Something that you just learned about seems to be cropping up everywhere in your surroundings; it could be information related to anything which now seems to follow you everywhere that you go. Are you overthinking it or is it really happening? Is it your paranoia or is something larger at work here? We present you “Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon” which basically explains what we stated above. It is the constant appearance of some information that you recently learned or paid attention to. It is also called Frequency Illusion or Frequency Bias.
Carly Leonard, assistant professor, who had recently purchased a purple jacket commented, “I didn’t think I was buying something in trend, and all of a sudden, I started seeing people wearing a jacket of this color everywhere.” She explained Baader-Meinhof perfectly when she said, “This effect occurs because things that are recently important to you receive more attentional processing and are therefore more likely to be consciously perceived,”
Where did the idea of this phenomenon come from? It is said that it comes from Gigetto on Lincoln when he wrote a letter to St. Paul Pioneer Press. Pacific Standard reports, “Baader-Meinhof phenomenon was invented in 1994 by a commenter on the St. Paul Pioneer Press’ online discussion board, who came up with it after hearing the name of the ultra-left-wing German terrorist group twice in 24 hours. The phrase became a meme on the newspaper’s boards, where it still pops up regularly, and has since spread to the wider Internet.”
Back in 2006, Arnold Zwicky, a linguist, put forward the idea when he published an interesting piece named “Why Are We So Illuded?”. According to Zwicky, we first “notice” a particular thing then we start to “believe” that particular something is everywhere in our life.
He interestingly put forth the idea that the frequency illusion comes from the combination of two different phenomena “selective attention” and “confirmation bias”. Now, what are these two? A human brain can ignore non-essential stimuli or information and focus on something which is the process of selective attention. Confirmation bias is when an individual firmly believes that some new information is in complete accordance with their existing thoughts or beliefs. It is interpreting information to back up your theories. It can also involve interpreting the new information so that it fits and matches your old beliefs/thoughts. If Zwicky is correct, frequency illusion occurs when we pay selective attention to some detail in our environment, and then confirmation bias kicks in.
Is it just Zwicky’s illusion or could it be something else? Another angle to look at Baader-Meinhof is that it stems from a person’s increased interest in the newly learned information. Since the individual has an interest in the information, they start paying attention to it in their environment which means that the information was present all along, but they never just noticed it.
Scientists can also fall victim to frequency illusion if they are not careful. When a discovery is being made, the experimenter must try to steer clear of confirmation bias as it can delude him into being biased about their invention. If they are not careful about frequency illusion, they might think that their scientific discovery is in all sense, completely right and will fail to see any evidence against it.
Human beings love seeing a pattern in anything and doctors are no different. If a doctor initially assumes a diagnosis of a patient, they might stick to it due to Baader-Meinhof and even start seeing a pattern that supports their hypothesis. In 2019, a medical student made a diagnosis of “bovine aortic arch” on three separate occasions in just 24 hours. It was because they had learned of the condition recently from a radiologist.
Such an illusion can be avoided if people use the Copernican method. The method’s main focus is that the individual is not special, and the “discovery” made by them is just a coincidence that happened during the lifetime of the phenomenon. Another method could be to try to take an objective view and look at contradicting evidence.
One of the best ways to market a product or service is to make use of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon and there are three ways to do it. If you do repetitive marketing of your product and service, it will constantly be present in the environment of your consumers which means that they are bound to pay attention to it once. Even if they pay attention to it one time only, the workings of the illusion will start, and they will start noticing your marketing campaign everywhere and would be more inclined to go for it.
Secondly, frequency illusion will work because of social proof theory. The theory states that people who do not know how to act or think about a certain thing will look to others for guidance. This means that if you capture enough of your consumers’ attention, the popularity of your brand will increase, and you will garner new consumers just because they would be following what their peers are doing.
Baader-Meinhof phenomenon works great as a marketing strategy because if you can make your consumers believe in your product or service, their confirmation bias will work overtime to prove their belief and they will start finding pieces of evidence to support the belief. The whole cycle can work beautifully and successfully if you can just get your consumer to pay selective attention to your product or service.
The phenomenon takes place in everyone’s life all the time, but it does not cause too much trouble. Professionals need to be careful of it and try to steer clear of any bias so that it does not affect their work. If you feel that you are getting affected by the illusion, then you can take a step back and try to apply the Copernican method. The key to breaking through the illusion is to remind yourself to look at the situation from every angle. Overall, the phenomenon is crazy interesting and tells a lot about human psychology. It is nothing supernatural or a “sign from the universe”, it is simply the magic of the human mind and its brilliance that gives birth to this phenomenon every other day in people’s life.
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