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Posts Tagged ‘Mere Exposure Effect’

Maybe I do like this song: How repeated exposure can change your opinions

May 1st, 2022 No comments

If you’ve ever worked a retail job or simply listened to the radio, you’ve probably had the experience of listening to whatever pop song is most popular at the time about a hundred times a day. You might hate the song with a passion at first, but over time you may admit to finding it catchy and even enjoying it. On TV or the radio, the same advertisements are often broadcast over and over again, until you could recite them from memory. Maybe you find the ad annoying at first, but after a while you may find yourself humming along to the jingle. Have you ever noticed that someone has a similar commute to work or school as you, so you see them every day on public transportation? You may consequently find yourself happy to see them or worrying when they’re not there, although you’ve never spoken to them.

Just seeing someone more often makes them more familiar to you, which will probably make you like them more.
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Read this a FEW times… I Promise You’ll like it: The Mere Exposure Effect At Work

November 26th, 2019 2 comments

Sometimes when you hear a song for the first time you do not like it. The mere exposure effect may cause you to like it after hearing it so many times!

     When Party in the USA comes at a party, there is nothing stopping me. I know every word, every beat, and every guitar strum of that song. The energy in the room is wild, and I can confidently say that everyone is enjoying themselves, maybe not as much as I am, but nonetheless, enjoying 

themselves. I mean, what else can you expect from a 2009 banger that has been played on repeat since its debut on Disney Channel? But what happens when the kid on AUX switches to one of his soundcloud mystery raps that no one knows? I find myself enjoying the time much less, and everyone seemingly starts to mingle instead of dance. Why would Party in the USA have better success at a party over a new soundcloud rap? Cognitive psychology and the mere exposure effect can explain this.

     The mere exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon where people tend to prefer things that they are exposed to more often, compared to things that they have normal exposure to (Van Dessel, Mertens, Smith, & Houwer, 2019). People are more likely to be in favor of certain things that they have repeated exposure to and are more familiar with, even if they are unaware of it. This can explain why Party in the USA is such a hit at parties compared to the soundcloud rap.The mere exposure effect is used by artists, having their songs played on the radio repeatedly for people to develop positive feelings towards it, by brands in their constant advertising to make you want to buy a product more, and can even explain why you like the person that sits next to you in two classes every day over somebody else. Reflecting on this phenomenon, it is easy to see why this can be true. In general, we do not like to go to unfamiliar places, spend time with unfamiliar people, or put ourselves in unfamiliar situations. The comfort of familiarity drives us to do the same things over and over again, which eventually increases our liking if it. Investigating the mere exposure effect can tell us why familiarity is so important to how we judge something and make us realize how influential it can really be in our lives. So how does it really work?  Read more…