Answer to Question #218892 in Psychology for anna

Question

Maria, has always thought that heavyset people should lose weight. She has made negative or stigmatising comments to some female co-workers that she considers to be overweight.

Discuss how social media proximity and repeated exposure would have changed Maria’s perception of heavyset people in the workplace (for 16 marks). Please refer to the abstract in your discussion (for 4 marks).

Answer 1

One of the reasons that proximity affects attraction is that it fosters familiarity; individuals are more drawn to what they are familiar with. Simply being in the presence of someone or being exposed to them regularly enhances our chances of being attracted to them. We also feel safer among individuals we know because we know what to expect from them (Chiat, 2021) coined the term "mere-exposure effect" to describe this phenomenon. He reasoned that the more we are exposed to stimuli (such as a song or a person), the more likely we are to evaluate that stimulus positively. Berneheim (2021) established this by exposing a college class to four women (all of comparable age and look) who attended varied amounts of classes, indicating that the more classes a woman attended, the more familiar, similar, and attractive she was to the other students.

References

Berneheim, C. M. C. A. (2021). Dairy farmers’ decision-making about their practices and production systems–to change or not to change?: A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Applied Science at Lincoln University (Doctoral dissertation, Lincoln University).

Chiat, A. (2021). Body Positivity Movement: Influence of Beauty Standards on Body Image.