We tend to choose familiarity everywhere in life. We prefer knowledge of something through previous experience which increases our awareness; we go for things which matches our perception. We feel convenient with known people, known surrounding, known food items, known fragrance, known location etc. It’s a sort of fixation. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle. familiarity has been defined as relational knowledge of another individual. Familiarity is a dyadic construct, based on the relationship between two individuals. Dyadic describes the interaction between two things or between two individuals.
Most often we get along with people who are like us. In psychology this is called certainty of being liked. We assume that someone who has a lot in common with us is more likely to like us. And in turn, we are more likely to like people if we think they like us. We enjoy being around such people because we can carry on enjoyable interactions with them without feeling cautious. It’s just more fun to hang out with someone when you have a lot in common. For example, one dog owner gets friendly with another dog owner easily because they have so much in common to share about their pets. Their love for dog makes them familiar with each other.
The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. People who are familiar with each other’s indulgences, preferences and personalities can communicate more quickly. There is a connection and level of familiarity that streamlines and simplifies dialogue and decision-making. These “familiar people” collaborate and work faster and smarter because they understand how the other in a group thinks.
In marriage, when the partners cannot adjust or are unable to tolerate the time and money a partner puts into nurturing hobby, it can become a source of conflict.
There is a large body of research which confirms that we tend to like people who are similar to us. But, the reasons why we like people who are like us can be complex; first, there is a difference between actually having a lot in common with someone which is called ‘actual similarity’ and believing that we have a lot in common which is ‘perceived similarity’. But research conducted by Condon & Crano in 1988, shows that perceived similarity has a stronger effect on attraction than actual similarity.
For example, Srinivasa Ramanujan and Godfrey Harold Hardy’s friendship bloomed as Hardy was the only one to recognize Ramanujan’s genius, Hardy brought him to Cambridge University, and was his friend and mentor for many years. The two collaborated on many mathematical problems, although the Riemann Hypothesis (a complex mathematical ratio) continued to defy even their joint efforts. It’s said that the role played by Ramanujan’s tutor Hardy in his life is very great. The Cambridge mathematician worked tirelessly with the Indian genius, to tame his creativity within the then current understanding of the field. It was only with Hardy’s care and mentoring that Ramanujan became the scholar the world knows him as today. I am giving this example to elaborate how similar interest bosoms friendship in two very different individuals. In this case it was mathematics. Both theses geniuses were very different in many ways yet the friendship among them brought out the base in the genius Ramanujan.
When people take decisions about partnership in life based on actual similarity, often it doesn’t work especially in marriages. For example, a lady meets a new man. Gets along for few years and makes him her soulmate. It excites her like a new adventure. She feels the spark, passion and many good points in the man. She makes him her soulmate. She’s having a lot of fun, whilst learning and discovering more about this new soulmate in her life.
A few months or years go by and it seems like the spark has gone. She starts feeling her life a little dull now. She takes this person for granted. Because she knows the man inside out, she knows everything about him. She runs out of things to talk about, doing things together with him bores her because of too much of similarity. At this juncture, she perhaps starts ignoring some good points about him and notices more of his bad points instead. That’s the Law of Familiarity in action. The more time you spend with a person, the more you get familiar with him/her, the more you take the person for granted.
Similarity comforts us for some time, it helps taking thing little easy, it helps us relaxing, but it does not help us when we get challenged. When adversities arise in life, you need different strengths to fight. You also need new ideas, people to correct you when you are miserable. If you hang out only with people who are like you, you can be out of touch with the big, lovely diverse world out there.
