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Proximity and Mere Exposure

May 2022

DOI:10.4324/9780367198459-REPRW43-1

In book: Proximity and Mere Exposure

Authors:

Wind Goodfriend

Buena Vista University

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Content uploaded by Wind Goodfriend

Content may be subject to copyright.

The Lived Experience of Couples from a Long-Distance Relationship

Thesis

Feb 2024

Although romantic relationships are normally characterized by physical proximity, they are often carried out in geographic separation due to factors such as educational and career pursuits. Nowadays a growing population of couples have experienced a status called long-distance relationship or at least in one period of their lives they have had to deal with it. However, there is a research gap in discovering the nature of these experiences and this group is neglected in the research literature on romantic relationships. Therefore, the present study was conducted to discover the spouses' lived experience of the long-distance relationship. The study was qualitative with an interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA). 15 participants were selected by purposeful sampling and subjected to in-depth semi-structured interviews. Smith and Osborn's interpretive phenomenological method was used to analyze and review the interviews. The results of coding the interviews were categorized into three main themes: the first theme was to decide to live with distance, indicating how spouses entered into these relationships. The second theme, the long and cyclic experience of the spouses in the context of their surrounding social network, shows how this experience represents the history of distance within the present experience and the presence of others in the relationship. The third theme, staying in a long-distance relationship, describes why spouses experience this type of relationship in this way. The essence of the research was the constant adaptation to distance with the constant presence of missing loved ones. The results of the research showed that being away from the spouse creates special dynamics between them, which requires constant adaptation and at the same time, it can bring positive experiences. The findings are helpful in better understanding the dimensions of these relationships and not only can open the way for future research in this field but can also be very helpful in designing and implementing couple therapy interventions for spouses who are far apart, to increase the level of satisfaction.

Virtual relationships: Anthropomorphism in the digital age

Article

Full-text available

May 2021

For most of human history we have ascribed human‐like capacities to other entities (anthropomorphism). Recently, the digital age has created new entities: virtual agents (VAs). Increasingly, these virtual entities are complex and human‐like, specifically designed to elicit anthropomorphism from their owners and users. We employ social psychological research and theory to review how, why, and when people come to anthropomorphize VAs. Moving beyond static representations, we examine the dynamics of human‐VA relationships and how they are encroaching on the closest of human relationships, virtual love. We use the social psychology of close relationships to examine the ways in which people may form, maintain, and terminate relationships with VAs. We conclude by examining the potential costs and benefits of these new relationships.

Designed to S(m)ell: When Scented Advertising Induces Proximity and Enhances Appeal

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2020

Prior research on the use of scent in advertising has shown that scent can enhance the memorability of and engagement with an ad. However, can scenting an ad also change the way consumers perceive and react to the advertised product? This research provides new insights for this question and demonstrates an additional facet of scent: its ability to physically represent the essence of a target product and thus induce a sense of proximity. Through six studies, the authors show that scented ads enhance consumers’ sense of proximity of the advertised product and consequently increase product appeal. In line with the proposed visceral nature of the effect, this effect holds even for unpleasant scents but is contingent on the scent’s ability to represent the advertised product. The effect is weakened when the product is physically close. The findings of this research have implications for when and why firms should use scented ads.

Darling, Get Closer to Me: Spatial Proximity Amplifies Interpersonal Liking

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2018

Does close distance increase liking for a social object? In a preliminary sociogram task, an association between proximity and intimacy was found in drawings of self and others. In three experimental studies, male participants consistently preferred female targets who were (actually or appeared to be) close than far from them. Distance was manipulated through various means—sitting distance (Study 2), presenting two facial images separately to each eye by a stereoscopic device (Study 3), or a video clip (Study 4). This effect was stronger among those with deprived social needs and occurred in part because close (vs. far) targets seemed psychologically more accessible to the perceiver. Our findings offer rare experimental evidence for the empirically challenged propinquity effect and provide new insights on how distance shapes inner experience.

Repeated Listening Increases the Liking for Music Regardless of Its Complexity: Implications for the Appreciation and Aesthetics of Music

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2017

Psychological and aesthetic theories predict that music is appreciated at optimal, peak levels of familiarity and complexity, and that appreciation of music exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with familiarity as well as complexity. Because increased familiarity conceivably leads to improved processing and less perceived complexity, we test whether there is an interaction between familiarity and complexity. Specifically, increased familiarity should render the music subjectively less complex, and therefore move the apex of the U curve toward greater complexity. A naturalistic listening experiment was conducted, featuring 40 music examples (ME) divided by experts into 4 levels of complexity prior to the main experiment. The MEs were presented 28 times each across a period of approximately 4 weeks, and individual ratings were assessed throughout the experiment. Ratings of liking increased monotonically with repeated listening at all levels of complexity; both the simplest and the most complex MEs were liked more as a function of listening time, without any indication of a U-shaped relation. Although the MEs were previously unknown to the participants, the strongest predictor of liking was familiarity in terms of having listened to similar music before, i.e., familiarity with musical style. We conclude that familiarity is the single most important variable for explaining differences in liking among music, regardless of the complexity of the music.

Dynamic exposure to an alcohol advertising in sporting context influences implicit attitudes

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2015
ALCOHOL CLIN EXP RES

Background: Experimental studies investigating the impact of advertising with ecological stimuli on alcohol-related cognition are scarce. This research investigated the cognitive processes involved in learning implicit attitudes toward alcohol after incidental exposure to alcohol advertisements presented in a dynamic context. We hypothesized that incidental exposure to a specific alcohol brand would lead to heightened positive implicit attitudes toward alcohol due to a mere exposure effect. Methods: In total, 108 participants were randomly exposed to dynamic sporting events excerpts with and without advertising for a specific brand of alcohol, after completing self-reported measures of alcohol-related expectancies, alcohol consumption, and attitudes toward sport. Participants then completed a lexical decision task and an affective priming task. Results: We showed that participants were faster to detect brand name after being exposed to advertising during a sports game, and that implicit attitudes of participants toward the brand were more positive after they were exposed to advertising, even when alcohol usage patterns were controlled for. Conclusions: Incidental exposure to alcohol sponsorship in sport events impacts implicit attitudes toward the advertised brand and alcohol in general. The effect of incidental advertising on implicit attitudes is also likely to be due to a mere exposure effect. However, further studies should address this point specifically.

Cognitive Bias Modification and Cognitive Control Training in Addiction and Related Psychopathology Mechanisms, Clinical Perspectives, and Ways Forward

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2013

The past decade has witnessed a surge in research on training paradigms aimed at directly influencing cognitive processes in addiction and other psychopathology. Broadly, two avenues have been explored: In the first, the aim was to change maladaptive cognitive motivational biases (cognitive bias modification); in the second, the aim was to increase general control processes (e.g., working memory capacity). These approaches are consistent with a dual-process perspective in which psychopathology is related to a combination of disorder-specific impulsive processes and weak general abilities to control these impulses in view of reflective longer-term considerations. After reviewing the evidence for dual-process models in addiction, we discuss a number of critical issues, along with suggestions for further research. We argue that theoretical advancement, along with a better understanding of the underlying neurocognitive processes, is crucial for adequately responding to recent criticisms on dual-process models and for optimizing training paradigms for use in clinical practice.

“Danger, Will Robinson!” The challenges of social robots for intergroup relations

Article

Jul 2019

Society's increasing reliance on robots in everyday life provides exciting opportunities for social psychologists to work with engineers in the nascent field of social robotics. In contrast to industrial robots that, for example, may be used on an assembly line, social robots are designed specifically to interact with humans and/or other robots. People tend to perceive social robots as autonomous and capable of having a mind. As such, they are also more likely to be subject to social categorization by humans. As social robots become more human like, people may also feel greater empathy for them and treat robots more like (human) ingroup members. On the other hand, as they become more human like, robots also challenge our human distinctiveness, threaten our identity, and elicit suspicion about their ability to deceive us with their human‐like qualities. We review relevant research to explore this apparent paradox, particularly from an intergroup relations perspective. We discuss these findings and propose three research questions that we believe social psychologists are ideally suited to address.

Attitutional effects of mere exposure

Article

Jan 1971

R. Zajonc

When Can Affective Conditioning and Mere Exposure Directly Influence Brand Choice?

Article

May 2013

William E. Baker

The purpose of this research is to identify the circumstances, if any, in which affective conditioning (AC) and mere exposure (ME) based advertising strategies can directly influence brand choice. In an experimental setting, affective conditioning and mere exposure procedures were applied to unknown brands in two product categories. Advertising employing AC and ME was not successful against known, well-established competitors. It was, however, successful against other unknown competitors if (1) these competitors did not have superior performance characteristics or (2) the motivation to deliberate at the time of brand choice was low. The research also suggests that an ME advertising strategy can be as successful as an AC strategy. This is important because an ME strategy is easier to execute. It also suggests that advertisers should place a higher priority on maximizing the prominence of the brand name and package in advertisements.

The mere exposure effect for consumer products as a consequence of existing familiarity and controlled exposure

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