This article could have been titled "people don't fear "change", they fear changes that make things worse", which sounds like it could be stashed under "obvious", but experience and studies I've seen lead me to believe that unless there is very little ambiguity (e.g. receiving 1 million dollars vs getting punched in the face) people have a fundamental issue with change itself.

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has done a ton of research that shows people are really, really bad at understanding how change will affect them. They think bad things will be way worse than they are, and that good things will be way better. Occasionally, they will even convince themselves that something better is worse. It's why kids going away to college are scared despite history and everybody they know telling them it will be the best ever, and why people stay in jobs they 100% know they hate.

Humans are really good at adapting. After adapting there is comfort, even in stuff that sucks, and any change COULD be worse so our silly brains go into catastrophize mode. 

Perhaps the fear about change is that in the past, changes people have experienced made things worse.

Especially since Dan Gilbert says we're bad at predicting how we will feel, perhaps our bad past experiences are what drive us to be reluctant about any changes.