THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MERE EXPOSURE

AND LIKING AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS

An Undergraduate Thesis Proposal

Presented to
the Faculty of the Department of Psychology
College of Arts and Sciences

San Beda University

In Partial Fulfilment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Bachelor of Science in Psychology

by
James Andrei T. Villanueva
MARCH 2024
 CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

According to Honghao et al. (2021), adolescents in romantic

relationships perform less well academically than their counterparts who are

not in relationships, and they are also less likely to experience unpleasant

emotions. The romantic connection has a favourable impact on the

development of interpersonal skills since it offers the chance to learn how to

sustain intimacy and develop a positive self-concept. The romantic connection

has a greater influence on female teenagers because of the disparities in gender

roles. Furthermore, people in love relationships experience higher

psychological strain in high-stress situations. Adolescents' holistic

development will be aided by an atmosphere that is more accepting, tolerant,

and encouraging of love relationships.

The mere exposure effect, a psychological phenomenon, suggests that

repeated exposure to familiar stimuli improves a person's perception of them.

This theory, developed by Robert Zajonc, has been demonstrated in various

modalities, including gustatory, olfactory, visual, and aural aspects, indicating

that people perceive a stimulus more favourably after repeated exposure.

(Gustafsson et al. 2021).

There are many factors when we describe when liking someone

ranging from crushes, parasocial relationships, and “fictoromance”. Many

young adults also develop crushes while in college and know how to separate

their relationships.
 O’Sullivan et al. (2021) said that crushes are an unspoken, one-sided

attraction to a single person, often occurring in the formative years of

adolescence and pre-adolescence to describe liking in the means parasocial

relationships the researcher connects a study by Adam (2019) that said over

90% of college-age women report having experienced a parasocial infatuation

at some point in their adolescent years, demonstrating how common these

relationships are because they provide companionship and elevate happy

feelings. Parasocial crushes may not be considered extradyadic, even though

they function similarly to real-life love relationships. In connection to

‘fictosexuality’ A study done by Karhulahti and Välisalo (2021) explored the

conceptual analysis of "fictosexuality," "fictoromance," or "fictophilia; it is

commonly understood to be a strong, persistent feeling of love or yearning for

a fictional character. The data revealed five main themes: fictophilic

supernormality, fictophilic asexuality triggers, fictional acts, fictional

contradiction, and fictional stigma.

A study by Mrkva and Van Boven (2020) suggested that the effects of

mere exposure are more likely to be caused by salience than by "mere"

absolute exposure. This salience theory also implies that, in addition to liking,

repeated exposure increases emotional intensity and evaluative extremity.

There is a gap in literature on how young adults perceive crushes and

how mere exposure is not studied when it comes to relationships and

formation of relationships. There is a need to study the relationship between

mere exposure and liking since we can understand how relationships and

preferences play out in the formation of friendships and romantic relationships

amongst college students. By being familiar with one another we get to know
what the other person likes or dislikes. The aim of this study is to find out the

relationship between mere exposure and liking someone among college

students.

Theoretical and Conceptual Framework

A positive attitude and a systematic preference for familiarity over

novelty are characteristics of a psychological phenomenon called the mere

exposure effect. According to Robert Zajonc's hypothesis, a person's

viewpoint on a stimulus can be improved simply by continually exposing them

to it. In one of Zajonc's experiments, participants were exposed to meaningless

words. Each word appeared 0 times, 1 time, 5 times, 10 times, or 2,000 times.

Consequently, terms with favourable ratings for five, ten, and twenty-five

exposures scored better than terms with zero, one, or two exposures. Since

then, studies in gustatory, olfactory, visual, and auditory modalities have all

shown the mere exposure effect. the well accepted finding that following

repeated exposure, people view a stimulus more favourably. (Gustafsson et. al

2021). This study will focus on how mere exposure and liking play when it

comes to making or building relationships among college students.

Statement of the Problem

The primary goal of this study is to determine the relationship between

mere exposure and liking among college students in a Catholic school in

Manila.

Particularly, the researchers seek to answer the following questions:

1. What is the level of mere exposure of the participants?

2. What is the level of liking of the participants?

3. Is there a significant relationship between the levels of mere exposure and

the levels of liking of the participants?

Significance of the Study

Understanding how relationships and preferences play out in the

formation of friendships and romantic relationships among college students—

whereby getting to know one another, we learn about one another's likes and

dislikes—makes it necessary to investigate the relationship between mere

exposure and liking someone. The purpose of this study is to determine

whether college students' fondness of someone and their level of exposure to

them are related.

Definition of Terms

The following are the conceptual and operational definitions of the variables

stated in the research title:

Mere Exposure The mere exposure effect, is a

psychological phenomenon, suggests that repeated exposure to familiar stimuli

improves a person's perception of them (Gustafsson et al. 2021)

Liking O’Sullivan et al. (2021)

said that crushes are unspoken, one-sided attraction to a single person, often

occurring in the formative years of adolescence and pre-adolescence.

 (Rubin, 1970) Liking is

characterized by feelings of closeness, admiration, warmth, and respect.

 CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter discusses the variables that were used in the research.

Mere Exposure

A psychological phenomenon known as the mere exposure effect is a

phenomenon that characterizes a positive attitude and systematic valanced

preference for familiarity over novelty. This theory was created by Robert

Zajonc, according to Gustafsson et al. (2021) merely being exposed to

stimulus repeatedly improves a person's perspective on it. During one of

Zajonc’s studies, subjects were exposed to meaningless language. Every word

was shown as 0, 1, 5, 10, 25, or 2, 000 times. As a result, terms containing

five, ten, and twenty-five exposures with a positive rating were higher than

those with a 0, 1, or 2 exposures.

Since then, the mere exposure effect has been demonstrated in multiple

modalities, including gustatory, olfactory, visual, and aural. The well-

established observation that people perceive a stimulus more favorably after

repeated exposure is known as the mere exposure (ME) effect. Van Dessel et

al. (2019) said that the majority of studies conducted on the impacts of ME to

date have focused on changes in explicit stimulus assessment, such as racial

prejudice and food preferences a large body of research has looked at the

effects of ME on explicit stimulus evaluations as measured by self-reported

liking and choice preference measures; however, very few studies have looked
at the effects of ME on automatic, or implicit, stimulus evaluations as

measured by implicit evaluation measures.

According to a study done by Mrkva and Van Boven (2020) proposed

that salience—rather than “mere” absolute exposure—is primarily responsible

for the effects of mere exposure. This salience explanation also suggests that

repeated exposure raises emotional intensity and evaluative extremity in

addition to liking.

One study done by Grybinas et al. (2019) said that traditional ideas

about ME effect are most likely unsuitable in explicit memory decision-

making setting and exhibit several novel affective phenomena in different

types of memory judgment. In these cases, the degree to which the memory

judgment is easily made and whether the memory conclusions support or

refute the initial search are more likely to influence affective responses than

the materials' fluency.

Another study done by Venturoso et al. (2019) said the intricate

interactions between Baby Schema and Mere Exposure (MRE) effects that

appear when looking at the faces of adults and children. It was demonstrated

that processing of faces is significantly moderated by gender. Females are

more attentive to baby faces than adult faces when both MRE and BS are

present at the same time. However, because Caucasian and Chinese faces are

more familiar to them, the responses are opposite (constriction vs. dilation). In

contrast, males tend to outgroup infants considerably more than outgroup

adults; however, processing outgroup faces demands greater cognitive

recruitment than ingroup adult faces. A study done by Kuhn and Modrek
(2021) investigated whether mere exposure to dialogic framing would have a

stronger impact on argumentative thinking. The two groups' essays were

different in several ways. By writing more, the dialog group demonstrated a

higher level of commitment to the task. Furthermore, even though they weren't

told to, 78% of the dialog group mentioned the viewpoints they had read, with

more than half citing them in a comparative manner.

According to Krishnan et al. (2019) A salesperson's preference is

anchored by brief observations based on initial impressions; this is their basic

conviction that the target is worthy of consideration based on their initial

interaction, there are also four distinct stereotypical matching processes—

based on the seller's visible attributes—ethnicity, gender, age, and attire—

have an impact on emergent preference.

According to a study done by Carreón et al. (2019) discovered that,

when compared to models based solely on demographic data and models

based on exposure time data as well, models based on advertisement exposure

time consistently had lower predictability and that there was no statistically

significant distinction between these final two categories of models. This

implies that the duration of an advertisement's exposure has little to no short-

term impact on promoting favorable real purchase behavior.

According to Palumbo et al. (2021) when a stimulus was repeated at

different intervals and showed a rise in liking, older adults' recall for this kind

of item improved. Alternatively, when a single or large-scale stimulus

presentation item did not result in a rise in favorability. According to Molet et

al. (2021) They evaluated the mood induction in addition to the MEE in each
condition. All three of the MEE's accounts produced different predictions, but

the data did not provide strong evidence for any of the accounts. Experiments

on mood induction showed that the induction methods were effective, and the

MEE was consistently observed suggesting that mood did not influence the

MEE, at least not in the current preparation. Lastly, according to a study done

by Kim and Jung (2020) Consumers are demotivated to engage in healthy

behavior when they smell something unhealthy compared to something

healthy.

Liking

According to O’Sullivan et al. (2021) Crushes are generally unspoken,

one-sided attraction to a single person. considered to be a state of unmet

desire, As said by (Selterman et al., 2020) A crush is more than just noticing

someone is attractive; it entails being acutely aware of one's attraction to that

person and, on some level, needing to control the pull that attraction entails,

particularly if one is in a committed relationship.

It's possible that minor attractions or crushes are not inherently

harmful, or indicative of relationship issues or breakups assert that the reason

repeated exposure affects judgments is that it helps stimuli stand out from

other distracting stimuli in the environment (Selterman et al., 2020). Kotarba

and Couve (2021) said that crushes most frequently happen in the formative

years of adolescence and pre-adolescence in American culture. Huuki et al.

(2021) said that these relationships affect young children's perceptions of

themselves and other people as gendered, sexual beings because these are
frequently complex issues that are hard for kids to understand and hard for

adults to witness.

Renold and Timperley (2022) made a set of illustrated data calling

cards has been created to bring study results back to life and remain aware of

the methods in which young people and children get caught up in and make

their way through intricate assemblages of gender and sexuality that are both

human and non-human.

One study done by Saleh (2020) said that by being in a romantic

relationship on Facebook has more consequences than just described as either

completely evil or enjoyable. Still, these pages managed to produce persuasive

and fervent speech. Individuals are the ones who post a lot on these pages who

believe they are the only ones who exhibit a specific loving behavior or

romance until the position is on a case that is comparable to your own and has

a similar personal experience. occasionally letting young people's boundaries

with their parents and families.

According to Huang and Dong (2019) consumers' tendency to seek

variety in unrelated consumption situations may be enhanced when they

experience a salient relationship state, such as a romantic crush. Drawing from

the literature on compensatory consumption, they proposed that consumers'

sense of control in a romantic relationship may be diminished when they

experience a romantic crush and do not receive a reciprocal response. They are

therefore driven to make more diverse choices in consumption domains to

regain their sense of control.

 According to Adam (2019) parasocial crushes appear to be extremely

prevalent. In a recent study, more than 90% of women in college remembered

having a crush when they were teenagers, they developed a romantic

parasocial attachment to a fictional character or celebrity. Despite being on

although surface PSRs can function similarly to real-life romantic

relationships, they may not be viewed as extradyadic by offering company and

boosting positive emotions.

According to research by Karhulahti and Välisalo (2021) they made an

exploratory conceptual analysis of what is now known as "fictosexuality,"

"fictoromance," or "fictophilia," which is generally defined as an intense and

enduring emotion of affection or longing for a fictitious figure, the

phenomenon has emerged as a pertinent psychological and social reflection of

the development of human sexualities and cultures passing via. In the end, five

major themes emerged from the information: fictional stigma, fictional

paradox, and fictional actions, fictophilic supernormality, and fictophilic

asexuality stimuli.

According to Moreira et al. (2021) Young adults distinguish between

the various shades of their close relationships—which can range from brief to

long-lasting and have varying degrees of intimacy—using their linguistic

codes, commitment, frequently motivated by transient, personal fulfillment.

The process of ideation and as a result, comprehension of the close

relationships that young adults encounter is crucial for promoting healthy

intimate relationships and preventing violence. These elements are set up to

serve as a foundation for more planned and cohesive interventions with the

ideas and experiences of young adults.

Mere Exposure and Liking

Cherry (2023) said that who you are attracted to can change just by

being exposed to something. You might find someone more attractive just by

spending more time with them. This is occasionally the cause of people having

crushes on their coworkers or falling in love with their closest friends. If

someone wants the person they are in love with to notice them, they can also

take advantage of this. Just giving the person you like more time could be

enough to increase their sense of affinity and attraction to you. According to

the mere exposure theory of salience, liking, extremity, and emotional

intensity can all increase with repeated exposure to stimuli.

This could have a big impact on what it's like to be in love because

being around someone often can make you want them more, judge them

harsher, and feel stronger emotions. Moreover, the relevance of relative

exposure, which is the amount of time spent exposed to one stimulus relative

to another, they found that compared to absolute exposure, relative exposure

produces greater liking. Accordingly, people are more likely to form feelings

for them if they are exposed to them more frequently than other people

(Mrkva, K., & Van Boven, L, 2020).

Synthesis

Mere Exposure has already been studied in fact there are numerous

studies that study mere exposure ranging from baby face schema, preferred

advertisements, memory, judgment, and dialogic framing. The mere exposure

effect has been observed across different sensory modalities such as gustatory,

olfactory, visual, and aural stimuli. There are also many variations of liking

ranging from crushes to parasocial relationships to romantic relationships It is

shown in the studies that liking someone doesn’t vary only in teenagers but

rather it is also present in young adults as well.

There is a gap in the literature on ME since implicit evaluation is

widely acknowledged to be a key factor in the determination of many various

types of behavior in many different areas of psychology, including voting,

consumer purchases, and addictive behaviors. In fact, several reviews and

meta-analyses suggest that, in some circumstances, measures of implicit

assessment can account for a significant amount of additional variance in

behavior and be used in conjunction with other measures of (explicit)

evaluation.

There is also a lack of literature on study on how young adults perceive

liking someone and how mere exposure is responsible for showcasing how

liking is built. Studying the relationship between mere exposure and liking is

necessary since it helps us comprehend how relationships and preferences

function when college students form romantic relationships and friendships.

We learn each other's preferences and dislikes by getting to know one another.
 The purpose of this study is to be able to study how mere exposure

plays an important role in making an impression on someone most especially

in college where making friendships is important.

 CHAPTER 3
METHOD

This chapter describes the participants, measures, procedures, and data

analysis.

Participants

The Central Limit Theorem is the basis for the research's target

population, which is at least 100 college students. Since normalcy should be

considered on a parametric test, like a Pearson r, which will be used in this

research, this suggests using at least 150 samples (David, 1938). The

categories are to be considered when taking the survey, (1) The respondent

must be close to or have a relationship with their friend whom they believe

they like. (2) The respondent must be a first to fourth-year college student

studying in a Catholic institution in Manila to be eligible to participate in the

study.

The researcher will make use of convenience sampling, a non-random

selection strategy that chooses participants based on their availability and

accessibility. The library and classrooms, which see the highest volume of

student traffic throughout the university, should be the main locations for

responding to requests for information. To encourage participation, each

person who completes the survey will have a draw and will have a chance to

win GCash.

Measures

The study equips with two questionnaires, specifically, a self-report

questionnaire on how students are familiar with their friend who they like and

Rubin’s Love and Liking Scale.

 The first part of the questionnaire would be a self-report survey on one

item on how well the student is familiar with their friend who they like, on a

scale of 1 to 5 will be given 5 being familiar at all and 1 being not familiar at

all.

Rubin’s Love and Liking Scale. The second part of the questionnaire

containing the 13-item love and liking measures, with their component

questions inserted, was given in October 1968 to 158 University of Michigan

couples who were dating but not engaged. The couples were found using

posters and newspaper ads. Apart from the love and liking measures, which

were initially to be completed for one's dating partner and then for a close

friend of the same sex, the questionnaire also included other personality scales

and inquiries regarding the dating relationship's history. Every partner

completed the survey on their own, and they received S1 as payment for their

participation. Each item on the love and liking scales was scored on a

continuum ranging from "Not at all true; disagree completely" (scored as 1) to

"Definitely true; agree completely" (scored as 9).

The total scale scores were calculated by adding the scores on

individual items. The modal couple was a junior man and a sophomore or

junior woman who had been dating for approximately a year. The scale is

composed of two subscales Caring This subscale gauges how concerned or

caring people are for their partner's welfare. This subscale may contain items

such as "I really enjoy doing things for my partner" or "I would almost do

anything for my partner." and Attachment This subscale evaluates how

emotionally connected or attached a person is to their partner. Statements like

"I feel like my partner knows me very well" or "I am very happy with my

partner" could be among the items.

Procedure

A brief overview of the research will be presented on the survey's first

page for to draw in more participants and give people an idea of the purpose of

the study. Regarding the second page, there is a consent form that participants

must sign and acknowledge. initials before moving on to the actual questions.

A duplicate of the principal researcher's correspondence the initial page has

information as well, so if participants have any queries, they might get in

touch with the researchers in advance.

The first questionnaire would be a self-report survey on how well the

student is familiar with the friend they like. The second questionnaire will

contain Rubin’s Love and Liking Scale. Data collection will take

approximately a month due to the number of students who will participate in

the survey. After the data is collected with verification the researcher will then

consider the participant to be part of the lucky draw to win GCash.

Data Analysis

1. Mean and standard deviation will be used to measure the levels of

mere exposure of college students.

2. Mean and standard deviation will be used to measure the levels of

liking of college students.

 3. The Pearson r will be used to measure the relationship between mere

exposure and liking.

Limitations of the Study

According to Grybinas et al. (2019) said that traditional ideas about

ME effect are most likely unsuitable in explicit memory decision-making

setting and exhibit several novel affective phenomena in different types of

memory judgment. In these cases, the degree to which the memory judgment

is easily made and whether the memory conclusions support or refute the

initial search are more likely to influence affective responses than the

materials' fluency.

Memory could affect the judgment since the participant might not be

that familiar or close to the friend that they like causing a lapse in judgment.

Consequently, this may lead to the decline of reliability and precision of data

needed in the survey. Ethical limitations will include confidentiality of data

and not revealing to anyone who the person likes.

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