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Evolutionary Psychology
editThe mere-exposure effect seems related to the idea that our genetic instincts were formed in hunter-gatherer tribes consisting of small group - the size of the group is called the Dunbar Number - 150 to 200 people - which is the number of people whom people can "know personally" presumably due to mental storage size.
It is therefore a survival characteristic to favor those one who knows personally ("family and friends") and distrust strangers. (The strangers most likely to have been enemies were those who spoke a different language, and thus racism and anti-foreigner bias is hard-wired in humans.)
So, instinctively, the familiar is more likely to be positive and the unfamiliar is more likely to be a threat, and thus the Mere-exposure effect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.209.223.103 (talk) 22:30, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
Hyphen
editNone of the references used in the article hyphenate the term, while those that have it in the title space it. Opencooper (talk) 13:46, 13 July 2021 (UTC)