Therefore, this principle of familiarity is the foundation of many of your preferences, even if you’re not aware of it. And if you watch the same movie every day, it’ll lose its charm. If you eat the same thing every day, you’ll end up hating it. Satiety is a condition that limits the impact of this effect. However, you must keep in mind that you can get bored if repeated exposure to the stimulus becomes excessive. This natural tendency to be suspicious of the unknown even becomes a pleasant feeling of familiarity when you have more contact with such an element. However, this “newness phobia” fades away as you repeatedly expose yourself to the no-longer-new stimuli. People tend to react with fear or anxiety to new elements. This German psychologist, the father of some current psychophysical theories, offers an explanation for this effect. What causes the mere exposure effect?įechner was the author of the first known study on this phenomenon. This mental way of working would explain why, when you go to new cities, you’re more tempted to go to the franchises you already know… despite your desire to explore the local market. Familiarity with a logo, a slogan, or a corporate image can make you choose that particular product. Obviously, brands take into account the effect of mere exposure in their advertising campaigns. Invariably, the participants in the test group scored the symbols they had already seen higher. The researchers told the subjects that the characters represented adjectives and asked them to evaluate whether they had positive or negative connotations. The exposure time to each symbol was so short that the observers couldn’t make out what they saw. Zajonc conducted an investigation in which he showed various images of Chinese characters to the participants. Moreover, the effect seems to be enhanced under subliminal conditions. An unconscious phenomenonīut one of the most interesting aspects of this effect is that it isn’t necessary for the person to perceive familiarity in the stimulus. The more often you see a person, the more sympathetic you’ll be toward them and the more you’ll enjoy their presence. Other scientists obtained the same results in research about interpersonal attraction. When asked which ones they liked best, there was a clear tendency to judge those they drank the most as more positive. Some tried them five times, others 10, and others 15. For this, they gave a group of students several tropical juices they didn’t know until that moment. Researchers conducted a study to test the influence of this effect on the predilection for certain foods. Words, sounds, photographs of faces… In all cases, the subjects seem to favor those who are most familiar to them. Since his first investigation in 1976, he proved the presence of this preference in the face of stimuli of a very diverse nature. ![]() Robert Zajonc is one of the authors who studied this particular psychological effect.
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