Mere exposure effect

Overview

The mere exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon where simply coming into contact with something repeatedly increases your liking and sense of familiarity toward it. Robert Zajonc showed it through experiments in 1968. When participants were shown meaningless shapes or foreign words again and again, the ones they had seen more often were rated as more "pleasant." There's no need to understand the content. The effect is said to happen just through contact.

Question boxes and the mere exposure effect

When the same person keeps sending questions to your question box, even if your first reaction is just "Oh, them again," you start to feel close to them as it keeps happening. Even when it's anonymous, if you can recognize "It's the usual person" from their writing style or the kind of questions they ask, the mere exposure effect kicks in.

The same goes for senders. If you keep sending questions to a particular question box, you read that person's answers more often, and you tend to naturally come to like them more. The mere exposure effect is thought to play a part in how a question box regular comes to see the person answering as their oshi (the favorite you passionately support).

Limits of the effect

The mere exposure effect has limits. If the first impression is strongly negative, repeated contact is unlikely to raise your liking. In fact, the dislike can get stronger. If someone keeps sending aggressive questions to a question box, it can lead to wariness: "Oh no, this person again."

Also, if there's too much contact, the effect levels off, and in some cases it turns into boredom or dislike. Sending dozens of questions a day to a question box, far from making the owner like you more, risks making them think you're "pushy." Keeping up contact at a moderate frequency is the trick to getting the most out of the mere exposure effect.