the.com/familiarity
the comfortable blanket that slowly stops you from seeing what's actually under it
means A close, easy knowledge of someone or something gained through long or repeated contact, often bringing comfort but sometimes carelessness.
from From Latin familiaris, 'belonging to the household,' from familia, 'family' (which itself traces back to famulus, 'servant'). The word arrived in English through Old French familiarite in the 14th century, carrying the sense of intimacy you feel with the people inside your own walls — the ones you no longer have to perform for. The famous warning that 'familiarity breeds contempt' is centuries old, voicing the same suspicion as the essence: that what we know too well, we stop truly seeing.
- breeds contempt
- Aesop coined the proverb 2,600 years ago
- mere exposure
- repeated faces feel more likeable, no reason needed
- legal weight
- witnesses must show real familiarity to identify someone
- brain shortcut
- known patterns get processed with less mental effort
- false memory
- familiar feelings can fabricate events that never happened
the mere exposure effect — zajonc's 1968 study showing people prefer familiar stimuli, even when unconsciously exposed
childhood songs recall — people can sing songs heard before age 5 with remarkable accuracy decades later, despite forgetting when/where learned