IV. Mere Exposure

Main Point: What you don't see is what you get

1. Basic Paradigm
   1. The more you experience a stimulus the more you like it
   2. Liking occurs independently of awareness of stimulus
   3. Curvilinear effect

2. Priming Social Agreement (Bornstein et al., 1987; JPSP)
   1. Expose participant to slide of Con1, Con2, or Blank (10ms)
   2. Determine gender of poem writer in 10 poems in triads
   3. Two Confederates disagree 7 times; you break the tie
   4. Results
   5. Interpretation

3. Other Illustrations
   1. Exposure to "Turkish" words, Chinese "ideographs," random tones
   2. My Advisor's Face (Smiling or Frowning or Pope-Control)

4. Conditions of Greatest Mere Exposure Effect (Bornstein, 1989, Psy Bull)
   1. Complex (vs simple) primes
   2. Short (vs long) prime display
   3. Longer (vs shorter) delay between priming and ATT rating
   4. Heterogeneous (vs homogeneous) series of primes
   5. No recognition (vs recognition; r = 5. vs .1) of prime

5. Summary Points
   1. Evidence of Affective Responding without Cognition
   2. Effects are apparently very short lived
   3. Primitive, affective, non-cognitive

Interpretation

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Updated March 21, 1996; Copyright © SBB, 1996