The Mere Exposure Effect and Prejudice

It has been documented and researched for some time that if we live in or regularly experience diverse communities, we become more comfortable and may even prefer living in a diverse community. This is why so many leading anti-racist teachers and authors regularly encourage people to befriend and seek out people who do not look like them or who hail from different cultures. Last week on the Remedy House Podcast and Substack, I explored the effect curiosity has on us and our communities. Because of how our brains are wired, simply being curious can change our neurology with great benefits.

One of the things that was spectacular to me was the way exposure to new experiences affects us the first time and over time. When we experience something new, we get a hit of dopamine in our frontal lobe that prompts us to do more. We are incited to curiosity and begin to seek out information about this novel thing. We may google things, ask questions of others, or simply use our senses to suss out any details we can in the present. This means that curiosity can literally make us happy and upbeat. Then, something even more amazing happens. According to the mere exposure effect, encountering something regularly that was once new will cause us to more favorably perceive that thing — or person.

I once read an article about an African American woman visiting the Netherlands. While she was in that country, many citizens were caught staring at her and even tried to touch her body and hair. Apparently, these individuals did not have much experience seeing someone who looked like this woman and were curious. There are many things to unpack here about appropriate behavior when respecting and adult's person, however, my point is that what would have been different for those citizens if they had more regularly encountered someone who looked different from themselves in that way? More to the point, what conclusions can we draw about how racism or bigotry of any kind can be exterminated or be made to thrive using the mere exposure effect?

I encourage you to read this article that dives into the science of this proposition. And feel free to explore this book on raciolinguistics or this one on the social components of race.