Over And Over Again # 10 --Jo Baker-

    I don't know about you but I love watching TV shows. Me and my little sister have been watching a TV show over again this past week that we've seen about five times now. I could probably tell you everything the characters are going to say before they say it throughout the whole episode. But somehow, we never get bored watching this show. I was thinking about this and it made me wonder how human beings can do this. I am able to watch movies over to that I've seen before but somehow I'm able to without getting bored. Now there are some movies that I can't bare to watch over again. But how is it that people can sometimes watch things over and over again without getting bored? People always have that movie, TV show, song, or poem that they never get tired of. Is it a matter of just having so much love for the show or movie that it doesn't make people bored? Or is there some kind of alternate reason behind it all?
    Perhaps to people, doing or seeing the same thing over and over is like a type of comfort food to us, or helps us with relaxation, a true emotional savior. But why not try to find something new instead of staying on the same old thing? Is it to much of a risk to try to find something new? Why does seeing the same thing over and over again still give us so much comfort? How do we keep coming back to that same thing without it driving us insane?
    Well, if I've got you to thinking about this I'm glad because I to have been pondering on it for some time. I researched about this and came across the Mere-exposure effect. This effect is where people sometimes grow an attachment or love for something simply because you're familiar with it. This is also sometimes called the Familiarity principle. This effect has been tested with many different kinds of things, including words, paintings, geometric figures, pictures of faces, sounds,Chinese characters, and even people. It's been tested and shown that the more you see someone the more likable that person becomes to you.
    The first known person to research this effect was Gustav Fechner in 1876. Edward B. Titchener also developed research on this effect. Although his was called the "glow of warmth".  His research is where you get the feeling of warmth when you're around something familiar. But Titchener's developed research was rejected once they tested this and the results showed that the enrichment of selection for objects and such doesn't depend on how familiar you are with an object. Even though his research was rejected it sparked other people to research this to and develop theories witch developed the current theory we have today.
    The Mere exposure effect that is the current theory today was established by a scholar named Robert Zajonic. There are other theories that try to explain this as well. but for me this one makes a lot of since. Who knows why we're able to do this. Maybe its just one of the many in-explainable things about humanity. Maybe one day we will have an exact reason. But for now I guess I'll just keep watching this show until it grows boring.