Zajonc's Hypothesis Research Articles

Social anxiety elicits an approach mere exposure effect for angry faces.

Zajonc (2001) called the mere exposure effect (MEE) a gateway into the subliminal - specifically, the affective unconscious discrimination of stimuli. Zajonc proposed that the MEE occurs because repeated unconscious presentation of a stimulus automatically elicits approach toward it, and thus, positive affect. We present the first test of Zajonc's hypothesis of what we term an approach mere exposure effect. We did so by using an implicit measure that identifies preferred stimuli by assessing automatic approach reactions. A total of 42 highly socially anxious and 39 nonanxious control participants were administered masked exposures to either angry or neutral faces. Then they reacted to visible pictures of angry or neutral faces that were either previously presented (old) or new in one of two ways. They either (a) pulled a joystick toward themselves, which created the visual effect of approaching these stimuli (stimulus preference), or (b) pushed a joystick away from themselves, which created the effect of avoiding the stimuli. Mere exposure to angry faces caused socially anxious participants to pull - approach - old angry faces more quickly than new angry faces, that is, an approach MEE. Nonanxious participants nearly approached old neutral faces more quickly than new neutral faces. Mere exposure to angry faces also caused socially anxious participants to approach visible angry faces generally, and counterintuitively, to approach angry faces faster than they avoided them, whether they were old or new. These results suggest that the approach MEE generalized to have fear-reducing effects in socially anxious persons.

Social facilitation during the initial stage of motor learning: a re-examination of Martens' audience study.

This study partially replicated Martens' (1969a) social-facilitation study of motor behavior. His very robust performance findings provided impressive confirmation for Zajonc's hypothesis, and his arousal findings have since been used as evidence for a nonlearned-drive basis for social facilitation. The present study also extended Martens' investigation by examining the separate and combined effects of an audience and videotape camera. The effects due to the presence of the audience and camera were not additive; instead, the audience detrimentally affected subjects' performance consistency and the camera resulted in more trials with errors greater than 30 msec after the performance criteria had been attained. Martens' most robust findings for constant error were not replicated, nor were some of his physiological arousal findings. His pattern of constant error results over all trials is atypical of known learning strategies that subjects use to reduce error over successive trials. Overall, audience effects accounted for only a very small portion of the variance.

Explorations in the Drive Theory of Social Facilitation

Summary It was hypothesized (Experiment I) that the mere presence of an observer would facilitate performance on simple mazes and hinder performance on complex mazes, especially when the observer was unfamiliar to the S. A second study (Experiment II), addressed the apparent paradox between Zajonc's drive theory of social facilitation and generalizations stemming from Schachter's work on affiliation (the first indicating that the presence of others is arousing, the second suggesting that the presence of others is calming). The first study, which included 30 male undergraduate Ss and a female observer, supported Zajonc's hypothesis; the interaction between observer conditions (alone, familiar observer, unfamiliar observer) and maze complexity (simple, complex) was significant (p < .025). The second study, which included 64 male undergraduate Ss and a male observer, also supported Zajonc's hypothesis; the interaction between drive conditions (low fear, alone; high fear, alone; high fear, calm observer; high...

Social facilitation effects on runway and maze behavior in mice

From 1897 until beginning of World War 11, social facilitation was subject of active research (Zajonc, 1965). Some studies found that presence of others had a facilitating effect on task performance, while others reported an inhibiting influence. No general theories were forthcoming to explain conflicting results of these studies. Renewed interest was generated in 1965 when Zajonc reviewed literat ure of area and suggested a hypothesis that would resolve disagreement in earlier findings. He reasoned that presence of others of same species (conspecifics) acted as a source of general drive. Zajonc (1965) speculated that the presence of others, as spectators or as coactors, enhances emission of dominant responses [p. 273]. He theorized that during learning, appropriate response is not dominant, and presence of others hampers acquisition. However, after task is learned, presence of others facilitates performance. conclusion that odor and mirror conditions were too unlike actual presence of conspecifics to elicit facilitative effects in cockroaches. Other studies of social facilitation have used nonhuman species such as fish (Welty, 1934), birds (Hake & Laws, 1967; Tolman, 1968a, b), rats (Morrison & Hill, 1967; Simmel, 1962), dogs (James, 1953, 1960; James & Cannon, 1955), opossums (Platt & James, 1966; Platt, Sutker, & James, 1968), and primates (Harlow & Yudin, 1933; Stamm, 1961). All of these studies measured effects of social facilitation on naturally occurring behaviors rather than on learning tasks (eating, drinking, running in dogs, swimming in fish, or exploratory behavior in rats), and all organisms with exception of rats and opossums were allelomimetic species (species in which tendency is strong to imitate actions of a conspecific with some degree of mutual stimulation). The present study was designed to evaluate Zajonc's hypothesis using a nonallelomimetic mammalian species (mice) in both natural and learning situations. Mice were chosen because

Attitude change by stimulus exposures.

The present experiment tested Zajonc's hypothesis that mere repeated exposure to a stimulus would enhance attitude, in a positive direction, toward that stimulus. Relative to past research in this area, variations were introduced in such parameters as stimulus content, instructions, scale polarity, and exposure duration, with frequency of exposures held constant. Ss' attitudes toward a harmless caged snake were tested. One group received appropriate scales and instructions to rate the snake as to likability, while a second group received scales and instructions to rate the snake as to dislikability. These groups were further divided into long- or short-exposure sub-groups. Results revealed an enhancement trend for all groups, this being significant only for the likability groups. Duration of exposure within the likability groups did not significantly and differentially alter enhancement. The findings were interpreted to be in congruence with Zajonc's hypothesis but suggested the specification of certain boundary conditions. Relationships between experimentation on stimulus exposures and research on the desensitization behavior therapies were then discussed.

Effects of mere exposure: A comment.

Zajonc's thesis that mere exposure enhances attitudes is both novel and intriguing. In its general form, this hypothesis seems to challenge the time-honored maxim of Familiarity breeds contempt, and rejects the traditional reinforcement theory whereby positive adient responses are established through conditioning and association. Zajonc presents two main lines of evidence in support of his hypothesis: one relates to the observation of an empirical correlation between the frequency of words in language and their positive affect; the other consists of data on the effect upon positive or negative affect of experimental manipulation of stimulus exposure. Let us see how this evidence bears upon Zajonc's hypothesis.