We all use both methods depending on what we are thinking about, like where to go for a haircut or which person we should choose to fix our refrigerator. You may know something about how to cut hair or fix appliances, but most likely you rely on some helpful shortcuts. Maybe you saw people coming out of a few salons and decided to go with the one whose results you liked best after days of observation. But more likely you relied on the recommendation of a friend or the convenience of the shop whose very professional sign you pass every day on your way home.

Whether you end up in the analytic or intuitive camp has as much to do with how familiar the claim feels to you and how easily the story flows for you as it does how much objective information you have about a topic, even a political one.

Let’s start with what psychologists call social consensus. This is the idea that if lots of people believe something it is likely to be true. People, it turns out, have been shown to be more confident in their beliefs if others share them. Social consensus turns on the question, “Do other people believe the claim?”

Analytic evaluations of this criterion might involve the use of poll results or supporting statistics. When this kind of evidence is hard to acquire, the gut can substitute a look-alike piece of evidence — familiarity. In the absence of data about whether people believe something, sometimes people simply ask themselves, “Have I heard this before?” The logic is simple. If many people believe something, you’ve probably heard it repeated a few times. And if you’ve heard it a few times, that makes it familiar. Therefore, if it’s familiar, you conclude others believe it.

This means that candidates, groups or anyone looking to influence opinions can increase the likelihood that people believe their claims by making them seem familiar. When President Trump starts a statement with the phrase, “Lots of people are saying,” he is generating a sense of social consensus. When he repeats something many times in the same speech, as he did in his first interview as president with David Muir of ABC, he is making his claim seem more familiar to listeners and increasing its believability.