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A Psychophysics Paradigm for the Collection and Analysis of Similarity Judgments
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The shared features principle: If two objects share a feature, people assume those objects also share other features.

Sean Hughes1, Jan De Houwer1, Simone Mattavelli2

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People tend to assume unrelated items share qualities if they have one feature in common. This "shared features principle" influences attitudes and intentions, even when people know there is no real connection.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Attitude Formation

Background:

  • The shared features principle posits that shared characteristics between stimuli lead to assumptions of further shared qualities.
  • This principle unifies previously unrelated psychological phenomena.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To introduce and empirically validate the shared features principle.
  • To investigate its influence on attitudes and behavioral intentions.

Main Methods:

  • Eight preregistered studies with 1,614 participants.
  • Participants evaluated a neutral target object after exposure to positive or negative source objects sharing a feature.
  • Measures included behavioral intentions, automatic evaluations, and self-reported ratings.

Main Results:

  • Target object evaluations were significantly influenced by the source object's valence, despite explicit instructions of no relation.
  • The shared features principle demonstrated effects on behavioral intentions, automatic evaluations, and self-reported ratings.
  • Findings were consistent across various measures within the attitude domain.

Conclusions:

  • The shared features principle is a general, reliable, and replicable phenomenon in attitude research.
  • It has significant theoretical implications for understanding psychological science and predictive value.
  • The principle highlights a fundamental cognitive bias in feature-based inference.