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Mere Exposure & Attitude Change
Introduction
Mere Exposure Effect
Mere Exposure & Ad
Mere Exposure Limit
Conclusion
Reference
I. Attitude Change        
II. Affect without Cognition        
Mere Exposure Effect

I Attitude Change

Zajonc's primary concern is the effect of merely repeated exposure to attitude objects themselves. It is different from prior persuasion studies on message repetition, which focus on the mediational account :"The more often a stimulus was presented, the more likely the individual would to be (consciously) recognize it, and the more chances the person would have to intentionally consider and form an attitude about it"(Bargh, 2001, p.26). The mere-exposure account, on the other hand, holds that none of these mediating cognitive or motivational processes are required for the effect in liking. It requires only merely repeated exposure.

This concern begins with his monograph on attitude change of mere exposure in 1968. In the monograph, Zajonc (1968) examines this hypothesis : "mere repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus is a sufficient condition for the enhancement of his attitude toward it" (p.1). It was a challenging idea in the 1960s because it means "attitudes can be formed based merely on the frequency with which one encounters the object of the attitude, with frequency increasing liking" (Bargh and Apsley, 2001, p.5).

To prove his idea, Zajonc (1968) conducts three experiments in which volunteer subjects are exposed to stimuli presented at different times and rate their attitudes toward these stimuli. Each study uses 12 stimulus and each of them is exposed to people for two seconds with six frequencies (0, 1, 2, 5, 10, and 25). The stimuli for the three studies are Turkish words, Chinese-like characters, and yearbook photographs, and the initial instructions inform people that the experiment deals with 'pronouncing foreign words, learning a foreign language, and visual memory', respectively. People's attitudes are assessed by having them rate how 'good' they believe the meaning of each Turkish word or Chinese character to be, and how much they like the man pictured in each photograph. Attitude is measured on a scale from 0 to 6 with higher numbers signifying a more favorable attitude. The results of three experiments are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Relation between frequency of mere exposure to Turkish words, Chinese-like characters, and photographs of men and attitudes toward these stimuli.

Figure 1. shows that three different experiments yield the same results. People's attitudes toward a particular Turkish word, Chinese character, or photograph become more positive as the frequency of their stimuli is increased. These results are completely consistent with Zajonc's basic hypothesis that repeated mere exposure is a sufficient condition for the attitude enhancement.

This figure is from Eagly and Chaiken(1993).

More studies on the mere exposure effect prove the hypothesis of Zajonc. Two experiments of Saegart, Swamp and Zajon(1973) produce the evidence that mere exposure increases liking under either pleasant or unpleasant circumstances, defending the theory from criticism like mere exposure is limited to pleasant situations. Harrision and Fiscaro (1974) and Zajonc, Reimer and Hausser (1973) find that the mere exposure effect occurs with animal subjects as well as with people. Bornstein (1989) showed, through his meta-analysis of over 200 experiments, that mere exposure effect can be founded in a lot of phenomena and be replicated commonly.

The 1968 monograph is "the beginning of the Zajonc's career-long interest in the development and operational of an affective process outside of the person's knowledge and awareness" (Bargh and Apsley, 2001, p.5). It also is the starting point to non-conscious influences in social psychology in that it is the first "skeptical stance toward cognitive mediation of basic psychological phenomena (Bargh, 2001, p.25).

 

 

Introduction/Mere Exposure Effect I II/ Mere Exposure & Ad/ Mere Exposure Limit/ Conclusion / Reference
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