We like people we see often: the mere exposure effect and Q&A

Why you feel close to someone you pass every morning

There's someone who rides the same train car as you every morning on your commute. You don't know their name, and you've never talked. But after seeing them every morning for months, you start to feel a strange sense of closeness. On a day you don't see them, you might find yourself thinking "They're not here today."

In psychology, this is called the mere exposure effect. It's a principle proposed by psychologist Robert Zajonc in 1968: people come to like things they come into contact with again and again.

In experiments, participants were shown meaningless shapes and photos of strangers' faces over and over. The more often they were shown, the more people liked those shapes and faces. There's no need to understand the content. Just seeing something raises your liking for it. It's a surprisingly simple principle.

Why commercials repeat the same song

When the same song plays again and again in TV commercials, at first you think "This song again?" But before you know it, you're humming along. You find yourself humming a song from the supermarket's background music on your way home. This is the mere exposure effect too.

Companies spend huge amounts on advertising because they know about this effect. Getting people to see a product name over and over does more to make them buy than explaining how good the product is. The feeling of "I know this" turns into "I can trust this," and "I can trust this" turns into "I want to buy this."

Social media algorithms also make use of this effect. By showing posts from a certain account again and again, they raise your sense of closeness to that account. Accounts you see often tend to be liked more, regardless of their content.

This principle is also directly related to running a question box.

Announcing your question box a little "too much" is just right

Some people announce their question box only once a week. They hold back because they worry "If I announce it too often, people might think I'm pushy." But from the point of view of the mere exposure effect, this backfires.

If you announce rarely, your question box shows up in your followers' timelines fewer times. With little contact, familiarity with your question box doesn't grow. As a result, followers don't get to the point of thinking "Let's send a question."

Post about your question box on your timeline 2-3 times a week. Include not only announcements but also shared Q&A. This alone increases how often your followers see your question box, and familiarity grows.

In reality, there's little need to worry about seeming pushy. Social media timelines are flooded with posts, and your posts don't necessarily reach all your followers. Even if you post 3 times a week, each follower will probably see only some of those posts. Far from pushy, it's just the right frequency.

Still, there's a line before it gets pushy

The mere exposure effect makes people feel closer through repeated contact, but keep in mind that going past a limit can backfire. If you post the same announcement many times in a single day, annoyance wins out over familiarity.

It's important to judge where that line is. Showing up once or twice a day at natural times leaves a good impression. But if you fill your followers' timelines with your announcements, they may mute you.

The key is to change how you present it a little each time. People get bored of the same wording repeated, but if you change the angle, you can increase how often they see you without seeming pushy. Keeping to a comfortable frequency is the trick to building familiarity.

Sharing Q&A is the strongest way to increase contact

The way to make the most of the mere exposure effect is to share your Q&A.

An announcement only carries the information "I have a question box," but a shared Q&A is interesting content. Followers may scroll past an announcement, but they read an interesting Q&A. The moment they read it, it counts as one contact with your question box.

What's more, a shared Q&A carries information like "This person answers this kind of question this way." The mood of your question box, the tone of your answers, and the themes you cover all build up, and your followers form an image: "This person's question box is this kind of place."

Once that image forms, the hurdle to sending a question gets lower. Followers go from "I don't know what to ask" to "They'd probably answer this kind of question." This change leads to more questions.

The mere exposure effect isn't a flashy technique. You just show yourself again and again. But this quiet buildup steadily deepens your relationship with your followers. Just as you feel close to someone you pass every morning, people feel close to a question box they see every week. Human psychology is surprisingly simple.