There are many circumstances in which the mere exposure effect can result in suboptimal decision-making. After all, we make good choices by evaluating all possible courses of action based on their effectiveness, not their familiarity, and sometimes, the best option is the one that is completely unfamiliar to us. While repeated exposure to certain things can create a sense of comfort, favoring what we know can prevent us from exploring options that might be even better. This effect not only shapes our choices but can also subtly influence what we remember by changing how we process and recall information. Let’s take a closer look at how the mere exposure effect might impact your life.

Formation of preferences

The mere exposure effect can significantly impact what we like and dislike, as it suggests that encountering several repetitions of the same stimulus can influence our preferences for music, aesthetics, products, and even people. Have you ever found that you have come to like something or someone more and more over time? Even if you were initially unimpressed, you’ve noticed that things seem to “grow on you” the more you encounter them. Eventually, you might find that you’ve acquired a taste for certain artistic styles, fashion choices, music genres, or types of cuisine. Now, these preferences have become closely tied to your identity, shaping how you see yourself and connect to others. 

Mere exposure effect and smells 

Surprisingly, research shows that the mere exposure effect can influence our preferences for certain smells.⁹ The more we’re exposed to a specific odor, the more we come to enjoy it—though this doesn’t really work for unpleasant odors or those we already find very pleasant. The mere exposure effect seems strongest for odors we initially feel neutral about. This means that although you might not be able to develop a stronger preference for overwhelmingly bad or objectively lovely smells, you’re likely to develop a fondness for neutral smells like freshly cut grass, bookstores, or leather clothing the more you’re exposed to these scents.

The problem with developing preferences for certain things is that these preferences can limit our exposure to new things, ideas, and viewpoints, as we tend to stick with what we know and like. This minimizes the range of choices we are able and willing to consider when making future decisions and narrows the perspective we make them from.

Take the hypothetical example above. Although Jane was satisfied with her choice to eat pizza, she could have gotten much more out of trying a new dish. She may not only have loved eating a Portuguese meal but would have been exposed to a new cuisine. This valuable new experience could have enriched her understanding of Portuguese culture. While familiarity can be comforting, shaking things up can be good for our mental health as it helps us stimulate our minds, embrace new experiences, and discover new interests.

Memory performance

Interestingly, the mere exposure effect also impacts our memory. Countless experimental studies have demonstrated the influence of repeated exposure on recognition, finding that stimulus repetition helps with memory.¹⁰ In fact, older adults appear to have a better memory for things they like, and their preference for a certain stimulus seems to increase with exposure. For this population, the positive emotions generated by repeated exposure to information can help facilitate stronger recall of information. This may explain why older adults often exhibit a positivity bias, where they tend to recall pleasant information more accurately than unpleasant information. With this in mind, the mere exposure effect may be behind some of your positive emotional memories, which, in turn, may help you recall these pleasant memories more easily.

The consequences of the mere exposure effect can be much more serious when expanded to an institutional setting. A company that favors its current business model simply because management has grown familiar with it may miss out on necessary organizational and technological changes that require venturing into uncharted waters.1 In a similar vein, a government that is reluctant to deviate from “the way things have always been done” may not effectively represent its electorate's new and evolving preferences. Finally, academic disciplines strictly built around certain schools of thought may miss out on the useful conclusions that dissenting theories point to.

The mere exposure effect also creates social norms and reinforces harmful stereotypes. Remember: we are more likely to adopt ideas that we are repeatedly exposed to, especially by the media. A 2008 study found that exposure to faces of an Asian ethnicity led participants to develop positive attitudes towards other Asian faces shown to them.2 This indicates that the amount and nature of publicity different ethnicities receive could influence their social acceptance. Minority populations are typically represented less in Western media (and when they are featured, it’s often in ways that support racial prejudices), leading the public to develop dangerous misconceptions about them.

We don’t need to be conscious of the things we are exposed to for their familiarity to have an effect on our preferences towards them. Most of the time, the mere exposure effect happens subliminally, or in other words, at a level below our awareness. In fact, researchers have found that the effect is even more powerful when we are unaware of a stimulus.³ There are two main reasons why we experience the mere exposure effect.

The mere exposure effect reduces uncertainty

First of all, we are less uncertain about something when we are familiar with it. We are programmed by evolution to be careful around new things because they could pose a danger to us. As we see something repeatedly without noticing bad consequences, we are led to believe it is safe. Imagine you are a caveman and encounter two fruits: one that you’ve seen before and one that you haven’t. Which are you more likely to eat? The cavemen who picked the bush they hadn’t seen before tended not to survive as long (because that unfamiliar fruit had a higher risk of being poisonous). We have evolved to endorse more positive feelings about people and things we have seen before and perceive as safe than those we haven’t seen before. On a neurological level, this process is supported by repetition priming mechanisms in our implicit memory that allow us to recognize a stimulus more accurately and quickly when we have encountered it previously.¹⁰ The theory here is that quick and easy stimulus recognition produces a sense of familiarity, and familiarity is largely perceived as positive because it signals safety.

Repetition makes understanding and interpreting easier

According to “perceptual fluency,” we are better able to understand and interpret things we have already seen before. Consider this: for most of us, movies with complicated storylines are usually easier to understand the second time we watch them. This is because the plot and characters are familiar, which reduces the amount of new information your brain needs to process. Our mind generally looks for the path of least resistance, and so we prefer stimuli that we have already been exposed to.⁴ 

The same thing occurs with words. Semantic processing, which involves understanding and deriving meaning from language, becomes more efficient with repeated exposure to the same word.¹⁰ Because processing words we’ve seen before uses fewer cognitive resources, these familiar words produce a sense of ease, which is often associated with positive feelings.

We should seek to avoid the mere exposure effect because it can make us miss out on valuable information and opportunities that we have never encountered before. This bias attracts us to the familiar, and as mentioned before, familiarity isn’t a good basis to evaluate things. Sometimes the new option is indeed the best option. Prioritizing what we know prevents us from venturing into these uncharted waters. This can cause us to make uninformed decisions, such as citizens who vote for politicians that they recognize from campaign ads and media coverage, rather than candidates that represent their interests. Additionally, sticking to the familiar keeps us from seizing new opportunities, like an investor who decides against supporting a new piece of cutting-edge technology because they are used to its predecessor.

In short, the mere exposure effect can make us more narrow-minded and prevent personal growth. Sticking to what we know and see on a regular basis prevents us from being open to new views and from putting ourselves in uncomfortable, unfamiliar situations that force us to become better.

While it is inevitable that we develop an attachment to things we often see, the mere exposure effect may counteract itself. Research has shown that too much repeated exposure eventually lessens our attraction to a stimulus as it loses novelty. We can actually start to avoid something if we are exposed too much to it. A 1990 study identifies this as “boredom” with the stimulus.⁵ This makes sense: you often start by liking a song and often come to love it as you become more familiar with its sound. But if you listen to the song too much, you might eventually become bored with it and not want to listen to it anymore.

If you want to reduce this habituation process so that you can derive more long-lasting enjoyment from your favorite things, try to spread out your interactions with the stimulus or introduce variability to the experience. For example, instead of listening to the same song on repeat for days on end, space it out with other songs. Some studies suggest that mindfulness and meditation can also help counter habituation, allowing us to continue enjoying repetitive things that are starting to get boring. For example, in one study, orchestral musicians preferred playing repetitive music when they were encouraged to mindfully incorporate subtle variations into their performance instead of always playing the same thing.¹² You could do the same thing with aspects of your life that are starting to feel less enjoyable and more repetitive. For instance, consider experimenting with slight variations on your favorite dish, trying new conversation topics with the people you spend a lot of time around, or taking different paths when you head out to walk your dog.

Seek novel experiences

A more proactive strategy to fight back against the mere exposure effect might be to recognize the value of diversity and new experiences from the get-go. By looking for unfamiliar and different opportunities, we might limit how often we are exposed to any one stimulus, reducing the effects of exposure that can make us fall into entrenched habits and routines. For example, instead of buying the same laundry detergent every time you need to re-stock, consider switching things up and going with a brand you’ve never tried before. Instead of always buying the same type of coffee, experiment with different roasts to keep things fresh—you might just find a new favorite! Try new foods, listen to unfamiliar types of music, and play around with unique hobbies, sports, or workout routines. By intentionally seeking new experiences in your daily life instead of always opting for familiar stimuli, you can avoid falling into familiar routines and keep your life feeling fresh and exciting.

Recognize your automatic preferences

Paying attention to your automatic preferences can also help reduce your automatic tendency toward familiarity. This can be particularly useful in business, where sticking with the status quo can blind us to novel and potentially more beneficial strategies. For example, hiring managers may have a subconscious bias toward candidates who are familiar to them, even if others are more qualified for the job. Similarly, purchasing managers might consistently choose familiar suppliers or vendors, even if lesser-known competitors offer better services or lower prices. Being mindful of your gut reaction is key to recognizing automatic preferences so you can avoid making biased decisions. If you pay close attention to your affective reactions to familiar ideas, products, and people, you might find that your feelings are rooted in a sense of comfort and safety. This is an excellent indication that you may be falling for the mere exposure effect and could benefit from evaluating your options more objectively.

What is the mere exposure effect in pop culture?

The mere exposure effect plays an important role in shaping societal preferences. After all, the widespread practices, beliefs, and artistic styles that are dominant in society at any given point are largely driven by their familiarity. Interestingly, research shows that we assume that things we see often are also familiar to other people, and when we want to fit in or feel like part of a group, we tend to prefer things that we think are familiar to others.¹³ 

Knowing this, it’s no surprise that familiarity breeds popularity. The more we hear a trendy song, see a certain celebrity, or encounter people wearing the same type of shoe, the more we feel that these things are familiar to other people, increasing our preference for them. In this way, the mere exposure effect can reinforce trends, as repeated exposure makes us more likely to adopt certain styles or listen to certain types of music. Importantly, this psychological phenomenon only occurs when people are motivated to connect with other people. When people express a strong drive to be socially distinct, the effect of repeated exposure on assumed familiarity does not increase someone’s preference for something.¹³

How does the mere exposure effect play a role in propaganda?

Just as repeated exposure to a song or clothing style can increase our preference for it, repeated exposure to certain messages or ideas can make them feel more acceptable. As a result, constant exposure to biased or misleading messaging can popularize particular political causes or points of view.¹⁴ While there are several other psychological techniques involved in spreading propaganda, simply repeating the same information makes this information feel more familiar and, therefore, more permissible—and perhaps even appealing. Because the mere exposure effect often occurs outside our level of awareness, it can be effective at encouraging acceptance of propaganda messaging even when people aren’t paying full attention to the message itself.

What are the limits of the mere exposure effect?

While the mere exposure effect occurs in a variety of contexts, it does have a few limits. As mentioned, excessive exposure to the same stimulus can reduce our preference for it, limiting the overall scale of the effect.⁵ Rather than stimulus exposure and liking increasing together in a perpetual positive correlation, the relationship actually follows a bell curve, where exposure reaches a maximum effect and then declines with subsequent exposures.¹⁵ The effect is also weaker for children than adults and less robust for drawings and paintings compared to other forms of stimuli, such as music.¹⁶ Further research shows that repeated exposure to things we initially find unpleasant, like bad smells, does not always result in us liking them more.⁹ Finally, depression and anxiety also seem to diminish the mere exposure effect—while the body’s relaxation response seems to drive increased preference for familiar items, anxiety tends to reduce the correlation between familiarity and liking.¹⁷ So, while the mere exposure effect can influence our preferences in various situations, several factors can reduce or even reverse its impact. Understanding these limitations is important for exploring the practical applications of either maximizing or reducing the influence of repeated exposure on people’s preferences.

The earliest scientific recordings of the mere exposure effect came from the work of German psychologist Gustav Fechner and English psychologist Edward Titchener at the end of the 19th century, who wrote of a “glow of warmth” felt in the presence of something that is familiar. 

The effect was more thoroughly investigated by American social psychologist Robert Zajonc in 1968. Citing previous research, Zajonc pointed out that people tend to use positive words more often than negative words.¹⁸ Overall, he noted that words associated with positive aspects of reality—such as “beauty,” “happiness,” and “wealth”—tend to be used more frequently than their opposites, suggesting that there is a relationship between word frequency and word value. This finding led Zajonc to the question of whether you can get people to like anything by mere repeated exposure. 

In his experiments, Zajonc tested how subjects responded to made-up words and Chinese characters. Subjects were shown the characters a different number of times and were then tested on their attitudes towards them. Zajonc found that subjects who were shown these words the most also responded the most favorably to them. He also discovered that liking for a word increases the most sharply during the first few exposures but slows down with repeated encounters. 

Zajonc’s work inspired countless subsequent studies on the mere exposure phenomenon. Many of the early studies on the effect are outlined in a large meta-analysis published in 1989.¹⁶ In the research review, the author identifies many variables that influence the exposure-affect relationship, including the age of the subject, the amount of time between exposure and preference ratings, the number of exposures, and the stimulus type. In the years since, a large body of further research has found consistent mere exposure effects across various stimuli, measurement instruments, and exposure durations.¹⁵ Moving forward, future research is needed to better understand the specific cognitive and behavioral mechanisms underlying the significant relationship between liking, familiarity, and recognition.

Companies consistently take advantage of the mere exposure effect to entice customers to use their digital products. For example, when building a new app, a designer may default to a standard UI interface rather than pioneering a new design—that’s not just laziness! This way, when a new user opens up the app for the first time, they will instantly be greeted with the warm familiarity of the layout, coaxing them to continue their virtual exploration. 

In a similar vein, companies may keep their logo virtually unchanged for decades, even if the font or colors feel outdated. They know this consistency will guarantee them brand recognition and in turn, brand loyalty. After all, most customers will default to choosing the product with the logo they’ve seen a hundred times before, rather than venturing into the uncharted territory of a new one. Think of the public outrage that spewed after Twitter changed its icon from a bird to the daunting “x” symbol. It turns out that sticking to the standard is often the best decision for digital designers to guarantee customers will come back, time and time again.

Have you ever felt as though AI is really getting to know you? Maybe each time you browse movie selections on Netflix, your recommended watchlist is better tailored to your preferences (more rom-coms, less horror). Or maybe each time you banter back and forth with ChatGPT, you notice its responses are even more attuned to your questions.

Sure, this personalization is probably, in part, due to machine learning picking up on your preferences and adjusting its algorithm to align with them. But remember, our interactions with AI are a two-way street—and we may be adjusting our preferences to align with Al. Every time we expose ourselves to a recommended watchlist or ChatGPT, we inherently become more familiar with them, and thanks to the mere exposure effect, more inclined towards them. This means that digital personalization may be more due to us getting to know AI, rather than the other way around.

Financial professions may be particularly impacted by the mere exposure effect. A 2015 study done by economist Gur Huberman found that financial traders were more likely to invest in domestic companies they were familiar with, even though this is not the most profitable or risk-averse strategy.

To avoid the damages of a national economic downturn, investors generally agree on the tactic of international diversification. In other words, it is wise to spread investments across companies located in different countries in case one of those countries has economic issues. There is the added benefit of many foreign stocks also being highly profitable.

Despite this, Huberman notes that “by and large, investors’ money stays in their home countries.” This is in the face of falling barriers to international investment. He argues that this “home country bias” can be attributed to “people simply prefer[ing] to invest in the familiar.” Investing in the familiar extends further: people are also more likely to invest in companies they recognize from positive media coverage or their own company’s stocks.7 The mere exposure effect may therefore cause investors to unwisely favor familiar domestic stocks over unfamiliar foreign ones.

The mere exposure effect is also present in academia. A study done in 2010 by Alexander Serenko and Nick Bontis used data given by 233 active researchers to determine how they ranked academic journals. They hypothesized that the exposure would be at play if these participants assigned greater ranking to journals simply because they are more familiar with them rather than basing their ranking on an objective assessment of the journal’s contribution to the field.

Their analysis confirmed the role of the mere exposure effect. More specifically, they found that researchers who had previously published or worked for a particular journal rated it higher than those who had not and that perceptions of a journal were strongly correlated with researchers’ degree of familiarity with it.⁸

What it is

The mere exposure effect is our tendency to develop preferences for things simply because we are familiar with them.

Why it happens

There are two main reasons why we experience the mere exposure effect. First, we are less uncertain about something when we are familiar with it. We have evolved to be careful around new things because they could pose a danger to us. This uncertainty is reduced as we see something repeatedly without noticing bad consequences. 

Second, in what’s known as “perceptual fluency,” we are better able to understand and interpret things we have already seen before. Our mind generally looks for the path of least resistance, and so we prefer stimuli that we have already been exposed to.

Example #1 - Finance and domestic investment

Professions in finance may be particularly impacted by the mere exposure effect. A 2015 study found that financial traders were more likely to invest in domestic companies they were familiar with, even though this is not the most profitable or risk-averse strategy. This “home country bias” was attributed to investors’ familiarity with the firms.

Example #2 - Journal ranking in academia

The mere exposure effect is present in academia. A study done in 2010 used data given by 233 active researchers to determine how they ranked academic journals. It concluded that researchers assigned journals higher ranking on the basis of their familiarity with them rather than an objective assessment of the journal’s contribution to the field.

How to avoid it

The mere exposure effect may eventually counteract itself. Research has shown that too much exposure may limit and then detract from our attraction to a stimulus. A more proactive strategy might be to recognize the value of diversity and new experiences. By looking for unfamiliar and different experiences, we might limit how often we are exposed to any one stimulus.

The Devil You (Expect to) Know: Political Reconciliation

This article argues that more empathy and understanding between citizens is needed in a divided political environment. The mere exposure effect and imagined contact hypothesis are relevant in achieving this objective, pointing to the need for more interaction (both real and imagined) between people of different backgrounds and political affiliations.

The Illusory Truth Effect

The illusory truth effect suggests that the more we hear the same information, the more likely we are to believe it is true. Similar to the mere exposure effect, which explains how we can develop a preference for things we encounter again and again, illusory truth suggests that we can develop a belief in information when we hear it repeatedly. This article explores the illusory truth effect in depth—and its significant impact in the spread of misinformation.