I remember when I had my first beer…

It was vile.

Whether you’re sneaking one from the fridge in high school, playing pong during your first college weekend, or (rarely the case) enjoying your inaugural brew on the night of your 21st birthday, there is nothing too remarkable about this adult soda striking our taste buds for the first time. In fact, there is a pretty generic response: it simply does not taste good. As we drink more beer we begin to appreciate this canned goodness. This is not the alcohol talking. That first Natty light, a beverage I remember initially resembling a nauseating blend of pinto beans and carbonated water, took every muscle in our bodies to choke down. Now it has become nothing less than a fine pilsner: the most Natural of Light, some would say. Why?

Where and when does the transformation occur? How do we go from having a negative opinion about something to having a beer every night at dinner? The classic saying is that beer is an acquired taste, but the real work behind this acquisition is the mere-exposure effect. This psychological phenomenon explains why we learn to like things (in this case, malt beverages) as we encounter them more. According to the findings of psychological studies in the sixties, the more we are exposed to something, the more “likable” it becomes (Zajonc 1968).

The mere-exposure effect is an idea that makes logical sense. Throughout our lives, we often find ourselves placed in environments of unfamiliarity. As human beings, when we are unfamiliar with something, we are uncomfortable and do not like the situation. We just do not like things that we do not know. This is why we avoid new things and stick with the familiar. However, as we are increasingly exposed to something, we become more familiar with it, and thus, more comfortable.

This relationship between familiarities, comfort across situations, and liking are at the forefront of the mere-exposure effect. This relationship has been revisited by researchers (Montoya et al. 2017). A return to the mere-exposure effect was due to the desire to research more and a feeling that existing research did not explain things sufficiently. These researchers wanted to look even more into specific stimuli (like beer!), and how these differences can show differences across the mere-exposure effect. In other words, they wanted to answer the same question: how the hell do we end up actually liking beer? Their findings indicated that memory seems to be one of the defining factors. The way memory works here is complicated, but trust me, I am no expert… I just like beer enough to have done my research!

Memory can be thought of in many different ways, but the best way to think of it is in the context of time devoted to something– in other words, attention. If we only have one sip of beer one time, we are not devoting enough attention to it. Obviously, in the college environment, we are not having “one beer”– no matter what you are telling your parents. So in our exposure to beer, we are beginning to devote an increasing amount of attention to this malt beverage. Interpreting a stimuli, processing a stimuli, and encoding a stimuli into our memory trace are how we make our memories. Our most clear and familiar memories are ones that we feel incredibly comfortable with and are linked with our liking. After 4 years of college, beer is all over our memory trace… even if we cannot remember many of the times or experiences following its consumption. This familiar memory trace is what explains the mere-exposure effect. It is an automatic response to the fourth process of memory: retrieval. It begins with the original pattern recognizing process of remembering the distinct taste, continues with the transfer to a encoding mechanism in our brains, and ends with the ability this whenever we so desire. Since we are exposed to so much beer while we age and develop, our retrieval process is faster and the preference emerges. This is what pushes us to the fridge at the end of the day to crack open a refreshing, cold brew.

Obviously, the mere-exposure effect is not limited to just beer. It has been proven with faces, letters, sounds, shapes, you name it (Bornstein and D’Agostino 1992). Even people increasing interaction between people shows this effect. Being able to trace how this sort of behavior works in our minds helps explain how we can grow to like things, people, places, and situations by simply giving them more time and attention. The mere-exposure effect shows how powerful our memory system is in dictating our beliefs and opinions about different aspects of our lives. Once we begin to expose ourselves to something, we begin to be naturally drawn towards whatever it may be.

This becomes an important and applicable idea when we begin to think about people. In the field of Social Psychology, the mere-exposure effect becomes the most applicable to our everyday lives. We are almost always interacting with people, but it is the people we interact with most that we tend to show a preference… even if we don’t know them. Whether it be just seeing their faces 15 times in a semester across a lecture hall or in the library every Tuesday night, we like people more when they solidify themselves in our memory traces. Before we did not even know these people, but after increased exposure and battering their face into our memory traces, we have an almost inexplicable attraction and preference for them. Do first impressions even matter then? All we have to do is expose ourselves to people and they will like us more. I’m not encouraging being a stalker, but if you want that cutie in your Cognitive Psych class to like you more, heres a tip: go to class! If she sees you twice a week for a semester, she’ll like you more! Thank Psychology: the best wing-man out there.

For this same reason, we can now begin to process just how Dad can casually sip on a Coors light every night at dinner. It just does not make sense until you look at it from a psychological standpoint. The first beer we have is an entirely new experience. We don’t know what it will taste like and our brain has nothing to work with. That first experience is biased already because it is an uncomfortable experience. Once we fill our red solo cups up at the keg a few dozen times and shotgun our handful of beers, we become more familiar with beer’s taste as it becomes more vivid and present in our memory system. One could honestly argue that the typical college experience facilitates and speeds up our mere-exposure effect for beer.

So if you ever wonder how you got to liking something you did not like, or how you ended up liking someone you never thought you would: you probably acquired these feelings. Just like beer is an acquired taste, our feelings of liking are acquired via the mere-exposure effect. It’s all Natural! Just like the first lukewarm suds that once made you cringe.

References:

1. Bornstein, Robert F.; D’Agostino, Paul R.“Stimulus recognition and the mere exposure effect”: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 63(4), Oct 1992, 545-552.

2. Montoya, R. Matthew; Horton, Robert S.; Vevea, Jack L.; Citkowicz, Martyna; Lauber, Elissa A.“A Re-Examination of the Mere Exposure Effect: The Influence of Repeated Exposure on Recognition, Familiarity, and Liking”: Psychological Bulletin, Mar 06, 2017.

3. Zajonc, R. B. “Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences”: American Psychologist, Vol 35(2), Feb 1980, 151-175.