Mere Exposure Effect

Definition

The mere exposure effect is the psychological phenomenon where people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. It refers to the tendency for novel stimuli to be evaluated more positively after repeated, unreinforced exposure to them.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. The mere exposure effect occurs even when the repeated exposure is below the level of conscious awareness, suggesting it is an automatic, implicit process.
2. The effect is more pronounced for neutral or ambiguous stimuli, as familiar stimuli are more easily processed and interpreted positively.
3. Repeated exposure can increase liking for a wide range of stimuli, including visual images, sounds, words, and even social partners.
4. The mere exposure effect has been observed across various cultures and age groups, indicating it is a robust and universal psychological phenomenon.
5. The mere exposure effect has implications for marketing, advertising, and interpersonal relationships, as it suggests that familiarity can lead to increased liking and preference.

Review Questions

• Explain how the mere exposure effect relates to the concept of prosocial behavior.
  • The mere exposure effect can influence prosocial behavior by increasing an individual's liking and preference for familiar people or groups. Repeated exposure to members of a social group, even without direct interaction, can lead to more positive evaluations and a greater willingness to engage in helpful or cooperative behaviors towards those individuals. This effect can foster in-group favoritism and potentially increase the likelihood of prosocial actions, such as volunteering or donating, towards familiar social targets.
• Describe how the mere exposure effect and the familiarity heuristic might interact to shape an individual's social perceptions and judgments.
  • The mere exposure effect, combined with the familiarity heuristic, can lead individuals to make quick, intuitive judgments about the safety, trustworthiness, and desirability of social targets. When people are repeatedly exposed to certain individuals or groups, they may develop a sense of familiarity and comfort, which the familiarity heuristic then translates into more positive evaluations. This can result in in-group favoritism, prejudice, and biases in social perception, as familiar targets are seen as more favorable and trustworthy, even in the absence of substantive information about them.
• Analyze how the mere exposure effect and the concept of perceptual fluency could influence an individual's prosocial decision-making in a specific scenario.
  • $$\text{Consider a scenario where an individual is presented with an opportunity to volunteer for a local charity organization. The mere exposure effect, whereby the individual has been repeatedly exposed to information about the charity through advertising or social media, can increase their familiarity and liking for the organization. This familiarity, combined with the ease of processing information about the charity (perceptual fluency), may lead the individual to perceive the organization as more trustworthy and desirable. As a result, the mere exposure effect and perceptual fluency could influence the individual's decision to engage in the prosocial behavior of volunteering, as the familiar and easily processed information about the charity makes it a more appealing and accessible option for the individual to support.}$$

Related terms

Familiarity Heuristic: A mental shortcut that relies on the ease with which information comes to mind, leading people to assume that familiar things are safer, more desirable, or more true.

Fluency: The subjective experience of ease associated with processing a stimulus, which can lead to more positive evaluations of that stimulus.

Perceptual Fluency: The ease with which a stimulus can be perceived and identified, which can contribute to the mere exposure effect.