Sociocultural approach on understanding personal relationships

Mere-Exposure Effect: Social psychologists argue that our environment and culture play a key role in how we form relationships. This may explain why what is considered attractive is different around the world.  In addition, our environment may act as a “filter bubble” for choosing a mate. Social class, the university you attend, the place you work – all of these factors may play a role in whom you meet and what you find attractive. Zajonc proposed that the mere-exposure effect plays a key role in the formation of a relationship.  The mere exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things simply because they are familiar with them. The more frequently we are exposed to something, the more we like it.L

Love bombing: increased affection and attention to create a feeling of unity within a group

What conditions influence mere exposure effect: depends on how personally relevant the message is to the audience and if the message is strong or not

Zajonc

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate whether exposure to a certain person originated attraction.

Procedure:

  1. Participants were told they were taking part in a study about visual memory
  2. They were shown a set of photos of male faces, each for 2 seconds.
  3. Photos were shown in different frequency levels to different groups (the 2 conditions = high and low frequency)
  4. Each time they were shown the photo, they were asked to rate how much they would like the man on a scale of 1-7

Findings: When the participants were exposed to the image more frequently, their rating of the likeability of the man in the photo was significantly greater than when they had only seen the image once.

Strengths/Limitations:

  • Ethical consideration in the use of deception - Use of deception: participants were told they were taking part into a study about "visual memory."
  • Low ecological validity (not under natural conditions, artificial)
  • Demand characteristics = fatigue effect, because after some time participants may have randomly selected their ratings
  • Likeability = not necessarily attraction. This is different compared to how real relationships form.
  • Testing likeability and not romantic love (problem with the DV and IV)

Moreland and Beach

Aim: The aim of this study is to test the validity of the mere-exposure effect.

Procedure: Four female college age students were merely present in class attending either 0 times, 5 times, 10 times or 15 times. At the end of the experimental phase, the participants were asked to look at pictures of each of the four women and rate them on specific variables, including familiarity and attractiveness.

Findings: It was found that even though none of the students found the women familiar, the more lectures the woman attended, the more positive traits she was attributed.

Strengths/Limitations: (Deception)

  • Slight deception since confederates were used.
  • High ecological validity, the situation was very natural
  • The sample may not be representative of the population because the participants are all university students in the US
  • The women may have had different levels of attractiveness (confounding variable)