On our Cognitive Hypnotherapy Diploma course we spend time looking at a range of differences in people that guide their preferences. One of these is a preference for sameness and difference. Think of it as a continuum; some people will be strongly sameness, some strongly difference, and many a mixture of both (often dependent on circumstances).
For example, I’m quite strongly sameness. I tend to like to go to the same restaurants, and will tend to order the same thing in them. People who are strongly difference will be appalled by this and will always go for novelty. This can make a big difference in relationships, because we tend to label differences in others negatively, so difference people will often label their sameness partner ‘boring’ and ‘predictable’. In the reverse case, the words ‘flighty’ and ‘unpredictable’ will often be thrown. Understanding that they’re not good or bad, just different can lead to a big change in your attitude to the behaviour of others.
Now a research study has shown that it might have something to do with a gene that breaks down dopamine in the prefrontal cortex. Click here for more
