The Warm Glow Heuristic: When Liking Leads to Familiarity

Five studies demonstrate that the positive valence of a stimulus increases its perceived familiarity, even in the absence of prior exposure. For example, beautiful faces feel familiar. Two explanations for this effect stand out: (a) Stimulus prototypicality leads both to positivity and familiarity, and (b) positive affect is used to infer familiarity in a heuristic fashion. Studies 1 and 2 show that attractive faces feel more familiar than average ones and that prototypicality accounts for only part of this effect. In Study 3, the rated attractiveness of average faces was manipulated by contrast, and their perceived familiarity changed accordingly, although their inherent prototypicality remained the same. In Study 4, positive words felt more familiar to participants than neutral and negative words. Study 5 shows that the effect is strongest when recognition is difficult. The author concludes that both prototypicality and a warm glow heuristic are responsible for the "good-is-familiar" phenomenon.