Mere Exposure Effect: what it is and how it is expressed in psychology

Has it ever happened to you that you liked something (for example, a song) more and more the more you listened to it? Or even with someone? This has an explanation according to social psychology; it's about the call Mere Exposure Effect.

The Mere Exposure Effect was discovered by Robert Boleslaw Zajonc, an American social psychologist. This effect consists in the more we are exposed to something, the more we will like it. However, some authors suggest that this only occurs when the initial attitude towards the stimulus or object is favourable.

In this article we will know the origin of this effect, some of the conditions that will influence its occurrence and possible causes of its appearance.

• Related article: "What is social psychology?"

The Mere Exposure Effect

The Mere Exposure Effect is a psychological phenomenon that consists in our liking for a certain stimulus or person, increases as we are more exposed to it, that is, the more we are exposed, the more we will like it This effect is characteristic of social psychology, which he sometimes also calls it the “familiarity principle”.

The mere exposure effect was first described by R.B. Zajonc (1968); Zajonc exposed his finding, along with others, in a work dedicated to changing attitudes, in which he argued that attitudes are formed by the frequency with which we are exposed to a stimulus.

Zajonc's mere exposure effect facilitated new avenues of inquiry within the experimental psychology of emotion.

The works of R.B. Zajonc

Based on his work on the Mere Exposure Effect, Zajonc sustains the hypothesis that "the mere exposure repeated exposure of a subject to a stimulus is a sufficient condition for the positive attitude towards this to increase. stimulus". said effect appears even when the stimulus conditions of presentation prevent its conscious identification.

Zajonc's hypothesis implied a challenge to the theoretical positions of the moment (1960s), and affirmed that attitudes could be formed simply from the frequency with which a problem is presented stimulus.

In any case, social psychology researchers, at that time, already sensed that the more familiar we are with a stimulus, the more likely our attitude toward it will be positive or favorable.

experimental procedure

To study the Effect of Mere Exposure experimentally, we proceeded to expose the subjects to stimuli affectively ours for very short times; after this presentation, the subject was shown various new stimuli, with similar characteristics, among which the stimuli exposed during the first phase were interspersed.

The Mere Exposure Effect became evident when the subject made significantly more positive evaluations of the objects initially exhibited, than of the set of stimuli that were presented for the first time in the final phase of assessment.

• You may be interested in: "Robert Zajonc's Theory of Affective Primacy"

Factors that determine it

There are several factors that determine the Effect of Mere Exposure:

1. stimulus type

The effect is favorably induced with stimuli of all kinds: words, images, facial expressions, ideograms, polygons, etc.

However, if exclusively abstract figures are used, does not occur, or if it occurs, it is in a subtle way.

2. Stimulus complexity

The effect is greater with complex stimuli than with simple ones; this phenomenon has been shown in various studies.

3. exposure number

The greater the number of exposures, the greater the effect; however, it is not a linear effect; after 10 or 20 exposures, the changes that occur are minor.

To illustrate this, Zajonc (1972) alluded to a logarithmic relationship that increases until reaching a “ceiling effect”. Other researchers refer to a relationship that can be represented in the form of an inverted U.

4. exposure sequence

The Mere Exposure Effect will vary depending on whether the stimuli used are the same or if they vary; Although there are few studies carried out on this and the results are diverse, it is known that the studies that have used heterogeneous (diverse) stimuli to produce the effect of mere exposure, provide results less robust.

5. Exposure duration

There are few studies that have compared the effect of stimulus duration when producing the Mere Mixture Effect. One author in particular, Hamid (1973), used an inverted U to explain the relationship between duration and the effect obtained, based on his studies.

6. Stimulus recognition

The fact that the stimulus is familiar to the person (that is, that the stimulus is "recognized"), does not is necessary for the Mere Exposure Effect to occur, and this has been demonstrated by various studies. There are even studies that suggest that recognition or familiarity reduces the effect.

7. Interval between exposure and test

Here there is disparity of opinions and results; while there are some studies that do not find changes in relation to whether the interval between test and exposure is a few minutes or several weeks, other studies state that there is an increase in the Mere Exposure Effect when the test phase is delayed after exposure initial.

Causes of effect

In more recent studies, Zajonc (2000) believes that the Mere Exposure Effect is not mediated by subjective factors. (for example, due to the familiarity of the stimulus, as we have commented), but in the "own objective history of exhibitions”; in fact, the mere exposure effect is more consistent under subliminal conditions. The author proposes the possibility that the effect may be mediated by some type of classical conditioning.

Thus, in the Mere Exposure Effect, repeated exposure to certain stimuli could be understood as a conditioned stimulus (CS), while the response preference would be the conditioned response (CR). This CR is analogous to the unconditioned response (IR), which is elicited by the innate tendency toward exploration.