Conservatism bias (belief revision)

Biological Parallel

Honeybee colonies resist changing foraging decisions even when flower patches become depleted. Scout bees perform waggle dances encoding patch location and quality, but the colony requires overwhelming consensus before redirecting foragers—a single depleted patch must be confirmed by multiple independent scouts before the swarm revises its belief. This conservatism prevents chaotic switching based on noisy signals, but can trap colonies exploiting declining resources when environmental shifts accelerate.