Mind Trap #8 | The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

"when you become aware of something— a new type of pasta—and it seems to suddenly appear everywhere. Frequency illusion, it’s also called.”

 This blog is part of our series of some advanced Mind Traps which will help you overcome difficult situations and equip you with more wisdom for daily living. These include:

  1. Cognitive Dissonance
  2. Spotlight Effect
  3. Anchoring Effect
  4. Halo Effect
  5. Gambler's Fallacy
  6. Contrast Effect
  7. Confirmation Bias
  8. Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon
  9. Zeigarnik Effect

 

 The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

  • What is it?
    • the false impression that something happens more frequently than it actually does.
    • This often occurs when we learn something new.
    • Suddenly, this new thing seems to appear more frequently
      • when in reality it's only our awareness of it that has increased.
  • Example
    • you buy a red car and suddenly you start seeing that red car everywhere
      • whereas you didn’t see so many red cars in the past
      • this car must be so popular
    • when you learn a new word
      • you start noticing that word being used everywhere
  • We have a tendency
    • after noticing something for the first time → we tend to notice it more often
    • we have an increased awareness of something
  • This is often inflated with 2 other biases
    • Recency bias
      • amplifies the importance of recent stimuli
    • Confirmation bias
      • confirms in your mind that these strange coincidences have some kind of meaning
      • so it keeps notifying you of similar instances
  • our brain is an excellent pattern recognition machine
    • with all the info coming into your brain → it ignores most of it
    • it only pays attention to things we are looking out for
  • you see red cars all the time
    • but your mind isn’t interested in it to notify you


 

 


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