How to identify the familiar Illusion: A Brief on cognitive biases

Familiarity Heuristic What is the Familiarity Heuristic

The familiarity heuristic is a mental shortcut that helps our minds decide based on how familiar we are with an object, person, or situation. So, basically, when we experience something that feels known to us, our brains are wired to prefer it over something new. Because, the known has a way of coming off as safer, more comfortable and easier on the processing front, often which leads to forming opinions or making decisions without exploring all avenues of information.

This heuristic is a practical tool that aids decision-making in everyday life, but it also causes biases and judgment errors. Understanding the familiarity heuristic is vital because it can affect everything from our shopping behavior to the individuals we trust–to even adopting a political or social position.

How the Familiarity Heuristic Works

In short, the familiarity heuristic says that we assign a greater probability of truth to ideas because they are familiar. We leverage what we know — or what appears known — to plug the holes. This comes in handy during numerous scenarios when analyzing each and every aspect of the decision is less-than-viable.

Take the case of two brands of cereal – we would subconsciously prefer the one we have seen frequently lying on supermarket shelves or that which we have eaten before for reasons plaguing our minds with familiarity. Particularly when it comes to marketing, relationships, politics and media consumption – this preference for the familiar leads to bias.

Things Which Have Imbalance In The Familiarity Heuristic:

Familiarity: The more we are exposed to something, the daha familiar and desirable it seems.

● Fluency: We tend to trust or believe things that our brains find easier to process due to prior familiarity.

Examples Of Characteristics That Make Us Biased:● Past Experiences — If someone has had a good past experience with something or someone, we have a tendency to be biased toward repeating that again.

Uses of the Familiarity Heuristic

Unconscious Decision Making: Another example of the familiarity heuristic, that appears in different aspects of life. Here are a few examples:

The Basics of Consumer Behavior and Marketing

Growing up, businesses and marketers learnt about the familiarity heuristic. One example is how brand loyalty develops when consumers are repeatedly exposed to a brand logo, product or advertisement. The more often we observe a product or brand, the higher the chance that we will associate it with reliability and integrity and repeat purchases happen.

Social Relationships

We prefer to associate with people or groups that we already find familiar in social contexts. And this may involve making friends or even collaborating with similar people as we are more comfortable around them. Because they are used to dealing with this kind of people they might actually prefer them rather than someone who is totally unknown, even when the latter would portray much more positive traits.

Political Opinions

Familiarity heuristic can also influence our politics. We could form biases towards a politician, policy or ideology we have been exposed to over and over again through media or our social circles — more so than their actual merit. Such bias can lead us into polarized thinking; favouring the same political ideologies or candidates familiar to us, with little consideration of alternatives.

Risk Perception

We may also associate a familiar risk or activity with lower risk, and feel more comfort in regard to it, even if it is objectively higher risk. One could drive a car without much thought but be super apprehensive to fly in an airplane, even though airplane travel is statistically safer — flying just feels more different. The familiarity heuristic can deceive our judgement — We feel safer being familiar than not regardless of the actual danger level.

The Good and the Bad: Showcasing Familiarity Heuristic

Although the familiarity heuristic is a valuable mental shortcut that enables us to quickly make complex decisions, it is also a costly one. That it can cause partial thinking, stop us from experimentation and make us averse to change.

Benefits:

● Time saver: By enabling us to skip the time consuming process of analyzing all information, the familiarity heuristic is an efficient tool in decision making.

● Ease: Familiarity creates security, minimizing anxiety and trust in our choices.

→ Predictability: Familiarity allows us to make predictions about things because most of the time they ended in the same way if we compare them with what happened in past, which involves into more regular decisions in well known context.

Drawbacks:

● Bias: The familiarity heuristic may lead us to ignoring a far superior, innovative or accurate alternative that is unknown.

● Resistance to Change: If not diversifying our options—which functions as unique alternate experiences—we might restrict ourselves from the new and beneficial stuff.

● Overconfidence: When something feels familiar, we might tend to overestimate our knowledge or capability because we may think that if it is familiar, it is most probably right/good.

Fighting the & Worst, Most Familiar; You Should Wish to Discover More Awareness

Although the familiarity heuristic is a cognitive shortcut we naturally use, awareness of it can help us make better and more balanced decisions. So, here are some approaches to reduce the impact caused by familiarity heuristic :

Expand Your Exposure

Keep exposing yourself to new environments, people and knowledge, otherwise you will get too comfortable in the known. For instance, look to different brands of products, see how people from other walks of life live, or read about new subject areas; these will all help escape the prejudices which breed familiarity.

Question Your Assumptions

When you're making a decision, think whether you are going for something just because that is the best choice or just because you have been doing it. Dare yourself to embrace outside options and balance them versus the defaults.

Seek Information from Various Perspectives

Foster open-mindedness by exploring diverse perspectives, outlets and experiences — particularly within news reading and social media use. Doing this may lessen the impact of the familiarity heuristic and keep you from getting stuck in echo chambers of familiar thoughts.

Critical Thinking

Cultivate higher quality decisions by making them more explicit and easier to question. Rather than follow what is tried-and-true, take a moment to assess every option available, weigh the risks and think in terms of years.