What is the Similar-To-Me Effect?
The similar-to-me effect is a cognitive bias that describes our inclination to prefer those similar to ourselves in terms of characteristics, beliefs, or behaviors.
The Basic Idea
Picture your group of friends. They are likely the same age, same gender, and may even come from the same background as you. Even if we pride ourselves on being inclusive and celebrating diversity, we still tend to surround ourselves with people similar to ourselves. While it is normal to get along with people who have similar experiences, like your basketball teammate or a fellow college alumnus, favoring people similar to you becomes a problem when it leads to discrimination.
The similar-to-me effect is a cognitive bias that explains our tendency to prefer people that look and think like us. We have an affinity towards all things familiar to us, which is why the similar-to-me effect is also known as the affinity bias. While it might seem harmless in principle to associate ourselves with familiar people, the similar-to-me effect can lead to unjust consequences when applied to hiring practices, workplace promotions, and tolerance towards otherness.
For a clever man, different cultures, different lives, different attitudes, different dreams, different of everything are a good teacher! [However, most people] take the things [they] already know from somebody or something like you.
– Turkish writer Mehmet Murat Ildan1
