Researchers studying the "mere exposure effect" have found that we often prefer things that we’ve seen before over things that are new.

The mere exposure effect refers to the finding that, the more often people have previously been exposed to something, the more they like it.

the mere exposure effect occurs even if people do not consciously remember that they have seen the object before.

In 1968, social psychologist Robert Zajonc published a landmark paper on the mere exposure effect.

According to Zajonc, people didn’t need to experience a reward or positive outcome while around the object—simply being exposed to the object would be enough to make people like it.

The mere exposure effect explains why seeing the same advertisement multiple times could be more convincing than just seeing it once

the mere exposure effect doesn’t happen for things we initially dislike

the mere exposure effect occurs in studies with human research participants as well as in studies with non-human animals.

being subliminally shown a set of images was able to affect participants’ preferences and moods.

the mere exposure effect did indeed occur when participants were repeatedly exposed to images, but not when participants were repeatedly exposed to sounds

participants eventually started to like objects less after many repeated exposures. In other words, a smaller number of repeated exposures will make you like something more—but, if the repeated exposures continue, you could eventually get tired of it.

Uncertainty Reduction

we’re primed to be cautious around new things, since they could be dangerous to us. However, when we see the same thing over and over and nothing bad happens, we start to realize that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Perceptual Fluency

when we’ve seen something before, it’s easier for us to understand and interpret it.

we tend to prefer things that are already familiar to us.