The Meow Meow Effect
The emotional bias that causes individuals to irrationally value their beliefs higher than those of others.
The endowment effect refers to an emotional bias that causes individuals to value an owned object higher, often irrationally, than its market value. I’ve written about it previously and it is rampant throughout many domains other than economics (where it first gained prominence - showing that people priced things they owned and have had for a long period higher than others would price them - all things equal).
I’d like to propose a similar but slightly different thing happening in society - the “meow-meow” effect. It refers to the emotional bias that causes individuals to irrationally think what they see as truth and believe as being more valid than all other arguments otherwise.
It’s the two people shouting at each other effect. It’s the extremism and dumb-dumb effect. It’s the clinging to one’s own beliefs, damn all the evidence effect. We are all becoming our own best dictators.
Something runs through your bloodstream and makes the “meow-meow” happen. Much like how the meow-meow drug itself works. It’s a stimulant drug that escalates the speed of the messages traveling between your mind and body. And as it takes effect, you really lose all ability to question your own beliefs. You are like Midas - in love with the reflections offered by your own lovely thoughts.
One possible reason for the prevalence of the meow-meow effect is how social media works. We tend to be exposed to only thoughts, ideas, impressions, and messages that reinforce our own existing moral and psychological makeup. Those damn algorithms, working their magic. Our own bias, makes us more biased, as we just fill ourselves up with pats on the back and Georgie Porgie - “what a good boy am I” isms.
We need to get out of our own house more. There are so many other ways to see the same thing. Embrace syncronicity. Let chance work its magic and allow some doubtful air to blow through our house. Stop with the Presbyterianism!
I used to go to films I knew I didn’t like. Force myself to. Why? Because, how would I know I didn’t like them, if I didn’t experience them? And you know what, sometimes I changed my mind about them, those films. Caddy Shack for example. I viewed it as pap, cultural kitsch but I went, I saw, I learned otherwise. Veni, vidi, verdi, didici.
Let’s all start not just listening to each other but most importantly stop taking the meow-meow drug and open our eyes to other realities, other ways of thinking and believing.