The good, bad, and the ugly
When a person is first born, many may think that it’s the beginning of their life. However, this is only the first moment they see the sun. At this point, a baby has already gotten to know its parents, know how? Through its development in the womb.
The best way I can describe this is the clip from SuperMan (0:14 - 1:32). Yes, he may have been a toddler by the time he was “re-birthed”, but it’s still fairly accurate.
Babies develop at certain points in the womb, and as they mature, they can sense at about 24 weeks of what’s beyond them. Which means that it’s possible to teach a baby the ABCs without it being born yet! While many parents may consider babies to be inept, if you want to raise a healthy and smart person, then you have to treat them that way. Certainly a person isn’t molded simply by nurture, since a person nature has much to do with how they behave and adapt, however there’s much to be taught to help them.
From this then, a baby has the ability to know its parents before even being born yet, meaning its already familiar with them. Thus, would this be what’s called the mere exposure effect?
When reading Originals by Adam Grant, he showed 2 words: iktitaf and sarick.
After which he asked which one I would like better, noting that whatever one I liked would have “nothing to do with the word itself.” I picked iktitaf because I like it better than the feel that sarick gives. Then later he says,
“To enhance your liking of sarick, I embedded it five times in the previous section.”
This made me pause, thinking well that didn’t work. Though it turns out that most people are influenced by what’s called the mere exposure effect.
“The more often we encounter something, the more we like it.”
So, does that mean I’m naturally a rebel for going against the grain? I think it has more to do with how easily influenced a person can be to stimuli, which is why I subheaded this article “The good, bad, and ugly” that we’ll now discuss.
The good
When trying to persuade someone to like something, by introducing a small section ahead of time, it’s easier to swallow and think about applying later.
“exposures are more effective when they’re short and mixed in with other ideas.
For example,
“If you’re making a suggestion to a boss, you might start with a 30-second elevator pitch during a conversation on Tuesday, revisit it briefly the following Monday, and then ask for feedback at the end of the week.”
and,
“the brief presentations interspersed between other communications-and the delays between them-caused leaders to warm up to Medina’s ideas.”
When trying to make change for good, these techniques in helping familiarize complex topics can help people better understand why they might be good. Now that might seem like common-sense, but here’s where I start rambling about other ways.
The bad
At a young age kids are taught that everything is given to them. They go to the store with their parents, pick out what they like, see imaginary numbers on a screen saying how much is needed to pay (since paper money is irrelevant now) and think nothing of how it got there. When they grew up, they were given easy access to credit cards, with the imaginary numbers beckoning spending, anything at your disposal it could’ve said. And too soon those kids were in debt.
It’s said that Gen Z has experienced the most debt among any generation. Well what’d you know, how’d that happen? Perhaps because there was no discipline taught? Yes, but also because the familiarity of having had everything given to them so young that… well, that mentality has been ingrained on them, and will now be hard to dispel.
The ugly
Ah I love being honest, so I’ll say it right off the bat: corn has became too familiar among this young generation (saying corn because I don’t know how Google shows keywords). From men choosing AI girlfriends, like one provocative social platform once named Twitter, to the addiction that knows no boundaries set from an early age of simply clicking on the wrong link.
I know, because I was one of them. From 9 years old I was given access to a tablet. After having had a desktop computer at 7 years old, an eMachines Windows Vista. However, it was the Windows 8 tablet that got me into trouble. How I got into corn, I don’t know, though I was stuck in it for a few years. At this point I’ve forgotten anything about it, only having learned the important lesson in self-control. I suppose it’s fortunate that because corn prioritizes objectifying women, I wasn’t interested in the men stuff. With that in mind, it’s fortunate I wasn’t a girl liking girls despite my “friends” being that kind in middle school (Text and Bye), since early Bible knowledge grounded me. Instead, I was living as if an observer; watching how it affected other people and myself, and instead of becoming less mature like my peers, I’m smarter to this day for it.
With the familiarity of corn brought up at such a young age, so young in fact, that Gen Alpha are given tablets at 4 years old. This unfortunate social experiment makes it clear that communication about a person’s powers is necessary in order for them to have responsibility for them. Yes, I mean powers plural because it isn’t just procreative powers, it can be anything that can cause a person to spiral when managed poorly, whether that be physical strength or mental prowess.
How might familiarity breed comfort? After all, the behavior in corn is often disturbing and makes a person feel depressed enough to hate themselves for their addiction. I can’t say exactly, perhaps if I were an adult addicted to the content it would be easier to self-question. But being a kid, one goes from one thing to the next trying to understand the world, as I was in piecing information together. Instead of staying comfortable with it, I kept pushing back against anything I was interested in- I suppose this is called going against the grain. Akin to an experiment done on a dog who had options and whether they would search for options when there was an opening, compared to the other dog who didn’t have options to get out of a situation and ended up bearing the pain even when an option of getting out was presented (called learned helplessness) Here’s the full PDF study on this, or this one may be better readable.
Lastly, it’s the parent that a child’s familiar with who should be making sure of their kids well being. I remember watching a video, I think it was MC-animated or something, that showed the exact right thing for parents to do. The video began with the kid getting a tablet and the parents saying, “be careful what you do.” When the parents leave, the kid automatically searches up big booby something, then deletes it in fright that they would see. Later, the parents having had come back, say to him something like, “I see you searched up a nasty word, but it’s ok, mistakes happen, we’re going to put parental protections on your tablet.” While that’s all I remember of the video, what could be added is explaining why the kid shouldn’t watch inappropriate content. After all, treating one’s kid like their smart will make them smarter, as noted before.
Lastly, while familiarity is comfort even in the most repulsive of habits, one can use the strategy for getting out of it. Now I’ll speak generally, that even though I’ve lived in the same place all my life, haven’t traveled anywhere in the last 5 years, I find comfort in the unknown. It’s a contradiction yes, yet it scares me more to stay in one place mentally, like if I’m not growing. After all, I wouldn’t be who I am if it weren’t for my willpower in being who I wanted in “The year”.
Reminds me of the K-391 song Alive I always find in my head, “Tell me, are you living? Or are you alive? Do you just give in or give it a try? If you’re just watching the days go by…”
Speaking of familiarity, all this makes me think of ways I’ve used the mere exposure effect on anyone reading my articles. For example, if someone were to read all my articles, I consistently go over these themes:
- Coffee addiction
- Being self-sustainable
- Being alone isn’t bad
- … any more?
Now, I didn’t have any thought toward applying “the effect” on people when writing these, it was simply to help others deal with an issue that I was finding solutions for myself to deal with. However, to help anyone be more self-aware about what they may be influenced by, I’ll ask: How has the reiteration of these themes in my stories caused you to think differently, if at all? The answer to this may show how easily persuaded by familiarity you are.