08 Sep 2011
Brahma Kumari adherents often state how much pleasure the simplified world view called "The Knowledge" gives to them, and account for this as proof of its intuitive value as "truth". Psychologists are currently researching just this aspect of our mind and feelings, and how easy it is manipulated and exploited. Their research, perhaps, points to that very ability to comprehend quickly which we call intuition.
Easy = True. Simple is more attractive than complex ... it does not need to be right (see also "acceptance through repetition").
Easy = True. Simple is more attractive than complex ... it does not need to be right (see also "acceptance through repetition").
Cognitive fluency is simply a measure of how easy it is to think about something, and it turns out that people prefer things that are easy to think about to those that are hard.
Psychologists are only beginning to uncover the surprising extent to which "fluency" guides our thinking, and in situations where we have no idea it is at work. Because it shapes our thinking in so many ways, fluency is implicated in decisions about everything from the products we buy to the people we find attractive to the candidates we vote for - in short, in any situation where we weigh information. It's a key part of the puzzle of how feelings like attraction and belief and suspicion work, and what researchers are learning about fluency has ramifications for anyone interested in eliciting those emotions.
The persuasive power of repetition, clarity, and simplicity is something that people who set out to win others’ trust - marketers, political candidates, speechwriters, suitors, and teachers - already have an intuitive sense of if they’re good at what they do.
What the fluency research is showing is just how profound the effect can be, and just how it works.
