Effect Where After You See Something You See It Again Within 24 Hours
Baader Meinhof phenomenon, every bit called Frequency Bias is an effect where something you recently saw, heard, or experienced pops up everywhere.
In this article, I will embrace:
- What the Baader Meinhof phenomenon is
- Why it occurs
- Real life examples of the effect
- How to overcome it
When I made up my mind to purchase a new automobile a couple of years ago, I shortlisted a few options. I visited showrooms, checked them out, and even did a exam bulldoze. During i of the visits, a salesman asked me to await at one specific car which was more expensive.
Though he knew my budget, he did what salespeople practise best. "Just take a wait. Y'all practise not have to buy it," he said.
From that moment, the automobile felt like my new found love. Wherever I went, I started seeing the same vehicle. It was on the streets, some people at work had it, and I could spot information technology in the parking areas of restaurants. Heck, fifty-fifty TV ads and billboards started shoving the car in my face.
"And so the car is conspicuously the latest trend," I told myself. Thankfully, the car was 30% over the upkeep I had in mind, so I convinced myself non to purchase it. A few years later, I read virtually the Baader Meinhof miracle and realized why I saw the aforementioned vehicle everywhere.
Contents
- What is the Baader Meinhof phenomenon?
- Why does the frequency bias occur?
- Selective attending:
- Confirmation bias:
- Examples of Baader Meinhof phenomenon
- ane. Shopping
- 2. Buying loftier priced stuff
- 3. Investment opportunities
- 4. New business idea
- 5. New discussion
- 6. Marketing
- 7. Social Media and E-commerce sites
- 8. Having a crush on someone
- How to overcome the Baader Meinhof phenomenon?
- Conclusion
What is the Baader Meinhof miracle?
Baader Meinhof miracle is an effect where something you recently encountered, experienced, or learned, of a sudden shows up everywhere. The bias can apply to an object, an event, a concept, an idea, a word, and so on. Once y'all find something you lot never knew before, you showtime noticing it in the strangest of places.
Arnold Zwicky called the effect Frequency Bias in 2006. The original proper noun goes back to the 1970s. Y'all might expect that the proper noun originates from the researcher who offset spotted information technology. Merely the real origin volition surprise you lot.
Baader Meinhof is the name of a German Terrorist group. The phenomenon was named after them by a commenter on an online discussion board in the mid-1990s. After the person read nearly the terrorist group, he encountered their proper name twice within 24 hours, even though it had cipher to do with the gang.
Since no researcher knew the reason for the phenomenon and no one had a better culling, the name stuck on forever. Today, psychologists prefer the name frequency bias, possibly due to the ease of pronunciation. The right pronunciation of Baader Meinhof is baa-dur myn-hof.
Read almost xx cognitive biases of the encephalon here.
Why does the frequency bias occur?
From the surface, yous feel like the new thing you learned has magically popped upwards everywhere. In reality, it was always effectually you, but you never paid attention. Once you knew about information technology, you started taking notice.
In my instance, until the salesman showed me the car, I did not even know it existed. The vehicle was on the streets and parking lots every bit always. One time my listen developed an affection for the automobile, I started seeing it everywhere.
Once an object or an thought catches your attention, your brain keeps an unconscious tab on it. You lot think you aren't doing annihilation intentionally.
Yet, your encephalon is far more powerful and does many activities subconsciously. When yous have to bulldoze to work, y'all practise not instruct your hands to steer or your feet to interruption, do yous? You bulldoze on autopilot mode.
Likewise, your encephalon keeps an eye on certain things without your noesis. Every bit a issue, you outset seeing things that you otherwise ignored. Y'all assume those objects were never around before. Because y'all commencement noticing them at present, you believe they are surprisingly common.
Here is a visual which explains how the effect works:
The world around you remained the aforementioned. The only alter was in your head. Once your brain heard most it, you spotted it. The modify gave a false illusion that what you're noticing occurred only recently.
People refer to the effect with various names such as red machine syndrome or bluish auto syndrome.
The Baader Meinhof miracle occurs due to a combination of ii different cerebral biases:
Selective attention:
The world around us is complicated. The encephalon knows what to process and what to ignore to brand sense of our environment. Such knowledge stems from the feel you have gained from the time of your nativity.
For instance, when you lot walk down a street, your eyes tin can come across so many people walking around. You lot spot what colour of clothes they are wearing and how fast they are walking. Even so, your brain does not annals any of that data considering you have learned over the years that it is useless.
Nonetheless, if you spot someone committing a murder, your brain does remember some of the details at least.
Similarly, until you lot acquire nearly the new object, an thought, or a word, your encephalon chooses to ignore it. Once yous gain cognition, your heed starts paying selective attention.
Confirmation bias:
Confirmation bias is the tendency to selectively wait at new data to match your beliefs and assumptions. Yous want your original belief to stay intact. If any information matches your stance, you lot take information technology. If you find any facts that contradict your view, you either detect mistake with them or ignore them equally a one-off example.
In my example, I had made upwardly my mind that the new auto was fantastic. My mind scampered around finding proof to validate my belief.
Evaluating new facts needs free energy, and changing your conventionalities makes you lot uncomfortable. Therefore, the encephalon chooses the path of least resistance – sticking to the original belief.
Your encephalon has a Reticular Activation System(RAS) to assist you navigate through daily functions. Though it runs on autopilot, the RAS does the task based on what you feed it.
For example, presume the grocery store is a five min walk from your business firm. Y'all accept two routes to get at that place. You find ane of them peaceful, or perhaps you find information technology a tad faster. Whatsoever the reason is, you lot will have ane preferred route amid the two.
Your RAS takes your selection as a guideline. Tomorrow, if you are on a telephone phone call and take to buy groceries, y'all volition pick the preferred road. That's your RAS interim without your knowledge.
In one case you like an idea or an object, you feed the conventionalities into your RAS. Your conscious brain might focus on a dissimilar task, just your RAS is looking out for the object. Your eyes observe it on the street, and your brain receives a indicate, blast!
Examples of Baader Meinhof phenomenon
1. Shopping
The most common example of the consequence occurs during shopping. If yous feel like ownership white sneakers, yous volition spot them all over the shopping mall. You will notice shoe stores having more white options than usual. You lot will spot people wearing them, and you might see some outlets offer discounts too.
Your partner walking beside you lot in the same mall will not observe a higher than usual trend in white.
2. Buying high priced stuff
The issue takes higher prominence when you are purchasing items of a higher price similar a motorcar or a house. When you spot something more expensive, your encephalon considers it meliorate. Since yous have learned from childhood that better goods cost more money, you make the same judgment automatically.
Once your brain develops a warmth for the object, you lot outset seeing it all effectually y'all. Such an effect leads to extending the budget to buy the item you fancy. Your want and the frequency bias leads to a higher expense without thinking the decision through or evaluating its real value.
3. Investment opportunities
You hear about a new investment opportunity from a friend. The option might exist stocks, real estate, or common funds. Once you learn about the potential to brand money, you hear nigh people who fabricated millions out of it. Y'all seem to encounter them in existent life and on the cyberspace.
Before y'all heard nearly making coin from such a medium, you lot never knew people around yous were already doing information technology. You believe people take started investing recently. The truth is, y'all spotted it only a while agone.
The aforementioned beliefs causes stocks to ascent and fall. A like mindset played a role in the surge of cryptocurrency. People who had no idea what blockchain was, jumped right in, thinking it was a gilded mine. Sure, the news spread fast during a specific few months, merely your encephalon started hearing virtually it from all sides, once you fancied the thought of making more coin.
4. New business organization idea
When you lot're in the shower, your encephalon flashes an idea which you believe will turn into the adjacent large affair. Allow's say your idea is, a phone projecting a keyboard on whatever surface where you can type.
You volition start noticing business opportunities for unlike scenarios.
- Lengthy message to blazon? A projected keyboard would have helped.
- Have to type faster? A projected keyboard would accept helped.
- Desire to typhoon a document for the CEO? A projected keyboard would have helped.
Though they are non huge marketplace opportunities, your brain believes they have potential.
five. New give-and-take
The frequency bias shows up often when y'all learn a new word. Yous find others using the discussion, you spot it in newspapers and articles. Sometimes you also feel the state of affairs warrants the usage of the word. Baader Meinhof miracle is explained using this case often.
6. Marketing
One of the key tactics of marketing is to trigger your brain with the product the company is trying to sell. TV ads use the same technique to feed the particular into your heed. If not, those commercials would serve no purpose.
For example, when you lot watch your favorite sportsperson beverage a bottle of soda, y'all won't run to the supermarket to buy one. But next time you walk by the rack in the store, you lot of a sudden remember, "Oh, I accept to try this." When millions of people around the world do the aforementioned, the ad turns profitable.
For the aforementioned reason, meaningless merely funny ads or commercials with a catchy song work wonders. They do nothing to explicate the production but register the brand in your encephalon.
7. Social Media and E-commerce sites
Have you tried looking for a specific product on the internet and found similar products on every site you visit? This is non a result of the Baader Meinhof phenomenon though. Shopping sites know what y'all're looking for, and they target those verbal ads to you lot.
When you use the internet, your browser stores some context of your usage. Advertisers use that information to endeavor and brand a sale. If you searched for a Television on Amazon recently, it stores that information. When y'all're on Facebook, Amazon uses that information to display paid ads for you.
The repeated ads yous run across all over the net are due to an intentional marketing technique used by sellers.
8. Having a crush on someone
If you have a vanquish on a person you just met, the result can lead to all the unicorns and rainbows. If you both don't know each other and yous discover out the other person'south name, you lot find people with the same proper noun in movies, articles and your social media. In other variations of the effect, you lot experience similar y'all're running into the same person again and again.
How to overcome the Baader Meinhof phenomenon?
In simple words, yous cannot overcome the consequence. You can only control your actions by awareness. When y'all feel like buying a new sentinel, a bike, or an outfit, you will start noticing it around you. No matter what you do, y'all cannot train your brain to avert such observation. Development has wired your heed to function that manner.
But adjacent time you lot come across such an upshot, all you can do is remind yourself why it happened. Y'all tin avoid consequences such as making the wrong choice or spending additional coin.
Conclusion
The Baader Meinhof miracle is one of the less harmful cognitive biases of the brain. It is easy to spot considering when information technology occurs, you lot sense something foreign. In comparing, other flaws of the mind, such equally confirmation bias, anchoring effect, clustering illusion, happen without your knowledge and influence your decisions earlier you know it. Therefore, the Baader Meinhof miracle is a relatively easier cognitive bias to overcome.
The frequency bias will occur often. Do not think yous have gone crazy. Next time you face it, practice non attempt to fight it, proceed with caution, and do not permit it influence your conclusion.
Exit a comment on your feel with the Baader Meinhof phenomenon.
Maxim Dsouza has spent over a decade experimenting and finding various time management techniques to amend his productivity. He strongly understands the fact that time is a limited commodity and tries to make every 2d count. He has extensive experience in leadership in startups, small businesses, and large corporations.
He has helped people of dissimilar professions and historic period groups gain clarity on their goals, improve focus, revise their time management skills and develop an awareness of their psychological cognitive biases.
Source: https://productiveclub.com/baader-meinhof-phenomenon/
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