Heightened awareness of a category can be mistaken for a rise in its frequency.

Evidence

When Anne brought up the water again, he told her about the experience he’d had after buying his car, a Volvo, that they were riding in. He had suddenly noticed Volvos everywhere he looked. But that had been an illusion, he said, a trick of the mind. There really weren’t a lot of new Volvos around; he’d simply become more aware of them. He suggested to Anne that she was experiencing the same sort of phenomenon with leukemia. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 84

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the archived notes on confirmation bias and on lay theorists avoiding disconfirming evidence. — connects to: Paying attention differs from spending time or being aware. — Thomas Davenport & John Beck, The Attention Economy: Understanding…, 22; Experimentally raising a group’s perceived entitativity increases members’ identification with it. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 266; Frequently recalled information is judged more probable and true. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 161
• STORYSTEM: A character dismissed as paranoid by friends who are using a sound general principle to discredit a specific truth.

Broader Connections

• Paying attention differs from spending time or being aware. #expands (1.00) — Thomas Davenport & John Beck, The Attention Economy, 22
• Frequently recalled information is judged more probable and true. #qualifies (1.00) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 161
• Experimentally raising a group’s perceived entitativity increases members’ identification with it. #complicates (0.90) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 266