Mere-Exposure Effect

Tendency to like stimuli more simply from repeated exposure to them, demonstrated across senses and species.

Specifications & Metrics

Zajonc's 1968 monograph in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology is among the field's most-cited papers.
The effect holds for faces, music, nonsense shapes, and even stimuli shown too briefly for conscious recognition.
It underwrites advertising repetition and brand familiarity effects studied across marketing and economics.