As soon as you have three of anything, you are on the slippery slope of collecting. This is a truth that many collectors know well, but the reasons behind why we start and continue collecting are often more complex than simple accumulation. In this article, we delve into the psychology of collecting through the personal stories of a shot glass enthusiast and a teddy bear rescuer.
The Shot Glass Collector
I met a fellow on a flight who told me he owned 157 shot glasses. A collection of that magnitude does not just happen; it takes years to amass. His collection started in the 1980s when a relative brought him a shot glass from Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. He was in high school at the time and thought it was a dumb present. He remembered thinking, 'Why would anyone want such a little, tiny glass?' He put it on a shelf in his bedroom.
It was not long before someone else gave him another shot glass, this one with a western motif. The third shot glass featured the sport of curling, an activity he had nothing to do with. As soon as he had three, the collection began. Friends of his parents would arrive with one of their own excess shot glasses to add to his growing assortment. Birthday gifts often included several glasses, some new, some vintage. Travel also expanded his collection; shot glasses seem to be a routine part of gift shop inventory worldwide. He started to see shot glasses everywhere and wondered how he never noticed them before.
The Teddy Bear Rescuer
I have an accidental collection of vintage teddy bears. My collection started as a rescue mission decades ago when I was just a kid. A neighbor had thrown two Merry Thought teddy bears into her garbage can. I could not help but notice them, the worn-out padding of their little feet sticking out of the top of the can at the end of the driveway. If there is a sight to rend a young girl's heart, it is that of discarded, well-loved teddy bears poking out of the trash. I nabbed them and took them home.
Over the years, I encountered the odd decommissioned bear that I would buy and seat alongside my original two. I then started to see similar bears in thrift shops, low-end antique shops, and church rummage sales. It seemed to me that people everywhere were in a rush to be rid of old teddy bears. My collection burgeoned.
The Frequency Illusion
In reality, the world had not decided en masse to dispose of their teddy bears, just as the world had not decided that shot glasses were a household essential. What both of us were experiencing was the frequency illusion, where your brain starts to scan for whatever it is that has recently caught your attention. This cognitive bias was, for quite a while, known as the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
That name came about in 1994 as a result of a man writing in to his local newspaper about an article the paper had run about the West German far-left extremist guerrilla group that had been active in the 1970s. The man wrote in to say he was more than surprised to see an article about this group when he had been discussing them only the day before the story ran. Having thus identified this sensation, people started writing in with similar coincidences. For lack of a better name, this curiosity was dubbed the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. It was not until 2005 when a Stanford linguistics professor renamed the sensation the 'Frequency Illusion'.
So, whether you collect shot glasses, teddy bears, or something else entirely, remember that your collection might be a product of your brain's natural tendency to notice what it has recently encountered. And that is perfectly fine. Collecting brings joy, connection, and a sense of identity. What do you collect, and why?
