Mere-exposure effect
The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon suggesting that individuals develop a preference for things simply due to repeated exposure. This effect arises because the brain tends to categorize familiar stimuli as more favorable, aiding in decision-making. First studied by philosophers and psychologists in the late 19th century, it was Polish social psychologist Robert Zajonc who formally coined the term in 1968 after conducting experiments that consistently demonstrated that individuals preferred stimuli they had encountered before, whether they were physical objects, sounds, or even nonsense words. The mere-exposure effect is significant in various realms, particularly in advertising, where marketers leverage familiarity to influence consumer behavior. By repeatedly showcasing a product, advertisers aim to create a sense of recognition and preference, even among those who may not actively be seeking the product. However, the effect has its limits; excessive familiarity can lead to disinterest or aversion, particularly in personal relationships. Overall, this concept highlights the powerful role that familiarity plays in shaping preferences and behaviors across diverse contexts.
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Mere-exposure effect
Mere-exposure effect is a psychological concept stating that people are more inclined to like things the more they are exposed to them. The effect is the result of the brain attempting to categorize things to assist with the decision-making process. The concept is very important in advertising and other situations that involve convincing people to act in a specific way.
Background
Polish-born German philosopher and experimental psychologist Gustav Fechner first researched the idea that people prefer things with which they are familiar as opposed to unknown things in 1876. Others also noted this tendency to prefer the familiar, including British psychologist Edward Titchener and American psychologist Abraham Maslow. Unlike many other psychologists who focused on how mental health problems developed, Maslow was more interested in how healthy minds stayed that way. He noted that people who had multiple opportunities to see attractive things, such as works of art, were more likely to get greater enjoyment from them than would people who had more limited exposure to them. American sociologist George Homans also observed the effect and noted that people like things more the more often they are exposed to them.
Polish social psychologist Robert Zajonc coined the term mere-exposure effect. Zajonc was interested in a number of psychological concepts, including how family size affects intelligence and whether people who live together for a long time begin to resemble one another. He was also very interested in how people develop attractions or repulsions to various things.
In 1968, Zajonc first presented his findings, stating that things to which a person is exposed to repeatedly are generally preferred over things a person has not encountered. The same principle applies to people as well; people often prefer to be with people they know than to be with strangers. The concept is also known as the familiarity effect.
Since Zajonc first introduced the concept, many other researchers have duplicated his experiments. Repeated studies have shown that people consistently prefer the things or people they know to the things or people they do not know. The effect is among the most commonly studied psychological concepts.
Overview
The idea behind the concept is uncomplicated. People like what they know more than what they do not know. The more exposure they have to something, the more people are inclined to like it. Zajonc's experiments demonstrated that this applied whether people were exposed to physical things, to people, or to verbal or auditory stimuli. The usual format for the experiments was to expose people to the stimuli and then survey them later to determine how favorably they regarded the stimuli. This would be repeated with various levels of exposure to the stimuli in both time and duration. The results were consistent.
Zajonc also demonstrated that people who were exposed to nonsense words or symbols would come to view them favorably as well. Even showing people Chinese-style written characters that actually had no meaning could generate a positive reaction from non-Chinese test subjects who were exposed to them. Additional experiments proved that this same effect could be generated by exposure to sounds. Even some animals were observed to prefer familiar sounds to unfamiliar noises.
Researchers have developed several theories to explain the effect. One is that it is part of a holdover instinct from humankind's earliest ancestors. Recognizing and preferring things that one had previously encountered was an advantage in identifying which animals, other humans, and experiences were safe and which were dangerous. Another potential explanation is that it is easier for the brain to process the identification of someone or something with which a person is already familiar. Researchers have also noted that the principle can sometimes only apply to a point because people can lose interest in something or someone with which they are too familiar. This was found to be the case in several types of relationships where unrelated people, such as college roommates, were placed in close quarters for extended periods.
The mere-exposure effect is also a significant factor in many people's shopping habits. For instance, a person who cannot find his preferred brand of cereal at the store will likely purchase another brand that he has had exposure to through television commercials or other ads. Marketing and advertising professionals know this and take steps to take advantage of the mere-exposure effect.
The effect is the reason that advertisers run ads or commercials repeatedly in the same time block or over the course of several days during the same time. They are expecting that this practice will lead to the ad being seen several times by the same people, and they know this familiarity might encourage these people to purchase their product or service over another. This could be the case even if the person viewing the ad is not in the market for the product or service at the time. By pushing the product or service into consumers' consciousness, the advertisers hope that the consumers will remember the product or service weeks or months later when a need for it arises.
The familiarity effect can also backfire on those advertisers who choose to make their product or service stand out too much from others. Since people tend to favor the things they know when making purchasing decisions, an ad, website, or package that differs too much from others may suffer from the reverse of the familiarity effect. Products that are marketed in similar fashions may seem more familiar, and the product or ad that stands out may seem so unusual as to trigger uneasiness in comparison.
Bibliography
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