You believe things that aren't even true

You believe things that aren't even true just because you've seen them enough times. Welcome back to Anti-Brainrot with Tiziana, a series where I break down psychological and philosophical facts so that you can be hot and educated instead of having your brain fried. You think your beliefs are yours, that you formed them through experience or through research, but psychology tells us something deeply uncomfortable. Most of what you believe, you simply believe because you've been exposed to it enough times. Because repetition with no new argument, no evidence, nothing is enough for your brain to accept something as a fact. And once you see how this works, you will never consume information the same way again. Psychologist Lynn Hasher and David Goldstein discovered this in 1977. They found that people rated statements as more true simply because they'd seen them before, even when they were told that the statements might be false. They called this the illusory truth effect. And this is where it kind of gets dark. Social media algorithms are built on repetition. The more you see most is the content with the most engagement. That the loudest, most repeated narratives flood your feed constantly. Your brain isn't evaluating if it's true or not, it's kind of counting how many times it has just seen that. And the more it sees something, the more it believes it because it becomes more familiar. And this is how misinformation spreads. And this is also how beauty standards get internalized. And this is also how statements that you tell yourself about your own life, like I'm not beautiful enough, I'm not good enough, become internalized facts. So this means that some of your beliefs are worth reflecting on. Because certainty of a belief doesn't always mean it's true. It might just be that you've heard that belief enough times to accept it as a fact. And this also means that you can unchoose those. Starve them of repetition and replace them with something better. Like I am enough. I'm capable. This week, pick one belief that you have about yourself and ask, where did I hear this first? And where did this start? And how many times have I repeated this to myself? And is this actually true? Or have I just repeated this to myself over and over and over? In the next episode, I love you so much. Bye.