Familiarity Bias

People often prefer what is familiar. They may even actively avoid considering new options.

This is also occasionally called the Mere Exposure Effect.

To utilise this bias, it's helpful to understand why it works.

In short, it helps humans to make quick judgements:

1. It reduces uncertainty

2. It's quicker to interpret

Imagine that you're walking through the serengeti, and you turn to see this:

Your life depends on your ability to process this, and make a snap judgement about what you should do next.

You don't want to waste valuable seconds deciding if it's a lion, a rarer breed of cat or a man in a lion suit. You have a bias towards what you're familiar with (a lion), and so you run.

This bias was necessary for our survival, and our brains have been trained to gravitate towards the familiar.