title: Exploring the everyday life incidence of déjà connu experiences in impression formation.
abstract: This study explored the everyday life incidence and nature of what we refer to as déjà connu experiences, i.e., situations where a newly encountered individual reminds the perceiver of someone else. The data were obtained in a survey of (250 women and 250 men) college students. The universality of déjà connu was indicated by significant differences in selection of the Very Often (9.4%), Often (25.8%), Occasionally (50.6%), Rarely (14.2%), and Never (0%) categories on a forced-choice item concerning frequency of such experiences. An inverted-U hypothesis is suggested as an heuristic model to describe the relationship between familiarity with any given individual and that person's "remembered other" referent value for the perceiver.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, San Jose State University, CA 95192.
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Pellegrini
authors.forename: E B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Noffsinger
authors.forename: R T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Caldwell
authors.forename: T A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Tutko
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003690:Deja Vu / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D012016:Reference Values; D012938:Social Perception