Reversed facial images and the mere-exposure hypothesis.

The mere-exposure hypothesis was tested in a new context in which the plausi-bility of a demand-characteristics explanation was minimized. It was assumed that Person has more frequently been exposed to her mirror image than true image, whereas Person's Friend or Lover has more frequently been exposed to Person's true image than mirror image. According to the mere-exposure hypoth-esis, Person should prefer her mirror image, whereas her Friend or Lover should prefer Person's true image. A single frontal facial photograph of Person was printed in such a way that one print corresponded to Person's true image and another to her mirror image. In two studies, Person was found reliably to prefer her mirror image over her true image, whereas the reverse tendency character-ized preferences of Person's Friend or Lover. The "mere-exposure " hypothesis (Zajonc, than other stimuli, suggesting that partici-1968), that the mere repeated exposure of an pants ' intuition could possibly account for individual to a stimulus is a sufficient condi- the exposure-affect relationship found in the tion for the enhancement of stimulus evalu- other studies. Stang suggested that the vari-