The Baader Meinhof effect - once you know something, it appears everywhere

Why is that? The answer is now available: a psychological effect.

Try going to a situation of any foreign language learner: You are very interested in a new word that you have just learned. It could be any word, about anything, as long as you pay attention to it.

This phenomenon makes all things familiar.

But then, you start seeing it everywhere, in magazines, on product labels, in a book, on Facebook . It appears more and more and makes you wonder: "Why is it really Accidentally and unexpectedly, everyone used this word? Is it a trend? Or a "classic"?

If you've ever been in this situation and never had an answer, then we have an answer today. Everything comes from a psychological phenomenon, called Baader Meinhof.

Psychedelic effect makes everything very familiar

Basically, Baader Meinhof can be interpreted as a frequency illusion when you first learn about a new information and then it appears everywhere.

This phenomenon happens to most of us, with a simple explanation that when we don't know, we often don't pay attention. When you know it, the brain will pay more attention to it, so you have a feeling that the frequency of that information appears more than usual.

The screening process is part of this phenomenon

For those who do not know, there are many psychological processes that take place when we study, including the process of information selection.

In essence, the reason we have to select information is because the ability to pay attention is limited, so the brain needs to ignore the unimportant details and focus only on really valuable information.

You learn something and remember it, which means that the information has gathered focus from you. The screening will take over the next job, and this is the crux of the story.

Once the information has been selected, you will pay attention to it every time it appears. Before that, the frequency of that information was the same, but because you didn't notice it, you never noticed it.

Baader Meinhof phenomenon is not necessarily bad.

But partly due to bias in perception

That's when you take on a point of view and are extremely confident in it. This makes your brain unconsciously look at examples that support that view, and then the Meinhof Baader effect happens again. It's called "cognitive bias" (cognitive bias) - that is, you tend to pay attention to things you want to see more.

This phenomenon is not bad

Baader Meinhof phenomenon is not necessarily bad. On the contrary, consider it as a way to encourage us to go out and explore new things, opening up unexpected possibilities that the brain doesn't know.

Because if we don't learn, you'll be stuck in just looking back and forth at an old detail. And if you really understand the complexity and vastness of this world, you will find yourself needing to learn as much as you can.

Only that way, you can see interesting, new things around.