Not Stubborn. Scared, Sceptical or Left Out, Say Dutch Researchers

Ask 2,341 people in the United States and the United Kingdom why they would balk at a change, and you do not get one answer. You get twelve.

That is the finding of a team at Radboud University in the Netherlands, led by the communication scientist Marieke Fransen. The researchers, Fransen, Lisa Vandeberg and A. Denkers, have built a 36-question tool, the Reasons for Resistance to Change Scale, or RRCS, to measure which reasons matter in a given case. Their study, "12 reasons why people resist change," is cited as published in the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology in 2026. ^[2]

The news is a change of question. Most of us, faced with someone who will not budge, ask how to make them. The Radboud work asks what, exactly, they think is at stake.

The list

The twelve reasons, as the researchers name them, are doubts about effectiveness, lack of personal relevance, ethical objections, lack of autonomy, fear of social judgment, doubts about the people driving the change, preference for the status quo, uncertainty about one's own abilities, effort, lack of inclusion, entitlement, and fear of the unknown. ^[1][2]

Read down that list slowly and it stops looking like a list of ways to be difficult. It looks like a catalogue of things a sensible person might worry about.

Some are about the change itself: that it will not work, that it does not concern me, that it is wrong, that it will take too much effort. Some are about the person facing it: that I am not sure I can do it, that I like things as they are, that I fear what I cannot yet see. Some are about power and process: that nobody asked me, that I am losing my say, that I do not trust the people behind this.

That grouping is mine, not the researchers', but it helps to see how different the objections are in kind.

A person who doubts the evidence and a person who feels shut out of the decision may both say "no." They are not saying the same thing.

The same word, different reasons

The study's examples make the point sharply. Fear of the unknown scored highly in relation to a new vaccine. ^[1][2] Resistance to eating less meat looked quite different, associated mainly with a preference for the status quo and a sense that the change was not personally relevant. ^[1][2]

Think what that implies. Someone hesitating over a vaccine and someone declining to cut back on meat might both be called resistant. But the first is, on this evidence, wary of an unfamiliar thing. The second is more likely to be comfortable with what they already do and to see no reason it concerns them.

A leaflet of reassurance might help the first. It would do little for the second.

One reason cut across the changes. Fransen said concerns about autonomy, the sense that one's own choice is being taken away, came up frequently whatever the change was. ^[1][2] Anyone who has been told to do something "for their own good" will recognise the feeling.

Yet the researchers also stress that the mix of reasons varied with the particular change. ^[1][2] Autonomy may be a common thread, but no single reason explains resistance everywhere.

What you would do differently

The practical suggestions Fransen offers are simple, and their appeal is that each answers a particular reason. People who doubt a change will work could be given convincing evidence. People worried about their ability to adapt could be offered support or training. People who feel excluded could be given a say in decisions. ^[1][2]

Notice what each of these leaves out. You do not give evidence to the person who already believes it works but feels bypassed. You do not give a say to the person who simply lacks the skills.

Treating resistance as one problem with one fix means, most of the time, applying the wrong fix with great confidence.

Take the stubborn boss. The usual instinct is to press the case harder, with more data and a better slide deck.

If the objection is doubt about effectiveness, that may be right. If the objection is doubts about the people driving the change, or a feeling that the decision was made over their head, another round of data will confirm that nobody is listening. I am extrapolating here from the researchers' categories, but the logic is theirs: diagnose first.

The reluctant patient is a similar case. A clinician who assumes the patient is simply not trying may be missing that the patient is unsure they can manage it, or does not see why it applies to them, or fears something they cannot picture. Each calls for a different conversation.

Then there is the person who is most often stubborn with themselves. I would suggest, and this is my suggestion and not the study's, that the twelve reasons work as a private checklist.

When you keep not starting the thing you have promised to start, ask which of the twelve is speaking. "I can't be bothered" may be effort. "It's not really my problem" may be a lack of personal relevance. "What will they think" is fear of social judgment. Naming the reason does not fix it, but it tells you where to dig.

Resistance is not the enemy

It would be easy to read all this as a manual for overcoming opposition. Fransen does not frame it that way. She said resistance is not necessarily bad and can help produce a better outcome. ^[1][2]

This is the part of the research I find most worth keeping. A person who raises ethical objections to a plan may have spotted a real problem. A person who doubts the effectiveness of a reorganisation may be right. If you treat all of this as friction to be sanded off, you lose the information it carries.

Fransen argues that measuring the reasons beats guessing why people are not on board. ^[1][2] The measuring is there to help you listen more precisely, and a good manager or clinician might find that the answer is to change the plan.

There is a darker use, and it is worth naming. A questionnaire that sorts people into twelve boxes could become a way to label dissenters and move on. The tool does not prevent that. How organisations use it will decide whether it sharpens listening or just lets them file objections more neatly.

What is not yet known

The study developed a measurement tool from questionnaire answers. It does not show that filling in the scale changes anyone's mind, or that each reason has a guaranteed remedy. The descriptions of the work give no detail on how the 2,341 participants were recruited, how the scale was fully validated, or whether using it improves the success of real change efforts compared with a manager's or doctor's intuition. ^[1][2]

The sample came from two countries, the United States and the United Kingdom, and it is an open question how well the twelve reasons hold elsewhere. The study received partial support from a grant from the Centre for Strategic Communication, Logeion, according to Radboud University. ^[2]

So hold the finding at its proper size. It is a careful map of what people say holds them back, not a proven set of levers.

What to watch

The test that matters comes next. Does a team that measures the reasons before launching a change, and then answers them one by one, get better results than a team that trusts its instincts? Does a clinician who asks the right question get a different answer from the patient?

The full paper and its questionnaire items will show how solid the twelve categories are, and later field studies will show whether knowing them pays off.

Until then, the idea is cheap to try and costs nothing to borrow. Next time someone says no, whether it is a boss, a patient or the voice in your own head, do not ask how to overcome it. Ask which of the twelve it is.