status quo is upset, individuals naturally defend their established habits and ways of thinking. This defense mechanism is employed to avoid the discomfort associated with change. Humans tend to safeguard their current belief systems and mental habits because they provide a sense of identity, comfort, and structure. This aversion to change is deeply rooted in fear of the unknown or fear that abandoning long-held beliefs may result in a loss of community or personal identity.
Such resistant behavior can manifest in various ways, from the reluctance to reexamine beliefs, the increase of transaction costs to prevent change, to outright opposition to reforms. The conservation of beliefs is mentally economical, since it avoids the effort required to critically examine and potentially revise one's belief system. Furthermore, beliefs that offer solace, such as those related to the afterlife, are clung to with more ferocity because of the psychological comfort they provide against existential uncertainties.
Ultimately, the discomfort associated with new beliefs and the challenge to established power structures make political and societal changes difficult to enact. Changes threaten the benefits that certain individuals or groups derive from existing conditions, leading to an innate bias towards preserving the status quo.