Studies have shown the mere exposure effect, also referred to as the familiarity principle, inspires our decisions. It is a helpful psychological mechanism that helps us sustain our energy and focus our attention on other things. Getting used to new things takes effort and it can be exhausting. So unless we have a terrible experience, we are likely to buy from companies we’ve got used to. That is why companies spend so much money on advertising and marketing and why insurance companies openly charge existing customers more than new ones.

It’s not the case that we only desire things we already know. Some studies suggest when invited to share our preferences, we sometimes see less familiar options as more desirable. But when acting on that preference, we fall back to what we know. This might explain why sometimes the things we want and the things we do don’t quite match up. We might even return to companies that treated us poorly in the past or stay in bad relationships.

It’s easy to paint the familiarity principle as an enemy or something to battle as if it is something that holds us back from living our dreams. But this attitude might be overwhelming because it tends to encourage us toward big-picture thinking. Where we imagine that change requires a substantial dramatic swing that we don’t feel ready for. Some articles suggest the solution to familiarity frustration is complete exposure to novelty. While this can appear effective in the short run, we may only end up replacing one problem with another. It also risks overwhelm and burnout.

So what if we can work with the familiarity principle instead? Familiarity is something we can learn to play with and enjoy. It is a setting for creativity and a pathway to expansion. We can broaden the zone of familiarity bit by bit. If we think of familiarity as something that can expand, we can consider changing the conditions in and around our lives to make more space for our preferences to take root and grow gently. From here, we will start to make decisions, drawing from an ever-deepening pool of valuable options.

As April 23 marks World Book Day, it’s time to put aside your smart phone and open a book. Cheaper and lighter, digital books have become many people’s choices in the present day. Yet the touch and smell of a paper copy can be irreplaceable.

For lovers of paper books, a nice, strong bag is a must-have. Among the ways to carry books in ancient China, there was a kind of bamboo box. Xuan Zang, a noted Buddhist monk from the Tang Dynasty（618-907）, carried such a box during his journey to India. Similar box to carry books also appeared in the 1987 film, A Chinese Ghost Story, a remake of the 1960 original movie with the same title.

Compared to the ancients, modern people have more choices to carry books. School bags that look like suitcases are pretty popular among elementary school students in China. If you see a little girl pulling a bright pink suitcase on the street in the morning, don’t be misled by her bag. She is not going on vacation alone；she is just on her way to school. Such a school bag seems a bit of an exaggeration（夸张）, yet can ease the burden on young children’s shoulders from carrying heavy text books.

Bags for adults to carry books are of various sorts, and some are even like a book itself. French designer Olympia Le-Tan created a series of clutch bags（女式手提包）that have the very look of classic book facsimiles（复制品）in 2009. The clutches won the love of many celebrities and fashion pioneers, appearing on the red carpet and high street. And jane bags by Gabriela Hearst shone at the 2018 autumn winter fashion shows. The special shape of the new designs was inspired by the pages of an open book. Despite the colorful bags, the books in them are more important.

Babies appear to know how to help those in need, according to researchers who studied signs of altruism in almost 100 children. Researchers who wanted to see whether children would give up their food to give it to a stranger without encouragement found the kids just did that — even when they were hungry.

The scientists recruited 96 19-month-old children. During the experiments, a child and a researcher sat across from each other. In the control group, the researcher threw a piece of fruit onto a plate beyond reach, but the child could reach. The researcher showed no expression and made no attempt to get the fruit back. In contrast, the researcher in the test group pretended to accidentally drop the fruit on the plate, and then reach for it unsuccessfully. This signaled to the opposite child that the adult wanted the fruit. Among the test group, 58 percent of the children picked up the fruit and gave it to the adult, compared to 4% in the control group.

Next, the team explored if children would still be generous when the cost was raised. The same scenes as the experiment above were repeated with a separate group of kids before their lunchtime, when they were likely to be hungry. Similarly, 37 percent of the test group handed over the fruit, compared with none in the control group.

The experiments were repeated four times. Researchers got similar results each time. Babies with siblings (兄弟姐妹) and babies from Latino or Asian families shared more of the fruit, the team also found.

Carter Morgan, lead professor of the study, said, “We often think of babies as selfish persons. But here we find that they are willing to help others even when it comes at some ‘cost’ to themselves.” Addressing why children with siblings or from certain cultural backgrounds were more likely to share, Morgan said , “ We believe this partly reflects what social psychologists call ‘interdependence’, which stresses the importance of interpersonal connections. These social experiences that shape attitudes towards sharing appear to have an effect very early in life.”