You were standing in the store, hesitating. It wasn’t love at first sight—not quite. Still, it’s hanging there now, and you can no longer imagine the wall without it. The poster you weren’t sure about has become the one you love most. It’s not your imagination, and it’s not a coincidence either. The phenomenon has a name in psychology—the mere exposure effect—and it explains why a poster often grows on us the longer it hangs. But the research also holds a surprise: for art in particular, the effect is weaker and more unpredictable than for almost anything else around us. That paradox is worth understanding before you choose your next design.
Quick facts: The term was coined by social psychologist Robert Zajonc in the monograph “Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure,” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1968 (volume 9, pages 1–27). The conclusion: repeated exposure to an object alone is enough to make us like it more—even when our initial reaction was indifference.
What Zajonc actually discovered in 1968—and why it changed psychology
Robert Zajonc was a Polish-American social psychologist, and his experiments in the 1960s were remarkably simple. He showed participants meaningless symbols, made-up “Turkish” words, and unfamiliar faces different numbers of times, then asked them to rate how much they liked each one. The pattern was equally clear every time: the more often someone had seen something, the more positively they rated it. This applied to words, signs, sounds, and faces. No reward was needed, no explanation—just repetition itself.
What was revolutionary was that the effect didn’t require conscious memory. Participants preferred symbols they had been exposed to even when they couldn’t remember seeing them before. Recognition worked beneath the surface. Zajonc later summed it up with the thesis that feeling can come before thought—that we can react positively to something before we’ve had time to process what it is. For a poster on the wall, this means that glancing at it day after day builds a quiet familiarity that slowly turns into fondness.
Since 1968, the finding has been replicated in hundreds of studies and is considered one of the most robust in experimental psychology. It explains everything from why we vote for names we recognize to why a chorus we initially found most annoying suddenly gets stuck in our heads as a favorite. But when researchers turned their attention to painting and art, the picture became more complicated.
The paradox: why the effect is weaker for art than for almost anything else
Here’s the counterintuitive part. A meta-analysis of exposure research found that the effect is markedly weaker for paintings and drawings than for simple stimuli such as words and symbols. Contrary to what you might expect, complex art doesn’t always grow on us just because we see it often. Sometimes there’s no effect at all in the laboratory.
The explanation has to do with depth. A meaningless symbol can be processed passively – the brain doesn’t have to work at it. A rich painting requires active, deeper interpretation for attitudes to change. As early as 2001, Austrian researcher Helmut Leder showed in the study “Determinants of Preference: When do we like what we know?” that the relationship between familiarity and liking in art is not straightforward, but depends on how much the viewer actually engages with the work. Passive exposure isn’t always enough when the image is complex.
“A simple symbol only needs to be seen to be liked. A rich painting needs to be seen properly – and that difference gives the poster at home an advantage the laboratory never had.”
And that’s precisely where the key lies. The laboratory studies had participants look at art for a few seconds under artificial conditions. At home, something else happens. A 2021 review in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, “Familiarity and Novelty in Aesthetic Preference,” pointed out that both familiarity and a measured degree of novelty matter to how much we appreciate a work – and that context, the viewer’s knowledge, and the work’s qualities all intertwine. In a museum experiment included in the research, all participants, regardless of their familiarity with art, preferred the works they had seen before to those that were entirely new. Familiarity won out, but only when viewers had encountered the work in person, not just briefly in a test setting.
What determines whether a poster grows on you – complexity, familiarity, and time
The research offers three practical clues. The first is complexity. A graphic, pared-back image reaches its peak value quickly – you see it, you understand it, you like it, and then not much else happens. A richly layered work with depth and detail has more to offer over time, because each new viewing can reveal something you hadn’t noticed before. That’s why an abstract or detailed image often ages better on the wall than one that says everything all at once.
The second clue is that familiarity mustn’t tip over into oversaturation. Researchers describe an inverted U-shaped curve: liking increases with exposure, reaches a peak, and may then level off or decline if the design becomes too predictable. An artwork with enough depth pushes that peak further into the future, while a shallow design may become tiresome sooner. The third clue is time and genuine attention—the effect is strongest when you actually encounter the design, not just pass by it.
It’s also worth noticing how differently the three clues work together at home compared with in a laboratory. In an experiment, you’re forced to look at an artwork for a few seconds, once, under artificial conditions. On your own wall, encounters happen spontaneously over months—in the morning light, at dusk, in the middle of a conversation, or in a fleeting glance as you head out. Each encounter is brief but genuine, and together they build a familiarity that a single laboratory viewing can never create. This explains why the paradox of the weak effect mainly applies to artificial tests: the home gives art exactly the repeated, genuine attention that research shows it needs.
Tip: Unsure about a design in the store? Don’t dismiss it right away. Research suggests that a poster with just the right amount of depth is often valued more after a few weeks of living with it than at first glance. Choose a design that gives you something new to discover rather than one that says everything in a second.
This also explains why artworks and richly detailed motifs often become household favorites over time. A piece from a collection of renowned artists carries history and composition that can withstand being viewed a hundred times, and a thoughtfully crafted image among our abstract posters can change character depending on the light and the viewer’s mood. That’s where the mere exposure effect works best—in the complex, not the flat.
How to use the mere exposure effect when choosing posters for your home
The first lesson is to trust love at first sight less and how an image feels in your everyday life more. A work that grabs you immediately may be one you quickly outgrow, while a quieter choice can grow into something you cherish for years. If you can, live with an image for a while – prop it against the wall before hanging it and notice whether it draws your eye again or fades into the background.
The second lesson concerns placement. The effect depends on repeated encounters, so a poster is best placed where you naturally pass by and pause: by the dining area, in the reading nook, along the wall you can see from the sofa. An image tucked away in a corner you rarely visit never gets the chance to grow on you. If you want to explore how repeated viewing relates to the experience of beauty, you can read more about the research on processing fluency and why some art feels beautiful, and about how long we actually linger over a work in our overview of viewing time and art.
The third lesson is about balancing the familiar with the new. Recognition creates a sense of security, but a little novelty keeps interest alive. A home consisting only of safe, predictable images risks becoming invisible to its own inhabitants. Pairing a familiar favorite image with something unexpected from among our minimalist posters or most popular posters brings both the calm of familiarity and a spark of curiosity. It is also worth knowing that the sense of security we find in the familiar has its own psychology – something we explore in the article about the psychology of nostalgia and retro art.
Frequently asked questions about the mere exposure effect and art
In a way, the mere exposure effect is reassuring: you don’t have to find the perfect image in a second, because the best choices often mature as they become part of your everyday life. But it also reminds us that art with depth rewards those who give it time. Want to find an image that grows with you? Start with our most-loved works and art prints that stand up to being viewed again and again, and let your wall show you how much it can be worth over time. Explore the full range and give hesitation a chance to turn into love.
Sources: Mere-exposure effect, Wikipedia and Familiarity and Novelty in Aesthetic Preference, Frontiers in Psychology 2021.