Mere-Exposure Effect
The tendency to develop a preference for things simply because you've encountered them before. Familiarity breeds not contempt, but comfort.
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Origin
Polish-born social psychologist Robert Zajonc formalised the effect in his landmark 1968 paper "Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure," published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology while at the University of Michigan. Earlier hints of the phenomenon date to Gustav Fechner's aesthetic observations in 1876, but Zajonc was the first to subject it to systematic experimental testing and give it a name that stuck.
Updated February 22, 2026