At the top of the screen, different ads would pop up while they were reading. After they had completed the article, they would be asked a series of questions about the advertisements. Their responses were most positive about the ad that appeared the most frequently, showing the mere exposure effect.

However, not all studies agree with these findings. Some researchers believe that too much exposure in advertising leads to ambivalence among customers. Most researchers agree exposure in advertising is most effective when a product or brand is new, but once they are mildly familiar with it, increasing exposure does not often result in increased favorability. However, this still can speak to the power of the mere exposure effect, as getting to a level of favorability creates trust in the consumer.

Going forward, when they choose products, the simple thought of the brand that they believe they like because of their awareness of it can be powerful enough to sway choices in the future. The mere exposure effect substantially impacts decision making.

There is a range of decisions that people end up making because they are more familiar with one of the options, despite evidence that an alternative might be better. For example, if you are choosing where to go to college, and you fall in love with one school that you have never heard of, you read through the brochure and everything seems perfect to you, but there is a school not quite as good that you have heard the name of often, you very well might choose the lesser school because it feels "safer.

On Wall Street, many traders invest more in domestic companies due to more exposure, even if certain international companies are offering far higher numbers. When deciding what movie to watch, many will read through summaries and find a film that sounds excellent, but still choose the one they are not as interested in but have heard the name of more often.

There are millions of examples of how people make decisions simply by choosing the option they feel more comfortable with due to a false sense of understanding that comes from a baseline level of awareness. In essence, decision-making, when impacted by the mere exposure effect, comes down to the saying "better the devil I know than the devil I don't.

Mere exposure can even influence how we interact with others, whether they are strangers or close family members. If you walk by someone every single day, you will begin to feel as if you know them and you can trust them. This is due to your frequent exposure to them alone, not because you know anything about them that would substantiate these beliefs.

Some might even feel shocked if they hear someone they are familiar with did something wrong, although they know absolutely nothing about the person. In effect, the person is still a stranger, but the mere exposure phenomena create a sense of trust, even a potential bond.

In familial relationships, members will often begin to trust those who are "around" more often than those who aren't, despite their intrinsic character. For example, if there are three children and one goes off to college, the younger two will often think of each other as their favorite siblings, even if they both prefer the one at college more objectively. The same can occur in parents. If one parent stays home and the other works, even if the one who stays home is less kind, patient, or caring, children will develop a preference for that parent due to being around them more.

When people enter into potential romantic situations, they will usually prefer those whom they have seen more often. Even if there is a prospective partner who is more attractive, funnier, and more likable, most of the time people will choose the "lesser" option whom they see more often. This is the case even when they have not directly spent time together, but could simply pass each other in the halls, or be in the same classes.

As a result, experts say that "the mere exposure effect provides one possible explanation for why proximity increases attraction. While the mere exposure effect itself is very powerful, it can be even more so when administered subliminally.

What this means is that someone can still be more favorable to something they are familiar with, even if they have not been exposed to it consciously. In a test, people were shown a stranger's face for four milliseconds, which is too fast for the brain to register consciously.

Then, they were shown a picture of someone else for a few seconds, enough time to register. When asked which person they preferred, they all chose the one who had been flashed too quickly for them to recognize consciously.

Many researchers have also shown that while we sleep, we are very impressionable. For example, if someone says a certain word repeatedly while another person is asleep, when they wake up they will think more favorably of that word. An interesting aspect to note is that the mere exposure effect is not nearly as strong in children, as they are often more prone to the "new and exciting. Want to use the mere exposure effect in your favor?

If you want to be a butterfly within your social circles, it is important to flutter around from time to time! It is very powerful how much simply "being around" can do for you. Those in your presence may like you more. If you are looking for ways to incorporate the mere exposure effect into your life, or would simply like to learn more about it from an expert, feel free to visit BetterHelp , where you can access top-notch care from trained mental health experts, all from the comfort of your own home.

Online mental health care may not be the first thing you turn to when considering ways to enhance your life, but there are many benefits to therapeutic counseling and guidance.

If you are facing struggles or discomfort associated with too much mere exposure effect, online therapy is an accessible and convenient way to find a trained professional. If these struggles are causing negative symptoms or negatively impact your quality of life, know that online therapy has been strongly linked to reduced symptoms and increased quality of life. A study noted that online therapy is just as effective for mental health conditions as face-to-face therapy, and is effective in aiding people with anxiety, social, and panic disorders.

As mentioned above, online counseling is accessible and convenient. You can connect with a trained expert through phone calls, live messages in chat rooms, and video conferences. This flexibility is great if you are unsure about seeing someone in person, or if such resources are not available where you are. Additionally, it is very easy to schedule sessions around your busy life.

Online therapists are generally more available than traditional therapists, and you can schedule sessions at your convenience instead of finding an open slot during the busy work week. He is a deep listener with a patient demeanor that puts me at ease to share.

He often challenged me to think critically about my emotions, what I hoped to accomplish when making decisions, and the realistic options I had to get there - these methods have helped me with thinking through problems beyond our sessions! She is encouraging and supportive, and also gives me concrete ways to move forward and resolve indecision.

I have really appreciated the sense of peace and perspective that she's given me in our short time together. How exactly the mere exposure effect works is undecided. However, it likely has to do with an innate distrust that most people have of things that are unfamiliar to them.

When something is new to us, it can be easy to be skeptical or even fearful of it. For example, think about the experience of watching a complex, experimental film. However, if you watch the movie a second time, the characters and plot will be more familiar to you: psychologists would say that you experienced more perceptual fluency on the second viewing. According to this perspective, experiencing perceptual fluency puts us in a positive mood.

In other words, as a result of experiencing perceptual fluency, we may decide that we liked the movie more on the second viewing. While psychologists are still debating what causes the mere exposure effect, it seems that having been previously exposed to something can change how we feel about it. And it may explain why, at least sometimes, we tend to prefer things that are already familiar to us.

Share Flipboard Email. Social Sciences Psychology Sociology Archaeology Economics Ergonomics. By Elizabeth Hopper Elizabeth Hopper. Elizabeth Hopper, Ph. Learn about our Editorial Process.

Key Takeaways: Mere Exposure Effect The mere exposure effect refers to the finding that, the more often people have previously been exposed to something, the more they like it.

Researchers have found that the mere exposure effect occurs even if people do not consciously remember that they have seen the object before. Cite this Article Format. Hopper, Elizabeth. What Is the Mere Exposure Effect in Psychology? copy citation. Status Quo Bias: What It Means and How It Affects Your Behavior.

What Is a Cohort Effect? Definition and Examples. What Is the Recency Effect in Psychology? What Is the Zeigarnik Effect?

What Is the Law of Effect in Psychology? Flashbulb Memory: Definition and Examples.

Would you rather watch a new movie, or an old favorite? In , social psychologist Robert Zajonc published a landmark paper on the mere exposure effect. To test this, Zajonc had participants read words in a foreign language out loud. Zajonc varied how often participants read each word up to 25 repetitions. Next, after reading the words, participants were asked to guess at the meaning of each word by filling out a rating scale indicating how positive or negative they thought the meaning of the word was.

Just the mere exposure to the word was enough to make participants like it more. One place where the mere exposure effect occurs is in advertising—in fact, in his original paper, Zajonc mentioned the importance of mere exposure to advertisers. Additionally, researchers have found that the mere exposure effect occurs in studies with human research participants as well as in studies with non-human animals.

In one line of research , Zajonc and his colleagues tested what happened when participants were shown images subliminally. Images were flashed in front of participants for less than one second—quickly enough that the participants were unable to recognize which image they had been shown. The researchers found that participants liked the images better when they had previously seen them compared to new images.

Moreover, participants who were repeatedly shown the same set of images reported being in a more positive mood compared to participants who only saw each image once. In a study, psychologist R. Matthew Montoya and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis on the mere exposure effect, an analysis combining the results of previous research studies—with a total of over 8, research participants.

The researchers found that the mere exposure effect did indeed occur when participants were repeatedly exposed to images, but not when participants were repeatedly exposed to sounds although the researchers point out that this may have had to do with the particular details of these studies, such as the types of sounds researchers used, and that some individual studies did find that the mere exposure effect occurs for sounds.

Another key finding from this meta-analysis was that participants eventually started to like objects less after many repeated exposures. In other words, a smaller number of repeated exposures will make you like something more—but, if the repeated exposures continue, you could eventually get tired of it. In the decades since Zajonc published his paper on the mere exposure effect, researchers have suggested several theories to explain why the effect happens.

Two of the leading theories are that mere exposure makes us feel less uncertain, and that it increases what psychologists call perceptual fluency. According to Zajonc and his colleagues, the mere exposure effect occurs because being repeatedly exposed to the same person, image, or object reduces the uncertainty we feel. In other words, the mere exposure effect occurs because we feel more positively about something familiar compared to something that is new and potentially dangerous. For example, think about the experience of watching a complex, experimental film.

However, if you watch the movie a second time, the characters and plot will be more familiar to you: psychologists would say that you experienced more perceptual fluency on the second viewing. According to this perspective, experiencing perceptual fluency puts us in a positive mood. In other words, as a result of experiencing perceptual fluency, we may decide that we liked the movie more on the second viewing. While psychologists are still debating what causes the mere exposure effect, it seems that having been previously exposed to something can change how we feel about it.

And it may explain why, at least sometimes, we tend to prefer things that are already familiar to us. Share Flipboard Email. Social Sciences Psychology Sociology Archaeology Economics Ergonomics. By Elizabeth Hopper Elizabeth Hopper.

Elizabeth Hopper, Ph. Learn about our Editorial Process. Key Takeaways: Mere Exposure Effect The mere exposure effect refers to the finding that, the more often people have previously been exposed to something, the more they like it. Researchers have found that the mere exposure effect occurs even if people do not consciously remember that they have seen the object before.

Cite this Article Format. Hopper, Elizabeth. What Is the Mere Exposure Effect in Psychology? copy citation. Status Quo Bias: What It Means and How It Affects Your Behavior. What Is a Cohort Effect? Definition and Examples. What Is the Recency Effect in Psychology? What Is the Zeigarnik Effect? What Is the Law of Effect in Psychology? Flashbulb Memory: Definition and Examples. What Is Naturalistic Observation?

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Ready to start running native advertising campaigns? Think of it this way: if you have a good relationship with a friend, and that friend introduces someone to you, this will make you more likely to trust that new person. Online therapists are generally more available than traditional therapists, and you can schedule sessions at your convenience instead of finding an open slot during the busy work week. They say that we are at a time when people can easily have access to information, but what stands out are the people who curate and present such information to make them easily digestible for everyone. Because you become increasingly aware of the tune, lyrics, etc.

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