The Mere Exposure Effect: How You Are Being Manipulated

The mere exposure effect says I can manipulate you easily.

I want to cleverly influence you towards doing what I want without you so much as suspecting I'm a crafty bastard.

You're asleep at the wheel you see and ripe for this manipulation. I have an agenda and I intend to act purposefully to get what I want from this transaction.

You're an employee, a citizen, a student, customer or a supplier and I want to convince you to do what I want.

So I'll employ a few tricks of mind control to convince you to do this thing I want.

And when we're done you'll be happy and I'll be happy too – K?

Once everyone is happy then it's all good right?

OK, well you might not be happy but I will have achieved what I want.

Maybe next time you'll be better at recognising these circumstances and know you're being manipulated.

Or maybe you won't.

We're Working On Autopilot

Most of us seem to operate on autopilot.

I do it, although I'd like to think these days considering what I've learned about behaviour I operate a little more consciously.

But maybe I'm giving myself more credit than I deserve.

For example: Why do I buy the stuff I buy?

Why am I inclined to lean towards a particular politician even when I know they are all in it for political gain?

You can probably guess from that I'm not particularly enamoured by politicians.

Many of us in our everyday thought and decisions move in waves according to the social, political, religious or ideological group to which we belong.

That dictates our decisions in large part and organisations take full advantage of this phenomena.

Most of us are completely unaware we are being corralled and manipulated into making decisions one way or the other.

We think and act often automatically, without any conscious awareness.

Often we look around to see what everyone else is doing and once we see some kind of pattern we'll generally go with that.

In psychology, there are many theories that attempt to explain this behaviour, one of which I want to introduce you to.

Recommended Reading Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini PhD. explores the reasons why people say yes.

The Mere-Exposure Effect (The Familiarity Principle)

Government spin doctors and campaign managers understand the principle behind The Mere-Exposure Effect.

Marketing departments understand it too.

They make you and I do stuff, that had we considered all the parameters we might have chosen differently.

They know for example that repeated often subtle exposure to a product, person or idea will make you more disposed to thinking of that thing in a positive light.

In the case of products, you become more likely to buy that product next time you go shopping.

In elections, you'll develop a liking for the politician you see more prominently on the campaign trail.

Familiarity breeds in you and me the propensity to make a choice towards that thing.

The Mere-Exposure Effect or The Familiarity Principle as it is also known, says that the effect is capable of taking place without conscious cognition.

In other words, you and I make decisions and choices in our everyday lives without consciously thinking about it.

Robert Zajonc at the University of Michigan conducted a series of experiments in 1960's which demonstrated Mere-Exposure Effect in subjects.

His research showed that simply exposing subjects to words, pictures, sounds etc led them to rate those things more positively than others not presented.

The mere exposure effect appears in many areas of life.

Stock market traders often can be seen to select stock that they are familiar with rather than ones they are not.

If you need to go to the supermarket in a hurry to buy something you never bought before, you'll be more likely to select a brand you saw on TV.

The Psychology of Persuasion

Some say we have a lazy brain but I'm not so certain that negative connotation is valid.

I also don't buy into conspiracy theories and the emotive view that certain high profile organisations are orchestrating the depression of the masses.

We are easily coerced because it appears to me that our brains are wired for efficiency.

In other words, the easier something is then the greater the likelihood we are to keep or adopt the associated behaviour.

That, in my opinion, is our fault.

We are responsible ultimately for the lives we live and the experiences we generate.

Sure, other people will come into that and may influence us but we must take responsibility for our decisions whether they turn out good or bad.

The fundamental principle in all of this is momentum.

We get to choose by virtue of our conscious attention to circumstances which direction our lives move.

The moment of now is all there is and lack of attention to it leaves us exposed.

We live in a state of ever pressing forward towards a future that never gets here. In this state, our attention is lost and we are open to influence.

We are all creating our own experience, but some of us do it unconsciously.

Recommended Reading Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini PhD. explores the reasons why people say yes.