Hi everyone, please can someone give me some advice on a good reference(s) for a sociology/psychology paper that writes about the subject of "familiarity leads to more liking", for example if we like something, the more we do it, the more we like it.

I don't have sociology/psychology background, if someone can give the name of a term or reference or something, anything so I can look it up.
thanks a lot
satchi

Hi Satchi, I am from a psychology/sociology background but don't really look into that area so couldn't give you a reference off the top of my head, are you familiar with any journals you could have a look at? Perhaps look up 'The British Journal of Social Psychology', 'Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society' or 'Subjectivity'. What particlular approach in psychology are you coming from, that might help me to think of something!

If you uni online library has ingenta or ASSIA, they could be very useful as you can just type your keywords in then. Good luck, Nx.

Hi natassia
I'm not really doing anything in psychology; just that my literature review needs to have some reference about "liking", some human factor reference. But thanks for the tips. I did find something though, will be downloading.
Thanks satchi

Hey Satchi. My background isn't psychology either, so forgive me if this is not helpful but I remember reading something in that topic in Adam Phillips (and perhaps even Christopher Bollas) books. Can't remember which essay(s) in which book though, as it's been a while and read so many book by Phillips but I have a feeling it was in "On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Unexamined Life". I'll dig up the books in a bit and reply again if I find something useful. Good luck.

Hi Satchi,

I am not in psychology / sociology either. Once participated in a workshop where a sociology student explained of the reasons why partners like each other. She explained that there is a tendency for human beings to aim for the best (the pretty, witty, clever girl etc.). However, most of us realise that were are not perfect ourselves, and as such we are afraid of a partner who is better than us, and therefore we accept ("like") someone who is equal / similar as we are. It is probably not a coincidence that many partners come from the same area, have a similar background etc. Obviously this is a gross generalisation and I do not remember the exact details.

Also in communication courses often the phenomen of mirroring is explained: if we show similar body language, we seem to "like" each other better.

Perhaps terms like positive association  / mirroring may be helful?.:-)

By the way, just thought that the issue of like / familiarity often comes up in marketing / branding.

It seems that most people buy things they know and then stick to it forever. Is there not something like brand loyality, based on that you know the product and you have paid a lot of money, and therefore you have no choice but to like it (as the feeling of having made a mistake is psychologically not acceptable for ourselves)?

I think that may be one of the reasons why companies put a lot of effort in after sales, making sure that the customer remains happy with their purchase.

hi Rick and 404
thanks for your replies; I managed to find a reference on value differences and conflict resolution. Rick you are right about this going for marketing/products. I'm still looking though. I found one (Harrison et al., 1968) that said "assessment of response competition afterwards indicated that response competition decreased as a function of repeated stimulus exposures"; now I hope to find another reference which says the opposite.
thanks a lot
satchi

there will probably be something around similarity-attraction paradigm and familiarity I would imagine. There's also attraction - selection - attrition model, but more to do with organisations and why people enter/leave them.

hi sneaks!!! thanks!!!!
still finding...looking...finding :-) :-)
satchi