Works
- Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, monograph supplement, 1968
In Tactics of Organizational Politics
Ideas
The mere exposure effect. Zajonc reported that "mere repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus is a sufficient condition for the enhancement of his attitude toward it": people came to like words, shapes, faces, and other stimuli more simply from seeing them more often. Caveat: Bornstein's 1989 meta-analysis of 208 experiments found the effect reliable but modest; it typically peaks within 10 to 20 exposures, can decline after many more, is strongest for brief exposures to unfamiliar stimuli, and exposure to something initially disliked can deepen the dislike.
What it explains
Zajonc explains why an idea that decision-makers have heard several times before the formal proposal feels more acceptable when it arrives. Familiarity helps only up to a point, and it does not rescue an idea people already dislike.