The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon and How I Will Use It To Develop My Second Brain

Using questions as a way to codify your learnings

Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

What’s the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon?

You may not know the term ‘the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon’, but I’m willing to bet you know the concept. The phenomenon is this: you are in the market for a Toyota Prius. You go to the dealership, test drive the Prius and decide you want to spend a few more days thinking about whether you want to buy the Prius or look at other vehicles. As you go about your life, you start to see other Priuses everywhere you go: the supermarket, the highway, and even your neighbours seem to have one.

As you may have guessed, the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon is a cognitive bias where after you have noticed something for the first time, you tend to notice it more often, leading you to believe that for example, more people have Priuses even though it’s likely hundreds or thousands of people did not buy a Prius in between when you test drove one and then decided to think before buying.

I mention the phenomenon because I believe you can use your cognitive biases to your advantage in building a second brain.

Second brain? What is that?