Exploring the everyday life incidence of déjà connu experiences in impression formation

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.