Question
What is schema resistance?
Quick Answer
Established schemas persist even when contradicted by evidence.
Established schemas persist even when contradicted by evidence.
Example: You learn that a colleague you've judged as 'uncommitted' has been working 60-hour weeks on a project you didn't know about. Your immediate reaction isn't to update the schema. It's to explain it away: 'They're probably just catching up on things they dropped.' The evidence is right there. But the schema was there first, and it fights to stay.
This concept is part of Schema Foundations in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for schema foundations.
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Go beyond the answer
This topic is part of Change the System, Not Just the People — a guided sequence of 20 lessons.
After completing this path you will understand why organizations resist change (it's a systems property, not stubbornness), know how to read and translate the mental models others can't see, have stakeholder mapping and coalition-building skills that make good ideas actually happen, and be able to shift from frustrated critic to effective architect of organizational evolution.
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